Adams 2021: Housing - Reimagine Our City
Much of our city is zoned for another era when all New Yorkers lived in one area and worked in another. When COVID-19 hit, it economically decimated neighborhoods dominated by tall office towers, where retailers, restaurants, and other businesses relied almost entirely on 9-to-5 workers. The city also relies too heavily on office workers and the service economy overall, when it could and should be expanding employment options in areas like life sciences, urban agriculture, and manufacturing.
- Create more live/work communities.
- Empower community development corporations and non-profit land trusts.
- Give faith-based institutions the tools to provide housing.
Create live/work communities.
Neighborhoods with a healthier mix of residential, commercial and retail space have done better than single-use areas in the city during the pandemic because people are traveling less. Live/work communities like Lower Manhattan also use City resources more consistently and efficiently, are more resilient to economic downturns, and can be safer because they are in constant use.
Use City offices as anchor tenants in new outer-borough development.
By moving City offices from Manhattan to the outer-boroughs, we will free up density for housing in high quality of life areas while stimulating growth in under-developed, underserved areas around outer-borough transit centers. We must augment this shift by increasing intra-borough transit options—which will be one of our overall citywide transportation goals.
Create a livable city for New Yorkers of all abilities.
Every New Yorker has the right to enjoy our city and have access to the same basic quality of life as their neighbors. But many of the approximately 1 million disabled New Yorkers are prevented from easily using City buildings, streets, and even housing because their needs have not been prioritized. My administration will conduct a citywide audit of City infrastructure and properties — including cultural institutions and groups leasing City property — to determine where those needs are not being met and form a plan for action.
Empower community development corporations and non-profit land trusts.
Community development corporations (CDCs) were a major reason New York was able to build its way out of the fiscal crisis in the 70’s and 80’s — by granting these local organizations property and funding to bring economic investment to their own neighborhoods. We will do that again to reinvigorate distressed lower-income areas by creating new economic activity and affordable housing.
Additionally, vacant and underutilized City property is a massive waste of our resources and often a blight on neighborhoods. In the midst of this housing crisis, we will aggressively seek to partner with community land trusts by offering properties to organizations that commit to building permanently affordable housing.
Give faith-based institutions the tools to provide housing.
Faith-based institutions have the social vision and local understanding to advance affordable and supportive housing projects on their own properties, but they often do not have the financial or technical capacity to do so. We will partner with faith-based institutions across New York City to leverage these development rights for a public purpose.
Finally tackle property tax reform.
Mayor after mayor has promised to tackle property tax reform, but struggling homeowners continue to wait and pay unfair bills under a fundamentally unfair and overly complicated system. I’m going to immediately put in place a committee to look at these tax laws and come up with real solutions to alleviate co-ops and condominiums and shift the tax burden off of renters and homeowners in less affluent areas to the owners of pricey apartments in wealthy areas . Billionaires are not paying their share of taxes. This will be fairly examined within our first year, with a robust outreach effort that gets maximum input from impacted New Yorkers.
End the lien sale, for good.
There is enough evidence that the annual lien sale has not been a just or an effective debt collection program. A real recovery is not balanced on the backs of the generational wealth in Black and Brown communities. Our focus should be on reinvesting in historically marginalized communities, and there are a number of promising models we will consider to replace the lien sale and do just that.
Additionally, we will ensure there is massive reform of the controversial Third Party Transfer (TPT) program, which was supposed to be used to help preserve affordable housing but has too often been a subterfuge to remove properties from homeowners who had their properties, in some cases, for more than thirty years.
Allow building inspections by drones
One of the most expensive regulatory costs and biggest potential slowdowns for any building developer is the inspections process — and those costs either stall growth or are eventually passed on to tenants. Drones can and should be used to cut costs by performing inspections much more efficiently and cheaply.
Adopt pet-friendly housing policies.
