Statement of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander in Support of Amended Legislation (A 7805A) to Create a NYCHA Preservation Trust

NYCHA is the largest affordable housing resource in New York City, especially for low-income households. Over 535,000 residents reside in NYCHA’s more than 177,000 apartments. One in 16 residents of New York call NYCHA home. As rents rise across the city, unemployment remains elevated above pre-COVID-19 levels, and homelessness continues at shamefully high levels, we must preserve every NYCHA unit as genuinely affordable housing for the long term. 

Decades of austerity and poor management at NYCHA have caused a capital backlog of nearly $40 billion. As a result, hundreds of thousands of our neighbors live in appalling conditions. In many cases, the building stock itself is at risk. 

Many of us hoped and fought for federal public housing funds that could have been delivered through the passage of Build Back Better, which would have allowed NYCHA to begin a massive renovation of units under the traditional public housing (aka Section 9) framework. Unfortunately, the obstinance of the Senate GOP, along with Senators Manchin and Sinema, killed that possibility. Given federal gridlock, we simply cannot wait any longer.    

The proposed State legislation (A 7805A) allows NYCHA to transfer ownership of 25,000 units to a publicly controlled trust and convert the units from Section 9 to Section 8, allowing for increased operating subsidy and the ability to access rehabilitation loans. The trust would enter into management agreements with NYCHA and all the entities involved in the Trust are public.  

I understand the significant hesitations that many NYCHA residents have expressed given decades of broken promises. Legislators have responded to those concerns by making significant amendments in response to resident feedback. Most importantly, the bill now requires NYCHA to hold a vote at each development in order to determine whether or not their development would be transferred to the NYCHA Preservation Trust. Resident advocacy also led to meaningful commitments to resources to support resident participation in the renovation process, and to a resident role in vendor selection and construction oversight. This commitment to resident choice and involvement, along with the dire need for a concrete funding plan at the scale residents deserve, led me to support this legislation. I believe the NYCHA Preservation Trust is, at this moment, an essential tool to deliver the capital repairs we can no longer defer.  

At the same time, we must continue to fight for resources for all NYCHA units that will not be included in the Trust. Working together with the residents of Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens in my former Council district, we won $200 million in capital commitments as part of the Gowanus rezoning, showing that it is possible to do substantial renovations while maintaining the existing NYCHA structure. Elected officials at the city, state, and federal level have an ongoing obligation to fight like hell for the resources necessary to ensure that all our neighbors in NYCHA have safe, affordable, quality homes that all New Yorkers deserve. 

The legislation also authorizes oversight and auditing authority of the Preservation Trust to the Comptroller’s office. I am fully committed to conducting vigorous oversight over the Trust’s operations, just as we will continue to do at NYCHA, in partnership with NYCHA residents and staff to ensure accountability and transparency in the operations of our essential public housing resources. 

###