Mayor de Blasio Unveils $24B NYCHA 2.0 Plan

NEW YORK CITY—Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new plan to infuse $24-billion over the next 10 years to remedy the condition of the city’s public housing portfolio.

The mayor unveiled on Wednesday NYCHA 2.0, to make vital repairs to the aging city’s public housing stock managed by the New York City Housing Authority.

Expanding on last month’s Section 8 Conversion plan of 62,000 units, the New York City Housing Authority will also launch three new capital improvement programs, “Build to Preserve,” “Transfer to Preserve” and “Fix to Preserve.”

Build to Preserve will provide approximately $2 billion in capital repairs through new development on NYCHA land, while Transfer to Preserve will deliver approximately $1 billion in capital repairs through the sale of un-utilized development rights, also known as air rights. Fix to Preserve will improve services, infrastructure maintenance and immediately address health and safety issues including heating, mold, pests and lead.

BTP and TTP, along with the Section 8 Conversion plan announced in November, will address an estimated $16-billion in capital need at NYCHA developments. That 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 capital need over the next decade, or up to 75% of NYCHA’s massive $31.8-billion overall capital need, the mayor stated.

“These are the kind of top-to-bottom renovations NYCHA residents have waited decades to see. 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,” said Mayor de Blasio. “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,” added NYCHA 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 repair needs 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.”

A host of city and state politicos expressed their support for the NYCHA 2.0 Plan, including New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who said, “NYCHA is facing an existential crisis and the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who live in public housing need innovative solutions to big problems. I am happy to see we are getting creative and exploring all possibilities to make things better for residents. They deserve better conditions and they deserve them now.”

The previously announced Pact to Preserve program will have the city allocate $12.8 billion in overdue repairs in 62,000 NYCHA apartments—a third of NYCHA units, housing 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 the 1,395 apartments of Ocean Bay, with 8,900 more units 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.

Specifics on NYCHA’s Three New Programs

Build to Preserve: The city and NYCHA will use a new model to build on underused public-owned land and dedicate 100% of the proceeds to make repairs at the surrounding development. The new building program will fund $2 billion in capital repairs across approximately 10,000 NYCHA apartments. New buildings will be subject to Mandatory Inclusionary Housing levels of affordability and increase 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 NextGen, 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 a portion of the authority’s approximately 80 million square feet of air rights, NYCHA expects to generate $1 billion in capital 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 addresses five categories (elevators, heating, pests, lead and mold) of problems at the NYCHA properties.

By 2027, NYCHA will replace 405 elevators at 30 developments, providing reliable service to over 58,000 residents.

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. The city also notes that next year outages will be restored within an average of 12 hours.

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.

NYCHA will test more than 135,000 apartments built before 1978 by 2020 for lead.

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.

The investment is part of the de Blasio’s Administration’s total commitment to $2.1 billion to support NYCHA’s capital infrastructure from Fiscal Year 2014 to Fiscal Year 2027 and $1.6 billion to support NYCHA’s operations from Fiscal Year 2014 to Fiscal Year 2022. This investment includes $1.3 billion to fix more than 900 roofs, more than $500 million to repair deteriorating exterior brickwork at nearly 400 buildings and $140 million to improve security at 15 NYCHA developments.

The city has also waived NYCHA’s annual PILOT and NYPD payments to the city, relieving NYCHA of nearly $100 million in operating expenses a year. In January 2018, the mayor announced $13 million to improve NYCHA’s response to heating emergencies this winter, followed by an additional $200 million for long-term heating improvements at 20 NYCHA developments.