According to a study by the ASPCA, housing-related issues are the number one reason renters give up their pets. NYC is a city of renters, and housing that is owned or operated by the City of New York should not displace the cost of caring for animals on yet another City system — our animal shelters. By adopting pet-friendly policies in our City-owned and operated housing systems, we can keep pets out of the animal shelter by keeping them where they belong — with the people who love them.
Adams 2021: Housing - Save NYCHA
Even before the pandemic, we knew that tens-of-billions of dollars was needed to make basic improvements to NYCHA complexes throughout the city. The virus exposed even more immediate issues We need an all-in approach to raise enough money to save NYCHA tenants from dilapidated buildings and deteriorating apartments.
- Save NYCHA through bold moves like allowing the agency to sell air rights.
- Keep NYCHA tenants informed to hold the agency accountable.
- Support tenants impacted by lead paint with greater accountability and immediate assistance.
Sell NYCHA’s air rights to raise billions for NYCHA tenants.
We can literally pull $8 billion out of the air for NYCHA. The agency has air rights to some 80 million square feet over its properties that could generate income for capital repairs to more than 300 buildings, where desperately needed repairs are chronically slow, often dragging out for months or longer. That money will allow us to greatly improve the quality of life for more than 500,000 NYCHA tenants, roughly 90 percent of whom are people of color.
Close the NYCHA money pit by forcing the agency to be transparent.
NYCHA’s lack of transparency is unconscionable. The agency pours some $450 million into fixing up its housing complexes but still made the city’s worst landlord list in 2018 and 2019. The agency is opaque about where the money goes and the progress of much-needed repairs. This has led to deplorable conditions, leaks, gaping holes and non-working elevators for months on end. For example, NYCHA residents filed some 200,000 bug and rodent complaints in 2018 and 2019, and NYCHA elevator outages reportedly hit an average of 121 per day in 2018.
My administration will apply crystal clear transparency through constant reporting of progress on apartment and building repairs, as well as spending, posted in real-time through a dashboard. We will also do an audit to see what budgeted money has actually been spent. And we will promote further transparency and tracking by placing QR codes on buildings as a way for anyone to point, click and track progress.
Get more money out of the federal government for City housing.
NYCHA tenants are understandably skeptical of the City program to get more money out of the federal government by transitioning some complexes to private management under the PACT to Preserve program. But the program can also unlock billions of dollars to improve their homes.
To raise needed revenue and give tenants more control over the process, we will provide free legal counsel to tenants going through the conversion and give them veto power. This will ensure that tenants can select an attorney they trust to fight for their needs so they get the better housing promised to them.
Bring real-time accountability with NYCHAStat.
If you don’t inspect what you expect, it’s all suspect. Rent-paying residents deserve to know the hard facts on efforts to improve the developments they call home, and NYCHA employees need to see where to mobilize resources for repairs. Just as CompSTAT began to improve policing performance decades ago, I believe a data-driven approach to asset management can improve NYCHA’s performance in serving its tenants, as well as deliver the accountability and transparency that has long been lacking.
Support tenants impacted by lead paint with greater accountability and immediate assistance.
Revelations of widespread lead paint exposure by the NYCHA federal monitor underscore the complete disregard the City has shown to Black and Brown children. I can’t help but think that if this were taking place in Sutton Place in Manhattan and not Sutter Avenue in Brownsville, the City’s response would be very different. Right now, we need to expedite remediation efforts, with help from the federal government, provide rent relief to impacted families, and ensure real accountability for any officials who are found to have misled tenants and the public about the extent of the problem.
Specifically, NYCHA must skip contracting procedures and immediately engage any city-based company licensed to do this remediation work that will pay prevailing wage and start work on an emergency basis, and it must not charge rent to any tenant living in any impacted apartment until the lead is remediated. Additionally, I will push for any individual(s) found responsible by the federal monitor or any other oversight body for concealing the extent of lead exposure to face legal accountability, as determined by the outcome of an investigation into potential criminal negligence or malfeasance.
