Kips Bay NYCHA Residents Want A Say In Who Will Manage Their Home

KIPS BAY, NY — Residents at a NYCHA development in Kips Bay feel left in the dark regarding their building's future private manager.

Under the New York City Housing Authority's strategy to upgrade public housing buildings and address a multi-billion dollar backlog of critical repairs, the city is establishing public-private partnerships to convert 62,000 units of public housing into privately managed buildings with Section 8 federal subsidies. The city says residents would continue paying 30 percent of their income on rent.

One of those buildings is in Kips Bay, at 344 East 28th St.

But residents want more of a say in who exactly the city chooses to manage their building.

“NYCHA just has that systemic history of keeping residents in the dark," said Melanie Aucello, vice-president of the building's residents' association. "The residents here need information. ... We need to know what we're deciding on."

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Residents left a meeting with NYCHA no more informed than when they arrived earlier this year, Aucello said.

For Aucello, worries over who the future property manager will be was only exacerbated when the city tasked Wavecrest Management with a shady reputation to take over a NYCHA building in Bayside, Queens.

NYCHA is seeking a development partner that will be given a longterm ground lease at East 28th St. in order to make critical repairs and manage the building. The future private partner would lead repairs and management for 15 other buildings in addition to the Kips Bay development under what the city dubs "Permanent Affordability Commitment Together" — an acronym Aucello called a "joke."

Aucello added that residents would want to have a say in what type of social services are provided in the future by the private partner — another facet of the city's request for proposals, or RFP. Each development has specific needs, she said.

Residents want to know of the private partner, "What is their reputation? Who are they?" Aaron Humphrey, a longtime resident and Community Board 6 member, said at a CB 6 committee meeting on Monday night.

"It's like pulling teeth out" to get information from NYCHA, he said. "NYCHA's powerful, and they basically do what they want to do."

"NYCHA is not too credible as far as we're concerned," Humphrey said, referencing the housing authority's lead scandal in which more than 2,000 kids were poisoned.

CB 6's housing committee is joining arms with NYCHA residents too.

Monday night, the committee passed a resolution asking NYCHA to obtain a needs statement from tenant leaders in buildings undergoing Section 8 conversions, and to then use those statements to evaluate bids on the RFP.

The resolution will be voted on at the full board meeting April 10.

Borough President Gale Brewer has previously said she wants NYCHA to encourage locally-based non-profits and community development corporations to apply — but hefty requirements in the RFP restrict non-profit developers from applying, she said in a letter to NYCHA earlier this month.

Brewer also said in her letter NYCHA's proposal of a 16-building bundle should be broken into smaller pieces by neighborhood. For instance, an Upper West Side NYCHA development, which is undergoing the same Section 8 conversion, should have a separate local partner than the Kips Bay development. The smaller plans would make the application more accessible to non-profits, she said.

Non-profits "have deep roots in their respective neighborhoods and provide services beyond housing development and management, and would also help alleviate fears among tenants that developers are bidding with NYCHA only for the money," Brewer's spokesperson said.

Nevertheless, developer applications for NYCHA's RFP are due March 22, and a development partner will be chosen by the middle of this year, according to NYCHA documents.

NYCHA was unable to immediately comment on Tuesday.