Tenants of the Coney Island Houses on Friday dealt a hit to Mayor Eric Adams’ hopes for a solution to public housing woes, rejecting a new funding scheme he has repeatedly trumpeted as the answer to NYCHA’s never-ending financial struggles.
Residents of the 66-year-old development at the far end of Coney Island turned thumbs down to a proposal to remove the development from traditional public housing funding and move it into a nonprofit “preservation trust” that would expand the Housing Authority’s ability to float bonds for much-needed repairs.
The preliminary count of a vote that began last month and ended Thursday showed 239 tenants voted against the trust plan, opting instead to stick with public housing funding known as Section 9 — essentially choosing a status quo that has been criticized for years as being inadequate to address NYCHA’s many failures.
In contrast, only 125 tenants embraced moving into the trust. Another 42 voted in favor of a public-private partnership program known as Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), in which the authority retains ownership of properties but turns over management to private-sector developers.
The total number of votes comes to 402, about 40% of the Coney Island Houses 1,040 residents. The vote required at least 20% of households to participate; 57% of households cast a vote.
The count of votes made as of Thursday either on-line, by mail or in person is preliminary, with mail-in ballots postmarked by yesterday still to count, but the result is unlikely to change.
The rejection of the trust by NYCHA residents is a first. Three other developments have signed up in the past few months.
In December, residents of Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay adopted the plan, and in April Bronx River Houses tenants got on board the trust train.
And on Friday, a smaller development next to Coney Island Houses known as Unity Towers also embraced the trust. (The vote there was 106 for the trust, 71 to remain in Section 9, and 11 to enter the RAD program).
The look to the trust to solve NYCHA’s problems comes as the authority’s management claim they need $78 billion to bring the city’s public housing portfolio of 161,000 apartments up to required health and safety standards. NYCHA is currently under the watch of an independent federal monitor after years of press reports and an investigation by the Manhattan U.S. attorney documenting how for years the authority had covered up lead paint, toxic mold and other scurrilous apartment conditions.
Last year, with Adams’ lobbying hard, state legislators approved allowing NYCHA to adopt the trust program that allows the authority to float billions of dollars in bonds to pay for a long list of needed upgrades to aging buildings that have long suffered neglect. Nearly two-thirds of NYCHA’s properties are at least 60 years old.
THE CITY reached out to City Hall on Friday seeking comment from the mayor on the Coney Island vote. As of late Friday the mayor’s press office had not responded.
In a statement released after the vote, NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt ignored Coney Island’s negative assessment of the trust, focusing instead on the significant tenant turnout and the votes by residents at Nostrand, Bronx River and Unity Towers to join the trust. .
“Building off the success of Nostrand Houses and Bronx River Addition, NYCHA is excited to see the tremendous participation and turnout for the resident votes in Coney Island,” she said. “While the vote is not yet final and additional mail-in votes will be counted next week, we are thrilled there has been such robust engagement at both developments.”
