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NYCHA has a huge capital shortfall -- to the tune of $18B.^1 Neither the city, the state, nor the federal government looks interested in putting in that kind of

NYCHA has a huge capital shortfall -- to the tune of $18B.^1 Neither the city, the state, nor the federal government looks interested in putting in that kind of money. As it is a significant fraction of the total number of apartments are being held empty because of needed repairs, at some point in the not too distant future entire buildings are going to be uninhabitable if repairs aren't made. There was a proposal need the end of Bloomberg administration to sell project parking lots(!), mostly in Manhattan, to developers that would build market rate housing. The money would then be used for capital repairs. The plan was bitterly opposed by residents who apparently value massively subsidized parking over non-falling-down buildings and/or believe that the money is going to magically appear in some other way. DeBlasio has put out a modified version of the same plan, it involves a mix of "affordable" and market rate apartments being developed on the same parcels. That of course, will mean less money for NYCHA, which means fewer repairs, but I guess he doesn't care. Personally, I think it makes the most sense to sell outright a few of the most valuable properties and use the money to make the necessary capital repairs on the rest of the system. If enough of those empty apartments can be fixed up, it might not even be a net loss of public housing. 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/nyregion/new-york-public-housing-faces-crisis-as-demands-and-deficits-grow.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/nyregion/new-york-public-h...

CPLX 11y ago
> That of course, will mean less money for NYCHA, which means fewer repairs, but I guess he doesn't care. That is some highly faulty logic right there. The more money developers pay the more the city gets, but the idea that it'll just magically make its way into fixing apartments for poor people instead of being diverted and shunted off to other city priorities and friends of the political structure is delusional. Presumably the residents of the public housing properties in question figure what will happen is they will start with buildings with parking lots, and end up with buildings with no parking lots and wealthy developers in the same space who now stand to profit even more from pushing their lower income family out, and the money for repairs having mysteriously evaporated into some sort of budget crisis. Which, of course, is exactly what would likely happen in real life.
- arprocter 11y ago
  Require that the first couple of stories of the new building are parking levels
  - true_religion 11y ago
    That's how its done in the DC-Metro area. You must have X number of parking spaces for Y number of proposed residential or office occupancy.
pdabbadabba 11y ago
> The plan was bitterly opposed by residents who apparently value massively subsidized parking over non-falling-down buildings and/or believe that the money is going to magically appear in some other way. This isn't a very charitable evaluation. After all, these blocks have parking lots because the residents (or a certain number of them) need some place to park! Yes, NYC has a vast public transportation network, and many people don't need to drive, but this transportation network is often weakest in areas of high poverty, and the poor are also especially likely to work in highly inconvenient locations. Presumably these residents hope that if they put up some resistance to having their parking spaces sold to developers, then maybe their elected officials will find a better way of coming up with the money. It's not as though selling parking lots is the only way policymakers have ever devised for raising money, so I'm not sure why you would describe this as "magic." Look at it another way: these are the people who live in the buildings. If they would rather keep the parking lots than pay for building repairs, shouldn't their preference -- particularly given their privileged access to useful information like how bad the living conditions are and how badly they need the parking -- be entitled to some weight? All this is not to say that the sale/lease of parking space isn't a good idea--I'm undecided, myself. I'm just puzzled by your tone, which would seem to take for granted, with little evidence, that this is the only possible money-raising plan, and that anyone who doesn't use it to raise the maximum possible amount is an idiot, without taking seriously the proposal's significant effects on residents.
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  If there were one building with one parking lot, what you say would make some sense. But the dynamic you are missing is that some public housing residents have won the lottery within the lottery -- not only are they in public housing for which they pay little in rent, but they are in public housing that sits on some of the most expensive land in the entire nation. On top of that, they get virtually free parking in neighborhoods where even rich people don't own cars because it costs hundreds of dollars a month to park. There was a mooted proposal which would have a net effect of sharing a bit of these resident's good fortune with some of the rest of the public housing community. Residents of those buildings would still have apartments in some of the most desirable places on earth, but they wouldn't also get parking there. The money freed up would be used to not only repair their buildings (although the plan did give them first dibs) but also buildings in less desirable areas. As I said it was fought bitterly. This story is a parable for the entire "affordable housing" movement over the last 70 years. It doesn't aim to put in place policies that make housing more affordable generally, on the contrary it has been a driving policy goal of governments since the end of World War II to do everything possible to ensure that housing costs in general would grow faster than the rate of general inflation in order to give money to homeowners in a way that didn't look like welfare. Instead, the movement is designed to pick a few lucky winners and give them housing. Although there's generally hasn't been an ownership interest transferred to the lucky winners (but see Mitchell Lama Co-Ops) this housing has generally been heritable -- so much so that people today can't even get a lottery ticket because almost all the prizes have long since been issued. As for as calling the alternatives magic, as someone who has observed NYC, NYS, and US politics for a couple of decades now, I feel pretty confident in labeling the idea that any of those governments is going to come up with $18B out of general funds for NYC public housing capital needs magical thinking. We can't even get a fair share of transportation funds.
nosuchthing 11y ago
It sounds like the problem with NYCHA's public housing project is being thought of as a closed system? If so it's inevitable it'll cannibalize itself.
maratd 11y ago
> NYCHA has a huge capital shortfall -- to the tune of $18B. > entire buildings are going to be uninhabitable if repairs aren't made. This isn't the problem. It's the solution. Those buildings will become uninhabitable within a few decades. They will be torn down. The land will be sold to developers, with stipulations of affordable housing as part of the deal. Mixed housing actually works. It actually has a measurable effect on the income of those residing in it. "Projects" don't work and they truly deserve their reputation. As far as the raw numbers of affordable housing being made available, the city has a lot of leeway in terms of pressuring developers. Virtually every building needs a variance of some sort. They can easily grant those in return for various guarantees.
- justizin 11y ago
  > with stipulations of affordable housing as part of the deal If that works out anything like it has been in San Francisco, those commitments are extremely soft, and "affordable" is often defined as a household with over $150k of income, while "low income" is literally a household with like 40k that spends its' entire income on housing. Further, luxury developers don't want affordable or low income units in their buildings, so they pay into a fund for the city to build, while there are incredibly few parcels that qualify, and the city continues to compete with developers to build them. > "Projects" don't work and they truly deserve their reputation. Valencia Gardens is a wonderful building with low-income housing in the SF Mission, and many of us would love to see more like it. There are advantages to people of different income levels sharing a neighborhood, and personally I have no problem sharing my building, but developers aren't building to my cultural taste profile. My argument for SF, and I suspect would hold as much water in NYC, is that if affordable housing is built, _then_ some poorly maintained buildings can _perhaps_ be taken down to build _future_ "market rate" housing, once people living in older buildings have had a chance to rebalance within their affordability guidelines. All in all, it's pretty insane that esp these two cities are building a disturbing amount of housing which requires two six figure wage earners living together and scraping by. de Blasio has gotten some credit for about 20k new units popping up in NYC, which is about the number we need in the SF Mission, but population wise it would be like saying that the entire Bay Area has increased affordable housing by 20k units, which would be laughable as an accomplishment.
thedaveoflife 11y ago
>Personally, I think it makes the most sense to sell outright a few of the most valuable properties and use the money to make the necessary capital repairs on the rest of the system. If enough of those empty apartments can be fixed up, it might not even be a net loss of public housing Did you miss the part about the 200,000 family waiting list for public housing? How about simply adequately funding the Housing authority so under privileged people can live an a decent home?

