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There is no need to speculate as NYC has torn down a housing project before and rebuilt the area with "market" rate housing. The results have been mixed.
Markham Homes, a NYCHA housing complex on Staten Island was torn down and rebuilt as "mixed" income housing.
Originally built in the 1940's as temporary housing for those working in local Staten Island shipyards during WWII, Markham Homes like West Brighton Houses just up Broadway had turned into a famous crime ridden slum. Indeed the "nice" non ghetto designated part of West Brighton once began at Elm Street, one block east of MH, that is how much the place affected property values.
Long story short the place was quite honestly falling apart and not up to modern building codes/standards. Federal government told NYC that it would no longer provide funds since the place was supposed to be temporary housing in the first place, thus battle lines were drawn.
First the City had to find new homes for the current residents of MH. No easy feat on the Rock where apartment rentals are scarce, more so for low income housing. So a large part of MH residents were exported to other housing projects on SI. That brought often the same social ills that plagued MH to every place those residents went.
Once everything was said and done with new buildings up and so forth another problem arose. Despite being all new construction with loads of various certifications about energy savings and so froth aside from the low income "affordable" units there was little interest in the new Markham Gardens market rate housing. And who can blame anyone? Native Staten Islanders know the area well and wouldn't live in that part of West Brighton if you *gave* them the house for free. With prices starting around $300K or so activity shall we say was not all what persons hoped.
As if all that wasn't bad enough the same problems associated with the previous MH are slowly creeping back. Broadway and North Burgher Avenues are still what they are and even now Elm Street is considered "ghetto" by real estate professionals. You have to go one more block east (Bement Avenue) to be considered in the better part of WB today.
Bloomberg had a great proposal to lease surplus land at certain housing project sites to developers who would build 80/20 housing. The millions of dollars in land lease payments would be used for one purpose - to repair and rehabilitate the existing housing projects, which would remain low income.
But the tenants in these buildings got upset because it would block their views and take their parking spaces (yes, it's the poor people in Manhattan that have parking spaces, not you and me who have to battle for a street space).
There is no right to a view (ask the coop owners of Lincoln Towers, who lost their views when the Trump buildings along the West Side Highway was built) and no right to a parking space.
Of course the pandering City Council would never let this happen. And with mayor you-know-who currently in office, this proposal will never see the light of day, despite its creation of additional affordable apartment (the 20%). Too bad.
There is no need to speculate as NYC has torn down a housing project before and rebuilt the area with "market" rate housing. The results have been mixed.
One of the best things about privatization is that if the venture fails, the taxpayers are off the hook since the biggest losers (financially) would be the developer and it's investors (assuming of course that the venture is left to true free-market forces and not corporate welfare intervention from government).
One of the best things about privatization is that if the venture fails, the taxpayers are off the hook since the biggest losers (financially) would be the developer and it's investors (assuming of course that the venture is left to true free-market forces and not corporate welfare intervention from government).
That's probably another reason why the ventures hasn't happened. Who would want to lease this land out that can't own yet have to take on all this risk?
There is no need to speculate as NYC has torn down a housing project before and rebuilt the area with "market" rate housing. The results have been mixed.
Markham Homes, a NYCHA housing complex on Staten Island was torn down and rebuilt as "mixed" income housing.
Originally built in the 1940's as temporary housing for those working in local Staten Island shipyards during WWII, Markham Homes like West Brighton Houses just up Broadway had turned into a famous crime ridden slum. Indeed the "nice" non ghetto designated part of West Brighton once began at Elm Street, one block east of MH, that is how much the place affected property values.
Long story short the place was quite honestly falling apart and not up to modern building codes/standards. Federal government told NYC that it would no longer provide funds since the place was supposed to be temporary housing in the first place, thus battle lines were drawn.
First the City had to find new homes for the current residents of MH. No easy feat on the Rock where apartment rentals are scarce, more so for low income housing. So a large part of MH residents were exported to other housing projects on SI. That brought often the same social ills that plagued MH to every place those residents went.
Once everything was said and done with new buildings up and so forth another problem arose. Despite being all new construction with loads of various certifications about energy savings and so froth aside from the low income "affordable" units there was little interest in the new Markham Gardens market rate housing. And who can blame anyone? Native Staten Islanders know the area well and wouldn't live in that part of West Brighton if you *gave* them the house for free. With prices starting around $300K or so activity shall we say was not all what persons hoped.
