Cuomo Declares Emergency For NYCHA, Attaches Strings To Funding

EAST HARLEM, NY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency Monday for the beleaguered New York City Housing Authority, fulfilling his pledge to cut through red tape that he said rankles the agency while attaching strings to about $550 million in state money for desperately needed repairs.

The emergency declaration will suspend procurement rules that the governor said will help speed fixes previously expected to take years. It also forces city leaders to appoint an independent monitor to oversee the work.

After calls from City Council members and tenant leaders, Cuomo promised a state of emergency last month in the wake of the housing authority's lead-testing scandal and systemic heat failures that left more than 80 percent of tenants without heat or hot water at some point this winter.

"You know people are living in terrible conditions. Get it done," Cuomo said during a Monday news conference at the Johnson Houses in East Harlem. "No excuses, no pointing fingers — make it happen and get it done."

Cuomo's declaration came after Albany lawmakers passed a 2019 state budget over the weekend that included $250 million for NYCHA, adding to $300 million in funding from two prior budgets.

City officials say the state has used little of that money, $350 million of which they want to spend on new boilers and other heating upgrades at two dozen developments.

Cuomo, a Democrat, pledged to release all the money in short order if the city plays by the rules of his emergency declaration.

Within 60 days, Mayor Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Danny Barber — the head of the Citywide Council of Presidents, a NYCHA tenant group that's suing the city — must unanimously appoint an emergency manager to oversee how the money is spent, Cuomo said. City Comptroller Scott Stringer gets to choose the person if the three can't agree whom to appoint, Cuomo's executive order says.

The manager — whose costs will be paid by the city — will develop an "emergency remediation plan" to address the various problems plaguing NYCHA, according to the executive order. Within 30 days, the manager must solicit bids from contractors to handle the designated work. Cuomo's order allows the manager to consult NYCHA as he or she develops a procurement package, but says the housing authority "shall have no role in the selection."

The chosen contractor will be able to use the "design-build" contracting method, which allows construction and design to begin simultaneously and helps projects get done faster, Cuomo said.

"As soon as that independent contractor is selected, the state will release all $550 million that remains to that independent contractor to do the work on Day One," Cuomo said. "And that money is going to make a difference."

City officials, including Johnson, Stringer and Public Advocate Letitia James, praised Cuomo for taking action to help NYCHA's 400,000 residents who are often forced to live in squalid conditions as the governor implicitly assailed the mayor for pointing fingers as tenants suffer.

"Do you think for one minute if the wealthy and the powerful were living in public housing that they would take the answer, ‘It’s gonna take three years to turn on the heat’?" Cuomo said. "Do you think that would be tolerated?"

A Department of Investigation report, City Council oversight and persistent tenant advocates have shone a harsh spotlight on NYCHA's struggles to maintain its 2,462 aging buildings as it's grappled with internal dysfunction and a lack of money.

Cuomo's declaration followed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's decision last month to force NYCHA to get federal approval for all spending from its capital fund, which helps pay for items such as boiler replacements, The Wall Street Journal reported.

De Blasio has pledged $200 million for heating upgrades at 20 NYCHA complexes with chronic problems. The city has said the work will take close to three years to complete, a timeline that Cuomo and other officials say is too drawn out. Johnson said he would press for more money in the city's 2019 budget, which is due by June.

"We need to get the money out the door," Johnson, a Democrat from Manhattan, said Monday. "The money needs to get spent as quickly as possible."

The mayor has touted his administration's $3.7 billion investment in NYCHA while decrying a decline in federal funding for public housing over the last several years and needling the state's delay in releasing the money it promised.

De Blasio expressed concern Monday that Cuomo's plan would slow down the process for completing NYCHA repairs rather than speed it up. Addressing problems in public housing is one of many issues on which state officials have asked the city for little input, he said.

"Why would we want another layer of bureaucracy to slow us down?" de Blasio reportedly said.

In a letter Monday to state Budget Director Robert Mujica released before Cuomo's news conference, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen calling on the state to "expedite the delivery" of the $250 million in NYCHA funding from the just-passed budget.

She included a list of 14 developments where the city wants use that money to replace 63 failing boilers and detach heating from hot water at heating facilities that range in age from 15 to 54 years.

In the three years since the state first committed $100 million to NYCHA, Glen wrote, fewer than 25 percent of the projects funded with that money have been completed. And the projects for which NYCHA wants to use the $200 million from the budget passed last year have not yet started, she said.

"NYCHA tenants cannot afford business as usual," Glen wrote.

This story has been updated with additional information.

(Lead image: Gov. Andrew Cuomo tours a NYCHA complex in the Bronx on March 22, 2018. Photo courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Office)