CPLX 11y ago

> That of course, will mean less money for NYCHA, which means fewer repairs, but I guess he doesn't care. That is some highly faulty logic right there. The more money developers pay the more the city gets, but the idea that it'll just magically make its way into fixing apartments for poor people instead of being diverted and shunted off to other city priorities and friends of the political structure is delusional. Presumably the residents of the public housing properties in question figure what will happen is they will start with buildings with parking lots, and end up with buildings with no parking lots and wealthy developers in the same space who now stand to profit even more from pushing their lower income family out, and the money for repairs having mysteriously evaporated into some sort of budget crisis. Which, of course, is exactly what would likely happen in real life.

arprocter 11y ago
Require that the first couple of stories of the new building are parking levels
- true_religion 11y ago
  That's how its done in the DC-Metro area. You must have X number of parking spaces for Y number of proposed residential or office occupancy.

pdabbadabba 11y ago

> The plan was bitterly opposed by residents who apparently value massively subsidized parking over non-falling-down buildings and/or believe that the money is going to magically appear in some other way. This isn't a very charitable evaluation. After all, these blocks have parking lots because the residents (or a certain number of them) need some place to park! Yes, NYC has a vast public transportation network, and many people don't need to drive, but this transportation network is often weakest in areas of high poverty, and the poor are also especially likely to work in highly inconvenient locations. Presumably these residents hope that if they put up some resistance to having their parking spaces sold to developers, then maybe their elected officials will find a better way of coming up with the money. It's not as though selling parking lots is the only way policymakers have ever devised for raising money, so I'm not sure why you would describe this as "magic." Look at it another way: these are the people who live in the buildings. If they would rather keep the parking lots than pay for building repairs, shouldn't their preference -- particularly given their privileged access to useful information like how bad the living conditions are and how badly they need the parking -- be entitled to some weight? All this is not to say that the sale/lease of parking space isn't a good idea--I'm undecided, myself. I'm just puzzled by your tone, which would seem to take for granted, with little evidence, that this is the only possible money-raising plan, and that anyone who doesn't use it to raise the maximum possible amount is an idiot, without taking seriously the proposal's significant effects on residents.

