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Studio Libeskind has inaugurated its new social housing development in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, called The Atrium at Sumner, after a three-year, $132 million construction. The 11-story, 132,418-square-foot development yields 190 total units, with an 8,309-square-foot community space located on the... View full entry
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced a new adaptive reuse task force that will explore the vast untapped potential for rehabilitation present in the city’s considerable stock of outdated office buildings. Born out of the new Local Law 43, the task force is charged with producing... View full entry
City leaders and lawmakers say thousands of public housing residents in New York City who have been forced to live with leaks, mold, broken elevators, and busted boilers may finally see better living conditions in what could amount to a fundamental shift in how public housing is funded in the city. — Gothamist
Last Thursday, the state Legislature passed a bill that would allow the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) to establish a public-benefit corporation that could raise billions for much-needed renovations across 25,000 apartments. Called the Public Housing Preservation Trust, the entity would... View full entry
At an April 9 panel discussion in Albany, Adams said his team was exploring whether the city could allow cannabis cultivation on the rooftops of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) facilities. The idea, he said, would be to employ NYCHA residents to staff and oversee the greenhouses as the state continues to roll out its recreational marijuana program for adults.
“The jobs can come from NYCHA residents. The proceeds and education can go right into employing people right in the area.”
— Gothamist
As part of its economic development agenda, the Adams administration has been pushing an ambitious pilot program for rooftop cultivation on federally-funded NYCHA public housing properties. The current laws, however, still classify marijuana as a controlled substance, leading to an inevitable... View full entry
Writing about Twin Parks in 1973, The Times’s former architecture critic, Paul Goldberger, speculated that the project might “turn out to be important in the history of housing design.” [...] design, however compassionate, can mean only so much against the obstacles that make up the housing problem today.”
The calculus is the same half a century later. But the South Bronx isn’t. Gradually, it has been remade. Progress isn’t impossible, it’s a process.
— The New York Times
Both observed South Bronx developments, 1490 Southern Boulevard and a transformation of the Lambert Houses, are seen as examples of high-quality and effective public housing that offers residents more than just desultory amenities. The Times critic broke down the new-ish developments by... View full entry
A creative answer to one of the most pervasive issues in American public housing is being sought by one of the largest civic authorities in the country as the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has issued a challenge to design an affordable new all-electric heat pump for the 21st century... View full entry
A consortium of private developers recently closed on a $600 million loan to complete renovations and infrastructure upgrades across a 1,673-unit NYCHA public housing portfolio. Boulevard Together Developer LLC, a joint venture with The Hudson Companies, Property Resources Corporation, and Duvernay + Brooks, is undertaking the refurbishment of a total of 29 buildings in East New York. — New York Yimby
The properties include the Boulevard Houses, Fiorentino Plaza, and the Belmont-Sutter Area Houses. This project is being facilitated through the NYCHA’s Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) initiative, in which selected developments receive needed renovations, along with expanded... View full entry
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has struck a deal with five different private developers that will hand over the management and repair duties for seven public housing complexes to the selected companies in exchange for $1.5 billion in repairs. The deal will impact 5,908 housing units... View full entry
New York City Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders have unveiled a bold initiative aimed at rejuvenating and decarbonizing the nation’s public housing stock. The visionary Green New Deal for Public Housing Act aims to bring sorely needed maintenance... View full entry
A first-of-its-kind deal to sell the air rights at a Fort Greene NYCHA development is nearing completion after months of negotiation.
The deal would transfer nearly 100,000 square feet of building rights from the Ingersoll Houses to a yet-to-be-built private development next door. In exchange, developers would provide nearly $25 million for maintenance at Ingersoll as part of NYCHA’s new long-term strategy to leverage private funds for the repair of its beleaguered housing stock.
— The Brooklyn Eagle
The deal will help a 183-unit mixed use development located next door to Brooklyn's Ingersoll Houses grow to 400 units in size. In exchange, the number of affordable housing units designed into the project will increase from 79 to 100, New York YIMBY reports. The proposed 202 Tillary Street... View full entry
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is close to finalizing a major reform of its extensive senior housing portfolio, allowing nonprofit owners of 125,000 apartments to tap private sources of financing for the first time.
HUD built nearly 2,900 of these properties over the past three decades. Though owned by nonprofits, the federal government funded their construction and subsidized tenant rents.
— Wall Street Journal
The nation's recent crop of senior housing projects could see much-needed improvements come to reality as the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) loosens rules dictating where nonprofit building owners can draw funds from to make building repairs. Tom Davis... View full entry
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday that the city had tapped Gregory Russ as Nycha’s new chairman, following 14 months without a permanent leader and after an exhaustive nationwide search, which included a salary increase to entice reluctant candidates. — The New York Times
Gregory Russ, current head of Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, has been picked to lead the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Russ told The New York Times, “Nycha’s issues actually are not just important for New York City, but they’re important nationally.” Currently, Russ... View full entry
The Regional Plan Association of New York (RPA) has named Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich of architecture firm Peterson Rich Office (PRO) as the organization’s inaugural Richard Kaplan Chairs for Urban Design. The year-long research position, funded to “address a critical need for... View full entry
According to the United States’ General Accounting Office, receiverships in housing authorities generally result from “longstanding, severe, and persistent management problems that led to deterioration of housing stock.” NYCHA, who took the public advocate’s top spot for the city’s worst landlord in 2018, faces mounting repair costs in excess of $25 billion and has exhibited failures eliminating mold and lead paint, among a laundry list of other nightmarish woes for its tenants. — Curbed NY
Mayor Bill De Blasio and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have until the 31st of January to agree on how to run the agency. If that does not happen and Ben Carson declares New York City Housing Authority in substantial default, NYCHA which oversees housing for over 400,000 New... View full entry
President Trump has reportedly appointed a longtime Trump family supporter and event planner with no housing experience to oversee federal housing programs in New York.
Lynne Patton will lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) region that oversees New York and New Jersey, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.
— The Hill
Appointed on Wednesday, Lynne Patton, has zero experience in housing, and is now in charge of running the office that oversees federal housing programs in New York. Patton falsely claims to have a law degree from Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut. Yale University is also listed... View full entry
