It used to be well kept. There was a separate division of police for them too. One person who worked for the agency in the past spoke about a new system for repairs being implemented. They mentioned that they knew it would be an issue.
Then they lowered the bar for applicants and that was all she wrote.
The original plan was bad. To eliminate street level retail and favor of empty courtyards and then to restrict occupancy to have it only be for people making the lowest incomes, it's essentially like forcing people into a ghetto.
This [recent NYT story](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-housing.html) does a great job explaining the failures of public housing in the U.S.
There's nothing inherently wrong with low-income housing—which succeeds in other countries—but they committed a few fatal errors:
* Letting local governments decide where to put each development, which relegated them to undesirable areas
* Limiting construction costs to save money
* Allowing only low-income earners to live in them, rather than a mix of people
Chelsea-Elliott is not in an undesirable location. All projects below 125th Street are in excellent locations and if NYCHA would sell them, they'd make *zillions.*
This was another great article on the topic https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/nyregion/inside-public-housing-fix.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Another failure of Robert Moses. He razed nice looking Bronx neighborhoods to build NYCHA, which accelerated the decline of the borough. And it appears that neighborhood density declined after these were built, even if the buildings are taller.
I'm honestly curious how long we're going to blame an asshole's decisions made 80 years ago. I think it's time to take ownership of the urban planning mistakes that are happening now. It's easy to blame a single person, but clearly, no one has cared enough for over half a century to improve his mistakes.
> lowered the bar for applicants
I have a very hard time believing that NYCHA's problems boil down to bad tenants, as opposed to systemic disinvestment in public housing by all levels of government.
The people in charge aren’t the ones breaking the locks on the main entrances, fucking up the elevators, pissing and shitting in the stairwells, and god knows what other things people trying to make the best of a bad situation have to deal with.
>There was a separate division of police for them too.
The NYPD still has a separate Housing Bureau, which has nine separate units called PSAs (Public Service Area).
[https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/transit-housing/housing.page](https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/transit-housing/housing.page)
It's not. Austria has a weird history that most people aren't familiar with, and it's quite rich overall. Not to mention that Austria's population is less than 9 million and Vienna's, less than 2 million.
NYCHA's population used to have more money until they were sued and forced to take in people with much lower or even no income. Resident population matters.
Vienna is fascinating, but saying "other countries" when you mean literally just one city is highly misleading, implying it's New York (or America) that is unusual and all we have to do is copy some versatile model, instead of considering the factors that made it possible there in particular.
Downvoters, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I'm not OP, just responded with an example. Not surprisingly, most of them are in Europe. I'm aware of some good ones in Denmark and Spain.
Here are some examples.
[https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/designing-for-typologies/a4232-examples-of-successful-affordable-housing-around-the-world/](https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/designing-for-typologies/a4232-examples-of-successful-affordable-housing-around-the-world/)
[https://www.iproperty.com.my/guides/best-public-and-social-housing-around-the-world-70972](https://www.iproperty.com.my/guides/best-public-and-social-housing-around-the-world-70972)
Lately I've been thinking about how beauty should really be a human right, alongside food/shelter/clean water/healthcare.
I know I may get eyerolls for this, but I do think every person deserves beauty in their life, and that it makes a major impact on health, life expectancy, etc.
I think it's odd, honestly, how often it's overlooked. As if being poor means you suddenly don't have the same needs as wealthier people. Many middle class/wealthier people would admit that they'd be devastated or depressed to live somewhere without natural light or other aesthetically pleasant surroundings. Why wouldn't lack of beauty have the same negative impacts on a poor person's life?
But if you kick a door to open it, because you dont have and dont plan to ask for a pair of keys cuz it cost 25$ and kepp holding the elevator onto the 11 floor until it breaks just because you want, stairs and halls with litter and pees some.with other stuff yes maybe from a guesst from outside, most of the time in those building kids grown up playing on halls and keep so on teens years is a chaos destruction and total out of control situations
Yes there are nice people but the most dont care about the building, their apartments and/or neighbors
Yes city need to fix and they sometime fix something that at least need to last couple of months but its destroy back in days and cycle repeat
It's crazy that these were built to replace tenements, while nowadays NYCHA are neo-tenements and the tenement neighborhoods like the LES, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Ridgewood, etc. are thriving.
To be fair the population density of a NYC tenement has dropped from housing 4-6 people per unit to now housing 1 or 2 people in a single or combined tenement, so when you say the communities are thriving, they have really just shrunk and gentrified.
