It is the opinion of many that large public housing towers in metropolitan areas signal economic distress, that they “carry the stigma of urban despair and poverty” and that it’s ultimately better for everyone involved if such towers are torn down and replaced with smaller, more suburban buildings that don’t reflect such a stigma. New York, however, has generally opted to renovate old housing projects as opposed to tearing them down and replacing them. Such was, up until quite recently, the case with Prospect Plaza in Brooklyn. Three years ago, residents vacated their homes, with the promise that they could return once the buildings had been renovated. Now, for the first time in its 75 year history, the New York City Housing Authority wants to tear down a project – Prospect Plaza. Former residents are enraged; though it should be noted that this plan of destruction isn’t the product of a change in policy, it’s the answer to years of financial and administrative problems with the renovation of the complex.
Reports the New York Times:
Agency officials say they want to tear down the 35-year-old buildings and erect new apartments in their place. Officials initially planned to leave the towers standing and reconfigure the apartments, by eliminating some units to create bigger living rooms and bathrooms, but those plans were scrapped by the authority’s new leadership because demolition made better financial sense.
Ilene Popkin, the agency’s assistant deputy general manager for development, said it would cost $481,000 to renovate each of the 269 apartments. Demolishing the structures and building 361 new units would cost $381,700 per unit. Ms. Popkin and other officials said the three buildings had deteriorated from vandalism and exposure to the elements, and were out of context with the neighborhood. The new apartments — including public and private housing, not only for the poor but also for low- and moderate-income families — are likely to be built in low-rise buildings.
Prospect Plaza originally included four towers housing 1,200 people. One was torn down in 2005; the plan was to use that space for a new community center, shops and additional housing. But today, the building’s old footprint is just a fenced-off lot.
Several former residents of Prospect Plaza and groups that represent public housing tenants said they did not support the demolition, in part, because it was unclear to them that the authority intended to replace the old units with the same number of new public housing units. Agency officials have not decided how many of the new apartments will be public housing, but they said that former residents and community leaders would help make that determination.
“We are committed to being shoulder to shoulder with you,” the agency’s new general manager, Michael Kelly, told former tenants and others at a community meeting last week a few blocks from the vacant buildings.
Preference for the new public housing units will go to former residents, many of whom were relocated to other public housing in Brooklyn.
At the community meeting, Priscilla Davis, 40, a former tenant, said she would not believe anything the authority told her until she was handed the keys to her new apartment. Milton Bolton, 50, a former resident and the president of the still-intact Prospect Plaza Tenants Association, held up a thick draft of a 1998 application for the federal grant and said, “It’s hard to have trust.”
Do you think the demolition of Prospect Plaza is the signal of changing times? How would you feel if you were a resident? We’re inclined to agree with the former residents. It’s difficult to trust in an agency that hasn’t necessarily supported you in the past.
