12 JANUARY 11, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
EDITORIAL
It’s time for a public housing master plan
New York City’s public housing
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STORY:
Here’s what you can expect when
the ‘bomb cyclone’ of snow drops
on Queens
SUMMARY:
New York City was under a state
of emergency due to the “bomb
cyclone” that delivered blizzard-like
conditions in Queens.
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system is showing its age at the
worst possible time.
The two-week deep freeze that
gripped our city led to heating failures
that aff ected tens of thousands of families
residing in New York City Housing
Authority (NYCHA) buildings, the Daily
News reported. The city received upwards
of 22,000 heat and hot water complaints
during that time; the Woodside
Houses suff ered such problems last week
when a boiler died during the “bomb
cyclone” snowstorm that struck the area.
Prior to this, the city’s been grappling
with regular maintenance issues
at NYCHA buildings and grappling
with a lead paint controversy. It was
reported that the city failed to conduct
proper lead paint inspections as
required under federal law.
With all the infrastructure problems
arising within the aging NYCHA
buildings — many of which are more
than 60 years old and constructed
during the ill-fated slum clearance
program — the time has come for the
city to take a diff erent approach when
it comes to public housing.
When they were fi rst constructed in
the 1940s and 1950s, the public housing
complexes — gigantic apartment buildings
erected on large swaths of land
called superblocks — as an improvement
to the purported “slums” they replaced.
But they turned out to be, as Jane
Jacobs described in her landmark
1961 book “The Death and Life of
Great American Cities,” “low-income
projects that become worse centers of
delinquency, vandalism and general
social hopelessness than the slums
they were supposed to replace.”
The de Blasio administration now
has the opportunity, if it so chooses,
to begin the process of reinventing
the city’s public housing system.
The city can pursue a master plan
of developing communities out of
the complexes, replacing apartment
towers on superblocks with scores of
three- to four-family homes for low-income
families and locally owned small
businesses serving them.
The task, however, is daunting. It
would cost millions upon millions of
dollars to complete, and wouldn’t be
fi nished for decades. The city cannot
wait to fi x the immediate problems
facing NYCHA; obviously, that must
be made a top priority.
But it behooves the city, in the interest
in making it more aff ordable and
livable for everyone, to get something
started. Other cities such as Chicago
and Washington, D.C., have long
replaced public housing towers with
public housing communities, and it’s
long past time for New York City to
follow suit.
We’re not talking about opening up
a new door for gentrifi cation; that’s the
last thing we want. What we desire,
however, is for the city to provide
low-income residents with well-built,
modern housing that they deserve.