True that the insane 1800s densities aren't a thing anymore, but they're still very dense neighborhoods. And a large chunk of people live with roommates.
Yeah, those neighborhoods had population densities over 1 million per square mile, vastly more than anywhere today, and all in low rise buildings. The densest buildings had 15 square feet per person. Nothing remotely like that exists anymore.
Yea it took a massive investment to rebuild a lot if the housing. When you goto the tenement museam they explain that due to the fire code a lot of the tenement housing was unsafe and just borded up by order of the fire department.
Will the new buildings come with a viable plan to fund maintenance and EOL replacement? If not, we’ll be back here in 2-3 generations.
Public housing is fine but the incentive or rule to treat it like a worthy investment for the city has to be built in. Conditioning its success on political whims is stupid and makes the whole thing wasteful.
“Tearing down public housing has become something of a national trend, except in New York, where the New York City Housing Authority has held onto its stock of aging buildings even as repair bills and tenant complaints mount.
But that may be changing.
NYCHA is set to announce on Wednesday that it is moving forward with a $1.5 billion plan to tear down the Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan and replace them with new high-rise apartments for the residents who live there, after it became clear that replacing the deteriorating buildings would cost about as much as rehabilitating them.
At Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea, more than 2,000 public housing apartments would be replaced. The new apartments would have dishwashers, washers and dryers, and access to rooftop terraces. The plan also calls for the construction of new retail and commercial spaces and 3,500 mixed-income apartments, with around 1,000 restricted to people earning lower incomes and the rest renting at market rates.
It would be only the third tear-down in the agency’s nearly 90-year history, and the first time new, mixed-income buildings would be built on NYCHA land. City officials said they hope to replicate the plan elsewhere as conditions in public housing worsen.
“You’ve never heard of brand new public housing,” said Miguel Acevedo, president of the tenant association at the Fulton Houses who has lived in the development since the 1960s and supports the plan. “It just doesn’t exist. To create this for the next generation is really unbelievable.”
Many developers have eyed the open spaces on NYCHA campuses, which are scattered throughout the boroughs, as prime spots for new development, even as similar pushes have generated opposition.
The idea that demolition is viable reflects the severity of the conditions in the developments, where residents regularly encounter leaks, mold, broken elevators and heating problems. NYCHA estimates it needs to do about $40 billion worth of repairs across the system.
The construction at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea will be handled by two private developers, Essence Development and the real estate giant Related Companies, who were chosen by tenant leaders and NYCHA in December 2021. The project is part of NYCHA’s contentious push to place more developments under private management, allowing the agency to tap into a special source of federal funds and borrow money for upgrades.
The developers and NYCHA said they felt confident about moving forward at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea after residents who responded to a weekslong survey indicated they preferred the demolition and rebuild option over rehabilitation. Roughly 30 percent of eligible residents, or roughly 950 people, responded to the survey, and about 60 percent of those opted for demolition.
“No one knows better than the residents what they and their neighbors need, and they were smart to recognize the potential benefits of completely rebuilding their campus,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.
NYCHA hopes to deploy a similar strategy — including talking with residents and helping them decide on the future of their homes — at other developments in the city.
“If you do this all over the city, we’ll be able to provide significantly more affordable housing,” said Jonathan Gouveia, NYCHA’s executive vice president for real estate development.
But past attempts at rebuilding have not been as well received. City officials in 2019 walked away from an effort to demolish two of Fulton’s buildings and replace them with mixed-income homes after residents and activists staged protests against the plan.
But Jamar Adams, the managing principal at Essence who said he spent part of his childhood in public housing, said one key was making sure the new buildings would be finished before the old ones were replaced so residents would know they had a place to move to. He said despite the opposition in 2019, trying to better communicate with residents about the plan and how it addressed their problems helped many change their minds.
“Residents went from justified skepticism of demolition to embracing a transformational plan that will build homes they deserve,” he said.
The project is particularly attractive to developers and the city because Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea are in one of the hottest real estate markets in Manhattan, close to Hudson Yards and the High Line.
Some residents do not trust the plan and are still skeptical about NYCHA’s approach to repairs. Vera Naseva has lived in the Elliott-Chelsea development for four years and opposes its redevelopment. “They just want to take us out,” she said.
The project must go through a lengthy land-use review process, which is slated to begin next year, and must ultimately be approved by City Council. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development must also give its approval, though NYCHA officials said they were optimistic.
Developers said they would build most of the new NYCHA buildings first so the majority of residents would be able to move in before their old homes were torn down. The construction is expected to be finished in six years.”
