John Verni is an attorney, redeveloper, and community leader.
Professional Experience
John is a principal, partner and in-house counsel of Verco Properties LLC, a fourth generation, family-owned real estate investment, redevelopment and management company, started by John’s grandfather, Giovanni in the Yorkville area of Manhattan. John’s father, Vito joined the business after serving in the Army, and grew the business by investing in other properties in emerging markets throughout Manhattan and the Bronx. Today, lead by John and his brother Chris and along with John’s son Paul, Verco Properties and its affiliated companies have further expanded and now own historic properties in 4 states - New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.
John and Chris pride themselves in investing in and/or rehabilitating old historic buildings and breathing new life into them and returning them to their neighborhoods as community assets. Whether it is an old train station that becomes a favorite neighborhood restaurant, an old church that is converted to apartments in a historic neighborhood, an old mill that becomes a hip residential community on a lake with a waterfall, or an old movie theater that becomes a mixed-use transit-oriented development to start the revitalization of a downtown, Verco is taking the old and making it new.
Most of the family’s earlier work had been in the Yorkville, East Village, Gramercy and Chelsea sections of Manhattan and parts of the North Bronx. Today, the business has expanded to Westchester County, NY; Glastonbury and Middletown, CT; Providence, RI; and Bethlehem, PA. Since expanding their business into these other historic communities in the Northeast, John and Chris are proud to be a part of the historic Federal Hill community in Providence, Rhode Island and the historic district of the City of Bethlehem, PA.
Prior to joining his family’s real estate firm, John served for six years as an Assistant District Attorney in Westchester County handling the prosecution of crime throughout Westchester County, and then ten years as an attorney in private practice with Kent, Hazzard, Wilson, Conroy, Verni & Freeman, LLP in White Plains specializing in real estate and land use matters.
Education
John is a 1980 graduate of Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle, NY; a 1984 graduate Georgetown University, where he majored in Economics with a minor in Government; and a 1987 graduate of the Fordham University School of Law. John also studied at Oxford University during his college years. John played football while at Georgetown and was Captain of the 1983 Georgetown Football team.
John was the past Chairman of the Board of his high school, Iona Preparatory School, which recently completed and rededicated after a major expansion, the Paul Verni Fine Arts Center, named in honor John’s brother Paul who died from leukemia in 1982. John also helped his son John Jr. and alma mater start the Iona Prep Crew team which had been dormant for 25 years. John even coached the Iona Prep Crew in its early years.
John is pictured at the Iona Prep Commencement exercises a few years ago with Brother Thomas Leto, President of Iona Preparatory School, and Father Leo O’Donovan, former President of Georgetown University. John had the honor of introducing Father O’Donovan as the keynote speaker. Father O’Donovan was also a graduate of Iona Prep, Georgetown University as an undergraduate, and Fordham University where he received his doctorate in Divinity Studies.
Community Involvement
John is past President of Habitat for Humanity of Westchester, which is the predecessor of the Fuller Center for Housing of Greater New York. John as been involved with Habitat for Humanity and the Fuller Center since 1987, serving first as a volunteer and then Board Member on the Lower East Side of New York City, then when he moved to Westchester, as a Board member of Habitat of Humanity of Westchester as one of its earliest members. Later as President of Habitat for Humanity of Westchester, John lead affordable housing projects in Yonkers, White Plains, Ossining, and Greenburgh, along with Jim Killoran, his successor and the current President of the Fuller Center for Housing of Greater New York.
It was during this time that John met and became friends with Millard Fuller, the founder of both Habitat for Humanity International and the Fuller Center for Housing. While working with Habitat for Humanity, John helped build “simple decent homes” with Millard Fuller and “God’s people in need” in Westchester, New York City, South Carolina, South Central Los Angeles after the Rodney King riots, and Belfast, Northern Ireland where Catholics and Protestants built homes together during ‘the troubles”.
John has also been a volunteer and a loyal supporter of “Club Dust” in Tecate, Mexico and has traveled with his family and friends numerous times to build simple homes in the dusty hills in the poorest parts of Mexico. Club Dust’s mission is to “build walls of hope” as described by its founder Ray Meltvedt, another friend and inspiration for John. Club Dust has built over 2,000 homes to date for the poorest of our neighbors in Mexico.
John has also been active with many other local community organizations. John lived in New Rochelle for 23 years, in Mamaroneck for 10 years, and in Stamford for the past 2 years, and has always been active in his community.
While living in New Rochelle, John was a CYO basketball coach for Holy Family parish; a board member and training officer for the New Rochelle Youth Court; a volunteer and supporter of the redevelopment of the Huguenot Children’s Library; and was honored by the Boys and Girls Club of New Rochelle as their Man of the Year. John also did a local radio show, Stuck in the Middle, on WVOX for over two decades discussing local politics from the center of the political spectrum.