Adams 2021: Education - A Quality Education For All
Education inequalities in New York are so systemic that we barely acknowledge them anymore. I was one of the first high school students to be bussed in the city, from South Jamaica to Bayside, in order to reduce segregation and inequality. That was more than 40 years ago, and those problems are still as persistent and pervasive as they were then. To make our education system more equitable, I will:
- Significantly expand learning options in the summer to prevent the summer slide and provide parents with more choices.
- Invest in equity by directing far more capital dollars and programmatic funding into struggling districts.
- Creating the world’s best remote learning experience.
Expand summer school options.
Three hundred years ago, when children worked alongside their families on an agrarian calendar, it made sense to take a few months off a year to tend to the crops. Those days are long over. By greatly expanding summer school options, we can much better use our education infrastructure by creating more flexibility for parents in how — and when — their child receives their education.
This calendar change will ensure our school buildings stay open year-round and are available for day-long activities, including childcare, soft skills instruction, and local STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) programming. Learning during the summer months also does not need to be limited to the school buildings; it can be a time when teachers and students are encouraged to see the city as their laboratory, their theater, and their museum.
Create the best remote learning experience in the world.
The City’s initial rollout of remote learning has been completely unacceptable. Tens of thousands of kids fail to log on daily because they don’t have tablets or Wi-Fi — missing instruction that is costing them their future. At the same time, educators have not received the training or support they need to ensure that the kids who are online are learning effectively. Remote learning is here to stay in some form, and it can improve education options for parents and students.
To create the best remote learning experience in the world, we will first place a data sales tax on the big tech companies that sell private data to advertisers and others, and then use the proceeds to connect all New Yorkers at subsidized or no cost. We will also use our buying power as a major client of Apple and Google to get hardware and software at much better prices.
That cost savings and new revenue from the data sales tax will help pay for a new unit of remote learning experts who oversee the program and improvements, and who can improve the technological literacy of students. From there, we will use remote learning as a vehicle to desegregate New York City public education by opening citywide class opportunities with top-flight educators and connecting them to students from all communities, transcending zip code and income.
Prioritize school investment in low-performing communities.
There are both tangible and psychological problems created for students by a poor physical educational environment — and student outcomes are clearly linked. That is why we will prioritize Department of Education capital dollars to go toward the construction of state-of-the-art buildings in particularly low-performing communities. Additionally, less than 20% of our schools are fully accessible to children with physical disabilities. All new construction would be fully accessible.
Give homeless families local preference for schools.
One of the worst effects of homelessness is how it destabilizes the day-to-day lives of children. I will help prevent that by giving them priority at local schools, which can create needed constancy and normalcy.
Open school buildings to the community.
Many useful school spaces lie dormant before and after school hours, as well as on the weekends because extended use permit fees are a barrier to entry for those serving the underserved. After years of advocacy, I launched a $2 million pilot program through the DOE to provide community-based organizations with greater access to the use of school facilities, without incurring the cost of space usage. We will expand this effort to reach a greater number of CBOs that provide cultural, sports, or enrichment programming for youth in low-income and under-served areas.
We will also increase support for our 267 community schools and pursue the expansion of this model, which provides wraparound services to help address the many challenges a child faces living in an underserved neighborhood, into additional schools in low-performing communities. To truly maximize the use of our school facilities as safe, trusted spaces, we will survey all community school families on issues that impact their children’s success, including housing insecurity, and appropriately triage resources.
Achieve equitable PTA funding
Parent-teacher associations (PTAs) have a sizable impact on school budgets, in turn affecting the quality of education and enrichment that students receive. Schools with engaged and more affluent families tend to have stronger PTAs with larger budgets, reinforcing issues of inequality. Offering citywide in-person and virtual capacity building seminars for parents, expanding on the efforts of Brooklyn Borough Hall, will help to increase engagement, and a menu of new collective funding models that school communities could choose from will address the gap of financial resources. Potential approaches include a sister school model, a district fund supported by PTAs of that district, or a neighborhood fund seeded by local corporate or real estate contributions.
|
Tweet |