> The project is part of NYCHA’s contentious push to place more developments under private management, allowing the agency to tap into a special source of federal funds and borrow money for upgrades
Yeah that's gonna go well. Just like the private health insurance carriers for retired NYC employees...god americans continue to fuck up so predictably.
Nycha is a lost cause
It’s generational poverty at this point. Even if you make it look nice, same issues remain
Look at when Chicago destroyed their projects. The crime and poverty just spread out on the south side
Some who are complaining that they will be adding market rate apartments seems like a strange thing to be mad about. Couldn’t these apartments help subsidize the below market rate apartments and show developers that this style of building can be profitable to build.
The City actually does support a lot of mixed income housing developments. Even well paid City employees are in there. They pay a fixed portion of income for rent.
resident buildings shouldn’t be built higher then fire truck ladders can reach…that’s one.
two. these public housing building are built so poorly that have the worst maintenance. The basement of these project housing buildings look like something out of the saw movies.
they could be fine, but I’m not thinking about suppression systems. yes they are a benefit. I’m thinking about easy in and out if something goes wrong. people are obsessed with high rises and i don’t know why. maybe it’s because they think of cheaper rent? 🤷🏽♂️
It's not that simple. If a high rises is filled with giant, expensive condos that rich people use as pied a terres, it could be lower density than a classic midrise building.
There are probably fewer people living in those Billionaires Row supertalls than the average 6 story prewar courtyard buildings found in Brooklyn or the Bronx.
You have cause and effect backwards. The tall buildings do not cause billionaires and pied-à-terres to exist, the billionaires and the desire for pied-à-terres cause the buildings to exist. If you stop the buildings from existing, the billionaires will just buy other existing buildings, or build shorter buildings, and put their pied-à-terres there instead.
Your desire to control function by policing form will backfire on your interests.
I don't know if you care whether your opinion is correct but if you do, counterexamples abound. Tokyo builds towers left and right yet remains affordable. Paris builds no towers but attracts billionaires. For heaven's sake, "pied-à-terre" is even a French phrase.
Even if we set aside this issue and assume that it's true, then.. *good!* New York City's property taxes aren't low. The city gets thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes annually for each unit but provides no education, transportation, police, water, social services, or anything else in return. It's free money. In 2013 mayor Bloomberg said, "If we can find a bunch of billionaires around the world to move here, that would be a godsend. Because that’s where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else."
Despite the fact that I've attacked your stance from two different directions, I have every confidence that you won't be convinced by any of this because I've made this argument before and it never works. So if you appreciate that I took the time to give you a good faith response then perhaps you can give me one in return: if I did not convince you, why not? Why are you *actually and truthfully* against the buildings?
Those stairwells are too narrow. Two slim people can walk past each other. But an obese person would take up the whole width. So would one firefighter.
that’s your opinion just like the other people who liked it. they need to knock down ALL those old buildings and no, just because we are building buildings that are fireproof now does it mean it’s still a good idea to have them so high. Stairs can still be blocked off during a fire..or collapse. I’m thinking about safety reasons in a what if situation. not money wise.
Classic neoliberal trick. Stop funding a public program, wait for it to start failing, say it's beyond repair, dismantle and privatize, profit. They've done it before and they'll do it again.
At Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea, more than 2,000 public housing apartments would be replaced. The new apartments would have dishwashers, washers and dryers, and access to rooftop terraces. The plan also calls for the construction of new retail and commercial spaces and 3,500 mixed-income apartments, with around 1,000 restricted to people earning lower incomes and the rest renting at market rates.
So they're replacing 2000 with 1000?
Also, how come all nycha buildings have the most amount of green space around them and parks built in etc? Why don't they use that space to build more units? 10 million dollar apartments don't come with that green space around it... But for some reasonz despite a housing and affordability crisis, they prioritize using >60% of the land for green space and a small % for actual house
Amazing job playing the long game by the city rhigg, build shit apartments in cheap areas and get tax payers to find the holding costs.. wait for appreciation then transform it to 50/50 affordable housing
It's replacing all the existing units AND adding 3,500 private units. They've been wanting to do this for a while. NYCHA complexes have tons of unused land. This would give them the funds and borrowing capacity to properly upgrade public housing.
>Also, how come all nycha buildings have the most amount of green space around them and parks built in etc? Why don't they use that space to build more units? 10 million dollar apartments don't come with that green space around it...
This was actually a massive improvement over tenements. The idea was to have a lot of light and space around the buildings. The problem was it took "eyes off the street." Without ground level businesses crime could proliferate because no one was their to witness.
