A new broiler for Brooklyn’s Whitman Houses. Image Credit: NYCHA.
NYCHA sustained performance improvements and furthered investments in heating infrastructure over recent heating season. On May 31, 2023, the New York City Housing Authority (Housing Authority) announced that it had continued to improve the performance of heat and hot water systems for its residents, while also making significant investments in heating infrastructure during the 2022-2023 heating season, which runs from October 1 to May 31.
Compared to the previous heating season, the Housing Authority reduced the number of heat or hot water outages by 9% during the 2022-2023 heating season. Additionally, the Housing Authority continued to restore heat or hot water outages within an average of 8 hours, which is ahead of the 12-hour goal set by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD).
The Housing Authority also invested more than $78.8 million in heating infrastructure during the recent heating season, benefiting nearly 11,000 households across 10 developments. The impacted developments include Glenwood Houses, Kingsborough Houses, Whitman Houses and Ingersoll Houses in Brooklyn; Taft Houses, Polo Ground Towers, Robinson Houses and Vladeck I and Vladeck II Houses in Manhattan; and Highbridge Gardens in the Bronx.
The investments made included the installation of energy-efficient boilers, hot water heaters, storage tanks, electrical panels, plumbing equipment, zone valves, steam pipes, and building management systems.
Some of these improvements involved transitioning the Housing Authority’s hot water heating infrastructure from steam heating systems to hydronic (hot water) heating systems. The Housing Authority expects this transition to increase the efficiency of its systems, enhance operational capacity, reduce energy consumption, and enable staff to reduce maintenance efforts that disrupt the provision of hot water service to residents.
The total investment in heating system renovation work was funded by a combination of sources, with the majority of the capital investment coming from federal and City funding. However, several of these projects were also subsidized through Energy Performance Contracts, which use cost savings from reduced energy consumption to repay the cost of installing energy conservation measures.
These investments represent the Housing Authority’s commitment to providing better, sustainable, reliable, and lower-cost heating systems for its residents. The Housing Authority’s Interim CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt stated, “Heat is a top quality-of-life concern for NYCHA residents, as outlined in the 2019 HUD Agreement. The investment of $78.8 million in significant equipment upgrades across 10 developments, benefiting 11,000 NYCHA families, demonstrates our commitment to and ongoing efforts to improve the delivery of these essential services.”
By: Dylan Shusterman (Dylan is the CityLaw intern and a New York Law School student, Class of 2025.)