bradleyjg 11y ago
If there were one building with one parking lot, what you say would make some sense. But the dynamic you are missing is that some public housing residents have won the lottery within the lottery -- not only are they in public housing for which they pay little in rent, but they are in public housing that sits on some of the most expensive land in the entire nation. On top of that, they get virtually free parking in neighborhoods where even rich people don't own cars because it costs hundreds of dollars a month to park. There was a mooted proposal which would have a net effect of sharing a bit of these resident's good fortune with some of the rest of the public housing community. Residents of those buildings would still have apartments in some of the most desirable places on earth, but they wouldn't also get parking there. The money freed up would be used to not only repair their buildings (although the plan did give them first dibs) but also buildings in less desirable areas. As I said it was fought bitterly. This story is a parable for the entire "affordable housing" movement over the last 70 years. It doesn't aim to put in place policies that make housing more affordable generally, on the contrary it has been a driving policy goal of governments since the end of World War II to do everything possible to ensure that housing costs in general would grow faster than the rate of general inflation in order to give money to homeowners in a way that didn't look like welfare. Instead, the movement is designed to pick a few lucky winners and give them housing. Although there's generally hasn't been an ownership interest transferred to the lucky winners (but see Mitchell Lama Co-Ops) this housing has generally been heritable -- so much so that people today can't even get a lottery ticket because almost all the prizes have long since been issued. As for as calling the alternatives magic, as someone who has observed NYC, NYS, and US politics for a couple of decades now, I feel pretty confident in labeling the idea that any of those governments is going to come up with $18B out of general funds for NYC public housing capital needs magical thinking. We can't even get a fair share of transportation funds.

nosuchthing 11y ago

It sounds like the problem with NYCHA's public housing project is being thought of as a closed system? If so it's inevitable it'll cannibalize itself.

maratd 11y ago

> NYCHA has a huge capital shortfall -- to the tune of $18B. > entire buildings are going to be uninhabitable if repairs aren't made. This isn't the problem. It's the solution. Those buildings will become uninhabitable within a few decades. They will be torn down. The land will be sold to developers, with stipulations of affordable housing as part of the deal. Mixed housing actually works. It actually has a measurable effect on the income of those residing in it. "Projects" don't work and they truly deserve their reputation. As far as the raw numbers of affordable housing being made available, the city has a lot of leeway in terms of pressuring developers. Virtually every building needs a variance of some sort. They can easily grant those in return for various guarantees.

justizin 11y ago
> with stipulations of affordable housing as part of the deal If that works out anything like it has been in San Francisco, those commitments are extremely soft, and "affordable" is often defined as a household with over $150k of income, while "low income" is literally a household with like 40k that spends its' entire income on housing. Further, luxury developers don't want affordable or low income units in their buildings, so they pay into a fund for the city to build, while there are incredibly few parcels that qualify, and the city continues to compete with developers to build them. > "Projects" don't work and they truly deserve their reputation. Valencia Gardens is a wonderful building with low-income housing in the SF Mission, and many of us would love to see more like it. There are advantages to people of different income levels sharing a neighborhood, and personally I have no problem sharing my building, but developers aren't building to my cultural taste profile. My argument for SF, and I suspect would hold as much water in NYC, is that if affordable housing is built, _then_ some poorly maintained buildings can _perhaps_ be taken down to build _future_ "market rate" housing, once people living in older buildings have had a chance to rebalance within their affordability guidelines. All in all, it's pretty insane that esp these two cities are building a disturbing amount of housing which requires two six figure wage earners living together and scraping by. de Blasio has gotten some credit for about 20k new units popping up in NYC, which is about the number we need in the SF Mission, but population wise it would be like saying that the entire Bay Area has increased affordable housing by 20k units, which would be laughable as an accomplishment.

thedaveoflife 11y ago

>Personally, I think it makes the most sense to sell outright a few of the most valuable properties and use the money to make the necessary capital repairs on the rest of the system. If enough of those empty apartments can be fixed up, it might not even be a net loss of public housing Did you miss the part about the 200,000 family waiting list for public housing? How about simply adequately funding the Housing authority so under privileged people can live an a decent home?