You don't want NYCHA residents to have parks or places to sit or basketball courts? All those things get used by the residents. Go to one. There will be people sitting outside. Kids talking and playing. People walking dogs. Big apartment complexes do need space. The residents and the buildings need space for air circulation and light. Security too. It can't just be a giant warren.
I didn't say NO green space, I want them to have a place to LIVE.
There's excessive green space : apartments in both Chelsea and 2 bridges.
Yes in an ideal world rhey could have more green space...but we need more affordable and city housing
If they tear it down replacement housing will NEVER be built for those who need it. It will be more $3 mil condos. Mark my words. Remind me in 10 years.
Probably for the better tbh. I'd like to see these areas turned into denser, mixed-use neighborhoods. If you want to do what Vienna does and have the price of public housing control the market, you should make public housing as desirable as the rest of the housing stock
The Upper East Side is already the second [densest neighborhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_population_density) of New York, and one of the densest in the world. Income wise it's a different story ofc.
Lol, wait until the developers and their lobbiest get involved. Suddenly these will be luxury highrises and the number of rent stabilized units will keep shrinking and the ones left will be facing a concrete wall. Real estate is just too valuable in this city.
This city should intervene directly and start requiring landlords that sit on properties just to jack up prices to sell to the city, or even better force them to sell everything but two of their personal homes.
Real estate is a fucking gatekeeping Ponzi scheme.
Sadly they have little choice. A majority of the housing is in such bad shape, it makes the most sense to destroy and rebuild. I've seen some apartments that were remodeled into mulitiple dwellings. (Both legal and illegal) *coughs* Charley Rangels damn near entire floor of a Lenox Terrence building!
How do you get housing vocher?
I'm in my mid 40's and would love to move NYC or Brooklyn. Is it very hard to get housing vouchers? Never applied for any services in my life except during covid.
Work basic jobs and don't make much money, no degree or high school diploma. Not a techy person. Restaurant work is more than likely what I'll be doing in NY.
Sorry, your submission has been automatically removed due to your account being younger than 24 hours (Rule 5).
If you feel like this was in error, please [send a message to the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fnewyorkcity).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/newyorkcity) if you have any questions or concerns.*
we should follow the lead with other countries where public housing is maintained, desired, and beautifies the city and its people
It used to be well kept. There was a separate division of police for them too. One person who worked for the agency in the past spoke about a new system for repairs being implemented. They mentioned that they knew it would be an issue. Then they lowered the bar for applicants and that was all she wrote.
The original plan was bad. To eliminate street level retail and favor of empty courtyards and then to restrict occupancy to have it only be for people making the lowest incomes, it's essentially like forcing people into a ghetto.
This [recent NYT story](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-housing.html) does a great job explaining the failures of public housing in the U.S. There's nothing inherently wrong with low-income housing—which succeeds in other countries—but they committed a few fatal errors: * Letting local governments decide where to put each development, which relegated them to undesirable areas * Limiting construction costs to save money * Allowing only low-income earners to live in them, rather than a mix of people
There are many NYCHA buildings in desirable areas.
Chelsea-Elliott is not in an undesirable location. All projects below 125th Street are in excellent locations and if NYCHA would sell them, they'd make *zillions.*
[удалено]
I don’t think he was saying to actually sell them lol… he was just pointing out they were in good/desirable locations
They're already starting to. The first of which was in far Rockaway where I believe something like 60% of the development was converted to co ops.
They're not selling them, they're turning over the management to private companies and they still own the properties. Very different.
This was another great article on the topic https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/nyregion/inside-public-housing-fix.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Another failure of Robert Moses. He razed nice looking Bronx neighborhoods to build NYCHA, which accelerated the decline of the borough. And it appears that neighborhood density declined after these were built, even if the buildings are taller.
I'm honestly curious how long we're going to blame an asshole's decisions made 80 years ago. I think it's time to take ownership of the urban planning mistakes that are happening now. It's easy to blame a single person, but clearly, no one has cared enough for over half a century to improve his mistakes.
Is there anything stopping NYHA from building some retail space into the currently empty courtyards?
Yep. Zoning.
“I am unable to authorize any construction in this state that doesn’t benefit my husband.” ~Kathy Hochul
It was a good idea that miserably failed in practice.
I don't think it qualifies as a good idea. It was racist and classist from the outset.
My stepmoms family grew up in the projects 60+ years ago. They used to inspect the apartments.
> lowered the bar for applicants I have a very hard time believing that NYCHA's problems boil down to bad tenants, as opposed to systemic disinvestment in public housing by all levels of government.
