NYCHA Chair Shola Olatoye Lays Out 10-Year Strategic Plan for Mayor’s Housing Agenda

The New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH) hosted the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Chair Shola Olatoye at its December breakfast to brief more than 300 affordable housing developers, bankers, not-for-profits and other NYSAFAH members on NYCHA’s 10- Year Strategic Plan. Released in May 2015, “Next-Generation NYCHA” lays out the Authority’s strategies for preserving and strengthening its public housing while also contributing to the Mayor’s housing plan through the development of 10,000 affordable housing units on its properties. Read the full report here (PDF). 

NYSAFAH members have a key role to play in helping to ensure the success of the Next-Generation plan, which presents new opportunities for its members to participate in preservation and new construction on affordable housing projects.

Chair Olatoye reported on the major strategies NYCHA is employing to achieve its ambitious goals, as well as steps it has taken over the past six months since the Plan’s release. As described by Olatoye, NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in the country and is facing some of the biggest challenges in its 81- year history. As many other jurisdictions are selling or demolishing their public housing stock, NYCHA is working to transform the 2600 buildings in its portfolio into housing that meets its goal of “safe, clean, connected communities.” Chair Olatoye detailed the modernization strategies that NYCHA is undertaking: stabilizing its operations, attracting new and sustainable revenue sources (estimated at $17billion in capital over 10 years) and improving the quality of life for the more than 400,000 NYCHA residents.

In addition to reducing central administrative costs, NYCHA is committed to building 10,000 new affordable housing units over the next 10 years as part of the Mayor’s commitment to build 80,000 new affordable apartments. Next Generation Neighborhood new development projects will include both 100%affordable units, as well as mixed-income developments with 50% of the units affordable and 50% market rate housing. It is also preserving some 15,000 units through US HUD’s Rental Assistance Development (RAD) Program which allows public housing agencies to leverage public and private debt and equity in order to reinvest in the public housing stock.

In July, NYCHA released its first RFPs for three of its sites and is slated to issue additional RFPs on a rolling basis in the coming months.

The Capalino team will continue to monitor these RFPs and notify our readers of these development opportunities. To learn more about how our team of experts can help you with RFPs, visit our services page for Business Development, Procurement + RFPs 

To learn more about NYCHA Chair Shola Olatoye, click here: http://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycha/about/executive-team/shola-olatoye.page

NYSAFAH is the trade association for New York’s affordable housing industry statewide and advocates for affordable housing development and policies in New York City and across the state.  It plays a critical role in bringing issues of importance to the affordable housing industry to the forefront of the dialogue in New York City and at the State level as well as with the construction trades, elected officials, community groups and other key stakeholders. To learn more, visit NYSAFAH wesbite.

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