As if all that wasn't bad enough the same problems associated with the previous MH are slowly creeping back. Broadway and North Burgher Avenues are still what they are and even now Elm Street is considered "ghetto" by real estate professionals. You have to go one more block east (Bement Avenue) to be considered in the better part of WB today.
Most government programs become unsustainable and almost always end up running a huge deficit sooner or later. NYCHA is broke and simply cannot afford to maintain this monster. The NYCHA buildings should've been auctioned off and privatized years ago.
A, they'd need federal approval first. B, they'd need to provide housing and vouchers for existing residents. It can be done, but at GREAT expense. Oh, and how many communities are just dying to take NYCHA residents?
No one is tearing down or otherwise getting shot of the various "projects" in NYC anytime soon, if ever.
They may not be all what some wish but for many low or even moderate income New Yorkers they are better than the alternatives.
That being said many of the problems deviling NYCHA developments can be directly laid at the feet of the City government.
There was a time when most if not all "projects" were bastions of stable middle and working class with perhaps some poor. Even for the lower income brackets everyone did the right thing. People got up, went to work, sent their kids to school, took pride in their community and so forth. It was only when the City bowing to pressure from the NAACP and other groups to "open up" public housing that the rot began to sink in all over.
You take persons that have never had anything and all they know is the street and put them into places where they pay little to no rent and the results are predictable. In just one generation once beautiful, safe and great public housing projects have turned into crime ridden slums. At one time places like West Brighton Houses, South Beach Houses, Todt Hill Houses on SI were quite nice places to live. You can see this by the various alumni "reunions" where persons from these places that have moved up and out come back to reconnect. Most have become stable, successful and productive members of society, just as their parents were when they moved into such places.
If the City would stop shoving the homeless, gang bangers and their baby's mothers along with the rest of the dregs of society into public housing things might improve.
When you speak with persons such as social workers, nurses, home health, and others that must go into projects on a regular basis the same stories come out: common areas including elevators or stairwells used as public toilets or for quick "hook-ups", rubbish thrown out of windows or left in hallways, repaired doors and or intercoms "broken" within 24 hours after work is done....
The housing projects are MEANT for the homeless, the gang bangers, their baby mommas, and they like. No middle class people are going to live in the projects. Middle class people would rather buy or rent their housing from their paychecks, instead of dealing with government subsidies.
The people that the city dumps in housing project are there for a reason. It's better than having to deal with them ruining better neighborhoods. Even if the housing projects were destroyed they'd still find some other way to keep them isolated in the bad parts of town. This happens in cities everywhere.
Where the city really screwed up is giving overly generous benefits in the past, attracting so many poor people from around the nation and the world. Now due cuts in the past 20 years benefits are not that generous in NY, but that ship has sailed. The city created this problem and now it has to own it.
The housing projects are MEANT for the homeless, the gang bangers, their baby mommas, and they like. No middle class people are going to live in the projects. Middle class people would rather buy or rent their housing from their paychecks, instead of dealing with government subsidies.
The people that the city dumps in housing project are there for a reason. It's better than having to deal with them ruining better neighborhoods. Even if the housing projects were destroyed they'd still find some other way to keep them isolated in the bad parts of town. This happens in cities everywhere.
No, that is not correct.
Depending on several factors such as when and where they were built federal housing "projects" were not merely places to warehouse the poor and or minorities.
Case in point at least two of the housing estates from Staten Island (Todt Hill, South Beach) were mainly white and middle or working class housing. You had everything from FDNY, NYPD, nurses and so forth living there. The places were so desirable that the NAACP actually sued NYCHA and the City of New York to end the sort of placement system that kept the places largely as there were.
The other purpose some of the housing projects were build was to deal with the shortage of post WWII housing for veterans and their families. Stuyvesant Town though privately built was another "affordable" post WWII housing solution that was segregated. It took lawsuits and protests to finally open that place up to minorities.
Will give you in certain areas such as Harlem and Bronx federal projects were built as part of slum clearance and urban renewal, and may have housed mainly the minority populations that lived in the area, but that was by no means the sole purpose.
What usually happens and you see this across the country is that white middle class families moved up and out of the projects, or simply saw where things were heading and got out.
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