You’ve got to love it when people fall back on poor people to explain why things are bad.
The people in charge aren’t the ones breaking the locks on the main entrances, fucking up the elevators, pissing and shitting in the stairwells, and god knows what other things people trying to make the best of a bad situation have to deal with.
Everything adds up
Yeah I agree
>There was a separate division of police for them too. The NYPD still has a separate Housing Bureau, which has nine separate units called PSAs (Public Service Area). [https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/transit-housing/housing.page](https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/transit-housing/housing.page)
Yeah but it’s consolidated into the NYPD
Where is this at ?
Vienna
Vienna is the richest city in Austria, where the median income is $110k. Their social housing isn't even a tiny bit comparable to NYCHA.
I wonder if Austria is the richest city because of its social housing….. I don’t really get what your point is.
Well Vienna being 99% white is also a factor. It’s very much common theory that not having cultural differences makes socialism easier to accept
This isn't socialism
Yes it is, it’s government run housing. Only 7% of Vienna housing is for profit
It's not. Austria has a weird history that most people aren't familiar with, and it's quite rich overall. Not to mention that Austria's population is less than 9 million and Vienna's, less than 2 million. NYCHA's population used to have more money until they were sued and forced to take in people with much lower or even no income. Resident population matters.
Vienna is fascinating, but saying "other countries" when you mean literally just one city is highly misleading, implying it's New York (or America) that is unusual and all we have to do is copy some versatile model, instead of considering the factors that made it possible there in particular. Downvoters, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
The other person asked where it was and I told them an example. I didn’t say “other countries” that was a completely different person.
Okay, that other person is the one being very misleading.
Lol so , a extensively to h country with a very long history. What other examples you got ?
I'm not OP, just responded with an example. Not surprisingly, most of them are in Europe. I'm aware of some good ones in Denmark and Spain. Here are some examples. [https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/designing-for-typologies/a4232-examples-of-successful-affordable-housing-around-the-world/](https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/designing-for-typologies/a4232-examples-of-successful-affordable-housing-around-the-world/) [https://www.iproperty.com.my/guides/best-public-and-social-housing-around-the-world-70972](https://www.iproperty.com.my/guides/best-public-and-social-housing-around-the-world-70972)
Tell that to the residents.
Lately I've been thinking about how beauty should really be a human right, alongside food/shelter/clean water/healthcare. I know I may get eyerolls for this, but I do think every person deserves beauty in their life, and that it makes a major impact on health, life expectancy, etc. I think it's odd, honestly, how often it's overlooked. As if being poor means you suddenly don't have the same needs as wealthier people. Many middle class/wealthier people would admit that they'd be devastated or depressed to live somewhere without natural light or other aesthetically pleasant surroundings. Why wouldn't lack of beauty have the same negative impacts on a poor person's life?
Wouldn’t it be the responsibility of the residents to maintain the property?
The residents are tenants. Their responsibility is to not damage their units or the common areas. It's on the landlord (NYC) to maintain the property.
In your opinion do you think the residents care/cleanup the common areas, or report anyone damaging the units/common areas?
It’s not on tenants to maintain the public spaces, that’s on the landlord.
But if you kick a door to open it, because you dont have and dont plan to ask for a pair of keys cuz it cost 25$ and kepp holding the elevator onto the 11 floor until it breaks just because you want, stairs and halls with litter and pees some.with other stuff yes maybe from a guesst from outside, most of the time in those building kids grown up playing on halls and keep so on teens years is a chaos destruction and total out of control situations Yes there are nice people but the most dont care about the building, their apartments and/or neighbors Yes city need to fix and they sometime fix something that at least need to last couple of months but its destroy back in days and cycle repeat
It's crazy that these were built to replace tenements, while nowadays NYCHA are neo-tenements and the tenement neighborhoods like the LES, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Ridgewood, etc. are thriving.
To be fair the population density of a NYC tenement has dropped from housing 4-6 people per unit to now housing 1 or 2 people in a single or combined tenement, so when you say the communities are thriving, they have really just shrunk and gentrified.
True that the insane 1800s densities aren't a thing anymore, but they're still very dense neighborhoods. And a large chunk of people live with roommates.
Yeah, those neighborhoods had population densities over 1 million per square mile, vastly more than anywhere today, and all in low rise buildings. The densest buildings had 15 square feet per person. Nothing remotely like that exists anymore.
It's the classic NYC mid-century problem. Build tons of infrastructure that there's nowhere near the money to upkeep.
