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NYCHA Now
NYCHA 2.0
December 2018 Highlighted 

NYCHA 2.0: New Comprehensive Plan to Fix & Preserve Public Housing

Michael Corwin

NYCHA 2.0Today, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Interim Chair and CEO Stanley Brezenoff unveiled NYCHA 2.0, a comprehensive plan to preserve public housing. This plan will address $24 billion in vital repairs to New York City’s aging public housing and ensure residents have the safe, decent, and affordable homes they deserve. The 10-year plan will deliver top-to-bottom renovations for 175,000 residents, fund essential capital repairs across the rest of NYCHA’s portfolio, and launch aggressive new repair strategies to tackle lead paint, mold, elevators, heat, and vermin.

Expanding on last month’s Section 8 conversion plan for 62,000 units, NYCHA will also launch three new programs: Build to Preserve, Transfer to Preserve, and Fix to Preserve. Build to Preserve will deliver about $2 billion in major repairs through new development on NYCHA land, while Transfer to Preserve will deliver approximately $1 billion in capital repairs through the sale of unused development rights (also known as air rights). Fix to Preserve will improve services and building maintenance while immediately addressing health and safety issues, including heating, mold, pests, and lead.

Build to Preserve and Transfer to Preserve, along with the Section 8 conversion plan announced in November, will address an estimated $16 billion in major repair needs at NYCHA developments. This funding, on top of the expected $8 billion in Federal, State, and city capital funding, will enable the Authority to address nearly $24 billion in major repair needs over the next decade, or up to 75 percent of NYCHA’s massive $31.8 billion overall major repair needs. More information on these strategies can be found here and here.

“These are the kind of top-to-bottom renovations NYCHA residents have waited decades to see,” said Mayor de Blasio. “They will make an enormous difference in the lives of the 400,000 New Yorkers who call NYCHA home and make up the backbone of our neighborhoods. With new leadership, new resources, and new programs, we are going to deliver the change NYCHA residents deserve.”

“NYCHA residents need fixes in their homes, and they need them as soon as possible,” said Interim Chair and CEO Stanley Brezenoff. “With the release of NYCHA 2.0, we now have a comprehensive plan to deliver nearly $24 billion in major repairs over the next decade. I thank Mayor de Blasio and his administration for their staunch support of public housing and look forward to our continued work to make NYCHA a better and more responsive landlord.”

PACT to Preserve: Announced in November, the City is addressing $12.8 billion in overdue repairs in 62,000 NYCHA apartments – a third of NYCHA units, home to approximately 140,000 people – through public-private partnerships, including the Rental Assistance Demonstration program. All 62,000 apartments will be converted to Section 8 funding with permanent affordability and will be maintained and operated by quality private developers. Renovations under this program have already been completed at Ocean Bay’s 1,395 apartments, and 8,900 more units at other buildings are in the process of resident engagement, predevelopment, or development leading to full conversion. All 62,000 units will be completed on a rolling basis by 2028.

Build to Preserve: The City and NYCHA will use a new model to build on underused public-owned land and dedicate 100 percent of the proceeds to make repairs at the surrounding development. The new building program will fund $2 billion in major repairs across approximately 10,000 NYCHA apartments. New buildings will be subject to Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) levels of affordability, increasing the permanently affordable housing stock. NYCHA and the City remain committed to the 10,000 new affordable units, including new senior housing, that were announced in the NextGeneration NYCHA plan, in support of the Mayor’s Housing New York 2.0 Plan.

Transfer to Preserve: For the first time, NYCHA will tap into its extensive unused development rights (“air rights”). By transferring only a portion of the Authority’s approximately 80 million square feet of air rights, NYCHA expects to generate $1 billion in major repairs for adjacent developments. The first deal is expected to be completed by mid-2019 at Ingersoll Houses.

Fix to Preserve: Building on ongoing improvements to maintenance at NYCHA, Fix to Preserve rapidly addresses five categories of problems immediately affecting residents’ daily lives:

  • Elevators: By 2027, NYCHA will replace 405 elevators at 30 developments, providing reliable service to over 58,000 residents.
  • Heating: NYCHA will expand on previous heat upgrades with the addition of five mobile boilers by 2019 – and full replacement of the 297 lowest-performing boilers by 2026. Further, by next year outages will be restored within an average of 12 hours.
  • Pests: With the installation of door sweeps and rat slabs, and the onboarding of 20 new exterminators, NYCHA will cut the rat population by a quarter by the end of 2019, and by half by the end of 2020.
  • Lead: NYCHA will test over 135,000 apartments built before 1978 by 2020.
  • Mold: NYCHA will bring all roofs into a state of good repair by 2026. Under the Baez Agreement, complex repair time will drop to 15 days.