Thousands Of NYCHA Apartments To Be Fixed By Private Firms

NEW YORK — Private companies will renovate and ultimately manage more than a third of New York City's public housing stock as the city aims to address a mountain of needed fixes, officials announced Monday.

Some 62,000 New York City Housing Authority apartments will see nearly $13 billion worth of repairs by 2028, including new kitchens and bathrooms, revamped common areas, and replaced boilers, roofs, elevators and windows, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office said.

The units will be moved into the federal Section 8 program, meaning private firms will operate and maintain them while their 140,000 tenants will still pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent, officials said.

The effort comes as NYCHA seeks to tackle its nearly $32 billion list of capital repair needs for the next five years. That figure requires "a new and radical approach," said Stanley Brezenoff, the housing authority's interim chairman.

"We have an opportunity to undo decades of neglect and mismanagement, and we have to take it," de Blasio said in a statement. "These partnerships are one of our best-proven tools to deliver critical repairs."

The repair initiative marks a big expansion of NYCHA's past plans to renovate 20,000 apartments by moving them into Section 8 through various programs.

Part of the effort is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Rental Assistance Demonstration initiative, or RAD, which changes how housing is subsidized and allows NYCHA to take advantage of additional funding.

The Bronx's Betances Houses, where de Blasio announced the plans Monday, was converted to Section 8 through the RAD program this past Friday, officials said. The nearly 2,700 tenants there will see repairs starting next month, including boiler replacements and a new security system, according to the mayor's office.

A request for proposals is expected to be put out next month for 2,400 apartments for which the city announced RAD conversions this summer, the mayor's office said.

De Blasio, a Democrat, said the program does not amount to privatization of public housing. NYCHA will keep control of the land the developments are on and all housing authority employees will keep their jobs, he said.

"This is a way to get private dollars in to help us achieve a public good," the mayor said at a news conference. "We believe that public housing has been crucial to New York City’s past, it’s crucial to our present, and it’s crucial to our future, and we’re going to protect public housing in New York City."

The repair plans were announced less than a week after a federal judge rejected a settlement between the city, NYCHA and federal prosecutors over the housing authority's failure to check apartments for lead paint.

The de Blasio administration also plans to help raise cash for NYCHA by growing the development of market-rate housing on publicly owned land, with those pricer units comprising 70 percent of such developments, Politico New York reported Monday.

The mayor did not explictly confirm that, but said such development will play a role in his administration's forthcoming grand plan for the beleaguered housing authority.

"We need development to achieve the most we can for the residents of the immediate area," he said. "So what you will see ... is a much greater focus on any new development benefiting the surrounding houses in the maximum way."

(Lead image: Mayor Bill de Blasio is seen at the Betances Community Center in The Bronx on Monday. Photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)