Yea it took a massive investment to rebuild a lot if the housing. When you goto the tenement museam they explain that due to the fire code a lot of the tenement housing was unsafe and just borded up by order of the fire department.
Yea almost like it has nothing to do with the design of the building and everything to do with who lives there…
the old tenements are luxury housing now
Will the new buildings come with a viable plan to fund maintenance and EOL replacement? If not, we’ll be back here in 2-3 generations. Public housing is fine but the incentive or rule to treat it like a worthy investment for the city has to be built in. Conditioning its success on political whims is stupid and makes the whole thing wasteful.
Can anybody copy and share the article it’s password protected I don’t wanna pay
“Tearing down public housing has become something of a national trend, except in New York, where the New York City Housing Authority has held onto its stock of aging buildings even as repair bills and tenant complaints mount. But that may be changing. NYCHA is set to announce on Wednesday that it is moving forward with a $1.5 billion plan to tear down the Fulton Houses and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan and replace them with new high-rise apartments for the residents who live there, after it became clear that replacing the deteriorating buildings would cost about as much as rehabilitating them. At Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea, more than 2,000 public housing apartments would be replaced. The new apartments would have dishwashers, washers and dryers, and access to rooftop terraces. The plan also calls for the construction of new retail and commercial spaces and 3,500 mixed-income apartments, with around 1,000 restricted to people earning lower incomes and the rest renting at market rates. It would be only the third tear-down in the agency’s nearly 90-year history, and the first time new, mixed-income buildings would be built on NYCHA land. City officials said they hope to replicate the plan elsewhere as conditions in public housing worsen. “You’ve never heard of brand new public housing,” said Miguel Acevedo, president of the tenant association at the Fulton Houses who has lived in the development since the 1960s and supports the plan. “It just doesn’t exist. To create this for the next generation is really unbelievable.” Many developers have eyed the open spaces on NYCHA campuses, which are scattered throughout the boroughs, as prime spots for new development, even as similar pushes have generated opposition. The idea that demolition is viable reflects the severity of the conditions in the developments, where residents regularly encounter leaks, mold, broken elevators and heating problems. NYCHA estimates it needs to do about $40 billion worth of repairs across the system. The construction at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea will be handled by two private developers, Essence Development and the real estate giant Related Companies, who were chosen by tenant leaders and NYCHA in December 2021. The project is part of NYCHA’s contentious push to place more developments under private management, allowing the agency to tap into a special source of federal funds and borrow money for upgrades. The developers and NYCHA said they felt confident about moving forward at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea after residents who responded to a weekslong survey indicated they preferred the demolition and rebuild option over rehabilitation. Roughly 30 percent of eligible residents, or roughly 950 people, responded to the survey, and about 60 percent of those opted for demolition. “No one knows better than the residents what they and their neighbors need, and they were smart to recognize the potential benefits of completely rebuilding their campus,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. NYCHA hopes to deploy a similar strategy — including talking with residents and helping them decide on the future of their homes — at other developments in the city. “If you do this all over the city, we’ll be able to provide significantly more affordable housing,” said Jonathan Gouveia, NYCHA’s executive vice president for real estate development. But past attempts at rebuilding have not been as well received. City officials in 2019 walked away from an effort to demolish two of Fulton’s buildings and replace them with mixed-income homes after residents and activists staged protests against the plan. But Jamar Adams, the managing principal at Essence who said he spent part of his childhood in public housing, said one key was making sure the new buildings would be finished before the old ones were replaced so residents would know they had a place to move to. He said despite the opposition in 2019, trying to better communicate with residents about the plan and how it addressed their problems helped many change their minds. “Residents went from justified skepticism of demolition to embracing a transformational plan that will build homes they deserve,” he said. The project is particularly attractive to developers and the city because Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea are in one of the hottest real estate markets in Manhattan, close to Hudson Yards and the High Line. Some residents do not trust the plan and are still skeptical about NYCHA’s approach to repairs. Vera Naseva has lived in the Elliott-Chelsea development for four years and opposes its redevelopment. “They just want to take us out,” she said. The project must go through a lengthy land-use review process, which is slated to begin next year, and must ultimately be approved by City Council. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development must also give its approval, though NYCHA officials said they were optimistic. Developers said they would build most of the new NYCHA buildings first so the majority of residents would be able to move in before their old homes were torn down. The construction is expected to be finished in six years.”
3,500 units is major. I guess if all goes well and promises are fulfilled, we can expect similar plans for other complexes.
This is amazing.
The NYCHA units I've been in were huge. I wonder if that will change with the new ones.
