I found this report informative as to the nature of the city’s community boards:
If any U.S. city can be subdivided by administrative boundaries, New York’s community districts have as good a claim as any. Something that stands out to me is that their mandate can extend to many aspects of city government, at least in theory, even though in practice they’re most closely associated with the Planning Commission.
That alone isn’t a dealbreaker: just look at Connecticut’s plainly named Planning Regions: