Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been a darling of neo-conservative “leave it to the private sector,” thinking. Alas, when it comes to affordable housing in mixed income projects, they’ve been a bust. Sure, handfuls of less-than-market-rate housing can be squeezed out of hundreds of market rate units, just as long as “affordable” is redefined to encompass a modestly reduced rental or purchase price.
And so we have “lower middle class affordable,” “middle-middle class affordable,” and even “upper middle class affordable,” all defined by important-sounding mathematical formulae, based on price or income. But what about the gold standard — “truly affordable” housing that costs no more than 30% of an individual or family’s gross income?
Through a PPP? Forget it.
Forget it until now, it seems. The New York City Housing Authority is mulling over a public-private partnership that would replace truly affordable — not symbolically affordable — housing. Not only that, the project, based on tearing down existing public housing, would replace the same quantity of public housing, while at the same time building revenue-producing market rate housing.
Could it be possible? Activists and long-term public housing occupants are highly suspicious, fearing the thin edge of a gentrification wedge they have fought off for a long time.
But New York has stood by the importance of public housing, which operates on the “30% of income” affordability formula. And New York, unlike say, Chicago or St. Louis, has so far been loathe to simply tear down aging structures, turfing occupants out into the cold.
Techniques such as tearing down and then rebuilding to higher density might make a PPP scheme feasible. It’s sorely needed. The New York City Housing Authority has been underfunded for decades, and is desperate for funds to refurbish or replace existing housing.
The first article breaking the story of the potential project appeared in Politico: City may demolish and rebuild two NYCHA buildings in Chelsea: report
The New York Times has more details, sometimes in conflict with the Politico story.1 See in the New York Times: To Save Public Housing, New York City Is Considering Demolishing Buildings And Rebuilding From Scratch