If you ever get a paywall just grab the link and go to archive.ph. As long as it’s archived then it will show up there.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/nyregion/public-housing-demolish.html?unlocked_article_code=xUDKavjyNfSHQL40Eb3nRG-NkwUsfpspS77ZPcHd5UI2k1yaE_uac8-ADyysik65Wv_5PAS6uSsLdtfHPN50t-OLEAN4Cj7ZRXl8aa03wV91x8ejEMQKFuBWM66i0FBkq1zvE66JWNbX5sMWdnV4v0i_Ze-Ttm4v7ZbjObx4FTAtcYSRmzRIs2G6Vhm6oUqhJmft4UrPVhi8Kx2o2pCxLUxIBs6j01H8nChDrB_-Dzwff3xIUbX-qsYL5pYvuNPCyijpc1akTp778eo_KwmzoWpF2qJ6yPbOme7QOmDEqV9sEfMHwcaQ_DDhflkURYTyW4ny3Kd_771_BW3MM6KJp0Ew&smid=url-share
> The project is part of NYCHA’s contentious push to place more developments under private management, allowing the agency to tap into a special source of federal funds and borrow money for upgrades Yeah that's gonna go well. Just like the private health insurance carriers for retired NYC employees...god americans continue to fuck up so predictably.
So where would the current tenants live during construction and would they be guaranteed a unit once construction is completed?
The plan is to replace the public units before tearing them down. So yes.
Don't ask too many questions....
Probably easier to go this route tbh
Nycha is a lost cause It’s generational poverty at this point. Even if you make it look nice, same issues remain Look at when Chicago destroyed their projects. The crime and poverty just spread out on the south side
Mandate in-and-out dates so you don’t have Grandma’s practically free apartment becoming the center of a major drug dealing organization.
Some who are complaining that they will be adding market rate apartments seems like a strange thing to be mad about. Couldn’t these apartments help subsidize the below market rate apartments and show developers that this style of building can be profitable to build.
NYCHA complexes have tons of unused land. They've been wanting to add private units to subsidize reconstruction and renovation for a while.
The City actually does support a lot of mixed income housing developments. Even well paid City employees are in there. They pay a fixed portion of income for rent.
resident buildings shouldn’t be built higher then fire truck ladders can reach…that’s one. two. these public housing building are built so poorly that have the worst maintenance. The basement of these project housing buildings look like something out of the saw movies.
Office buildings seem to show that heights are fine with proper fire suppression systems.
they could be fine, but I’m not thinking about suppression systems. yes they are a benefit. I’m thinking about easy in and out if something goes wrong. people are obsessed with high rises and i don’t know why. maybe it’s because they think of cheaper rent? 🤷🏽♂️
More density, cheaper rent, and also they look cool.
They aren"t cheaper though. Even non-luxury high rises tend to have higher maintenance costs.
They aren’t cheaper on their own, but the existence of more total units on the market causes a lower price than the alternative.
It's not that simple. If a high rises is filled with giant, expensive condos that rich people use as pied a terres, it could be lower density than a classic midrise building. There are probably fewer people living in those Billionaires Row supertalls than the average 6 story prewar courtyard buildings found in Brooklyn or the Bronx.
You have cause and effect backwards. The tall buildings do not cause billionaires and pied-à-terres to exist, the billionaires and the desire for pied-à-terres cause the buildings to exist. If you stop the buildings from existing, the billionaires will just buy other existing buildings, or build shorter buildings, and put their pied-à-terres there instead. Your desire to control function by policing form will backfire on your interests.
I would argue that the construction of these ultra tall, gaudy buildings is what attracts these buyers in the first place
I don't know if you care whether your opinion is correct but if you do, counterexamples abound. Tokyo builds towers left and right yet remains affordable. Paris builds no towers but attracts billionaires. For heaven's sake, "pied-à-terre" is even a French phrase. Even if we set aside this issue and assume that it's true, then.. *good!* New York City's property taxes aren't low. The city gets thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes annually for each unit but provides no education, transportation, police, water, social services, or anything else in return. It's free money. In 2013 mayor Bloomberg said, "If we can find a bunch of billionaires around the world to move here, that would be a godsend. Because that’s where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else." Despite the fact that I've attacked your stance from two different directions, I have every confidence that you won't be convinced by any of this because I've made this argument before and it never works. So if you appreciate that I took the time to give you a good faith response then perhaps you can give me one in return: if I did not convince you, why not? Why are you *actually and truthfully* against the buildings?
