City can no longer afford life-long subsidies for lucky NYCHA tenantsBy Howard Husock
June 24, 2023
If the definition of insanity involves doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result, maybe the long-troubled New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest, isn’t entirely insane after all.
Rather than pouring yet more money into repairs of the crumbling Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses, among the nation’s oldest public-housing projects, NYCHA has — boldly — decided to tear them down, as it announced Wednesday.
Unfortunately, the replacement that it plans, likely a model for future demolitions in the aged system, perpetuates some of the suspect principles of traditional public housing, including lifetime tenure for tenants.
What’s more, it keeps prime property off the tax rolls at a time when New York City desperately needs revenue.
The logic of replacing 2,000 public-housing apartments with a $1.5 billion high-rise complex is deceptively seductive: Building anew will cost less than rehabilitating the existing structures.
But the decision to guarantee all the current tenants brand-new, modern apartments overlooks an alternative that could not only compensate tenants but also put the real estate in the hands of private, tax-paying owners.
NYCHA is turning its back on a real-estate gold mine.
Like many of its properties, Fulton-Elliott-Chelsea sits on land so valuable that it could be sold, provide generous buyouts for current tenants and be cleared for private development.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/24/city-can-no-longer-afford-life-long-subsidies-for-lucky-nycha-tenants/