Also while living in New Rochelle, John became politically active with his neighbors in opposing a proposed IKEA superstore that would have demolished several homes, small businesses, and a historic church to sell furniture to generate tax revenue for New Rochelle’s cash strapped school district. John joined with several neighbors from both New Rochelle and Larchmont in a group known by its acronym - W.R.A.I.N. (Westchester Residents Against IKEA Now) to oppose the project. John was also asked to run for State Senate at that time. John did not win the State Senate race, but the IKEA proposal was withdrawn after John debated the IKEA representative and the Mayor of New Rochelle in the New Rochelle Library.
John’s community activism around the IKEA proposal lead John to other community involvements also known by their acronyms - F.A.I.R. (Friends Advocating for Increased Revenue - a lobbying effort that brought neighbors from New Rochelle, Larchmont and Mamaroneck together who went to Albany to seek increased school aid to the New Rochelle School District so that bad land use decisions did not have to be made); N.R.C.C. (New Rochelle Citizens Committee - a group of neighbors discussing land use, traffic, neighborhood safety and municipal financing issues facing New Rochelle); and S.T.O.P. (School Transportation Organization of Parents - a group started with the family of Bianca Boswell to lobby for better school bus safety laws after 9 year old Bianca was tragically killed after getting off her school bus and crossing a busy street in New Rochelle. There was also at the time a number of incidents of sleeping school children being left on school buses, often in chilly temperatures. The lobbying effort resulted in the passage of 7 new school bus safety laws in New York State and the number of incidents has dramatically decreased ever since. S.T.O.P. also went into various Westchester school districts to teach proper school bus safety).
In 2013, after renovating the Mamaroneck train station building with his family business, John purchased a historic home in need of extensive rehabilitation designed by the famous architectural firm McKim, Mead & White in the Orienta section of the Village of Mamaroneck. Along with his wife Rina, John completed a historic restoration of this home built in 1900 and moved to Mamaroneck. This lead to his further interest and involvement in historic preservation and the Mamaroneck Historical Society.
Given John’s interest and expertise in land use issues, John was appointed to the Planning Board of the Village of Mamaroneck. After a few years living in Mamaroneck, John was appointed Chairman of the Planning Board. John also became a Board member on several local community boards including LMC-TV, the local cable provider; “At Home on the Sound”, an organization providing “aging in place” services to residents in Mamaroneck and Larchmont; and The Picture House, an organization that saved and rehabilitated the historic 1920s movie theater in Pelham. John has also been a Trustee of the Mamaroneck Historical Society, and a presenter at the Mamaroneck Library’s “One Community, One Book” program where he discussed the restoration of the historic 1888 Mamaroneck train station building which can be found on the Verco Properties webpage.
After 10 years on Orienta Point, John and Rina sold their historic home in Mamaroneck and moved to North Stamford to be near their grandchildren in Northern Westchester. However, since John’s business is still located in Mamaroneck, John is still a stakeholder in the Mamaroneck community and is an active Board Member of the Washingtonville Housing Alliance, a not-for-profit provider of affordable housing in Mamaroneck, NY.
After approving some 180 units of market rate housing during his tenure on the Planning Board, John hopes that the Village of Mamaroneck can work together to approve 60 or so units of affordable housing to make the Friendly Village of Mamaroneck a more “complete community”.
Since moving to Stamford, CT, John volunteered and has become a Board member of the Historic Neighborhood Preservation organization based in Stamford, CT, that seeks to preserve historic structures that promote a “sense of place” for the community. John has also been appointed to the Historic Preservation Advisory Commission of this rapidly redeveloping city by Stamford Mayor Caroline Simmons. As Mayor Simmons stated in her recent State of the City address, “From a colonial settlement to a quiet farming community, to a powerful industrial and manufacturing center, to an innovative metropolis…Stamford is a city of opportunity for everyone.” John’s role is to make sure Stamford maintains its “sense of place” while reaching for its goal to be a city of opportunity for everyone.
Personal
John lives in Stamford, Connecticut with his wife Karina Gomez Verni, who has volunteered alongside John with Habitat for Humanity, Club Dust, and many charitable organizations, as well as others on her own such as her alma mater, The Ursuline School, and St. Vincent’s Hospital.
They have four children, John Jr., Marielle, Paul and Charlie, who have all grown-up volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, Club Dust and other charitable organizations. They are also the proud grandparents of grandson, Milo, who lives close by in Pound Ridge, NY in Northern Westchester, and two new twin grandchildren, Sydney and Wesley, who live close by in Katonah, NY, in Northern Westchester.