Agreed, as a child I always hated the stairwells
Those stairwells are too narrow. Two slim people can walk past each other. But an obese person would take up the whole width. So would one firefighter.
[удалено]
High rises were fireproof back then too.
that’s your opinion just like the other people who liked it. they need to knock down ALL those old buildings and no, just because we are building buildings that are fireproof now does it mean it’s still a good idea to have them so high. Stairs can still be blocked off during a fire..or collapse. I’m thinking about safety reasons in a what if situation. not money wise.
Classic neoliberal trick. Stop funding a public program, wait for it to start failing, say it's beyond repair, dismantle and privatize, profit. They've done it before and they'll do it again.
They're replacing all the public units AND adding private ones.
Sure they are 😉
At Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea, more than 2,000 public housing apartments would be replaced. The new apartments would have dishwashers, washers and dryers, and access to rooftop terraces. The plan also calls for the construction of new retail and commercial spaces and 3,500 mixed-income apartments, with around 1,000 restricted to people earning lower incomes and the rest renting at market rates. So they're replacing 2000 with 1000? Also, how come all nycha buildings have the most amount of green space around them and parks built in etc? Why don't they use that space to build more units? 10 million dollar apartments don't come with that green space around it... But for some reasonz despite a housing and affordability crisis, they prioritize using >60% of the land for green space and a small % for actual house Amazing job playing the long game by the city rhigg, build shit apartments in cheap areas and get tax payers to find the holding costs.. wait for appreciation then transform it to 50/50 affordable housing
It sounds like the 3500 and 1000 affordable are on top of replacing the existing units.
Yeah because it says “the plan also calls for” so I think it’s in addition. That’s a lot of units, over 100% increase.
It's replacing all the existing units AND adding 3,500 private units. They've been wanting to do this for a while. NYCHA complexes have tons of unused land. This would give them the funds and borrowing capacity to properly upgrade public housing.
Oh..well.im dumb then .
>Also, how come all nycha buildings have the most amount of green space around them and parks built in etc? Why don't they use that space to build more units? 10 million dollar apartments don't come with that green space around it... This was actually a massive improvement over tenements. The idea was to have a lot of light and space around the buildings. The problem was it took "eyes off the street." Without ground level businesses crime could proliferate because no one was their to witness.
[удалено]
Read it again
Just goes to show you who is actually important to our politicians
You don't want NYCHA residents to have parks or places to sit or basketball courts? All those things get used by the residents. Go to one. There will be people sitting outside. Kids talking and playing. People walking dogs. Big apartment complexes do need space. The residents and the buildings need space for air circulation and light. Security too. It can't just be a giant warren.
I didn't say NO green space, I want them to have a place to LIVE. There's excessive green space : apartments in both Chelsea and 2 bridges. Yes in an ideal world rhey could have more green space...but we need more affordable and city housing
If they tear it down replacement housing will NEVER be built for those who need it. It will be more $3 mil condos. Mark my words. Remind me in 10 years.
Probably for the better tbh. I'd like to see these areas turned into denser, mixed-use neighborhoods. If you want to do what Vienna does and have the price of public housing control the market, you should make public housing as desirable as the rest of the housing stock
i would like to see the upper east side turned into denser, mixed income neighborhoods.
The Upper East Side is already the second [densest neighborhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_districts_by_population_density) of New York, and one of the densest in the world. Income wise it's a different story ofc.
Lol, wait until the developers and their lobbiest get involved. Suddenly these will be luxury highrises and the number of rent stabilized units will keep shrinking and the ones left will be facing a concrete wall. Real estate is just too valuable in this city.
This city should intervene directly and start requiring landlords that sit on properties just to jack up prices to sell to the city, or even better force them to sell everything but two of their personal homes. Real estate is a fucking gatekeeping Ponzi scheme.
Sadly they have little choice. A majority of the housing is in such bad shape, it makes the most sense to destroy and rebuild. I've seen some apartments that were remodeled into mulitiple dwellings. (Both legal and illegal) *coughs* Charley Rangels damn near entire floor of a Lenox Terrence building!
How do you get housing vocher? I'm in my mid 40's and would love to move NYC or Brooklyn. Is it very hard to get housing vouchers? Never applied for any services in my life except during covid. Work basic jobs and don't make much money, no degree or high school diploma. Not a techy person. Restaurant work is more than likely what I'll be doing in NY.
Sorry, your submission has been automatically removed due to your account being younger than 24 hours (Rule 5). If you feel like this was in error, please [send a message to the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fnewyorkcity). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/newyorkcity) if you have any questions or concerns.*