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NYCHA's rationale for withholding PACT transaction documents

2:47:39

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Council Member Chris Banks presses NYCHA officials on their reasons for not making PACT transaction documents public. NYCHA maintains that withholding these documents is necessary to preserve their negotiating power for future deals.

NYCHA officials argue that keeping documents private allows them to negotiate better deals and pricing
They state this is standard practice among many agencies and entities
NYCHA emphasizes that they share scopes of work and overall project values with residents
Officials assert that template documents available online provide the basic framework of deals

Chris Banks

2:47:39

At the same hearing, also NYCHA testified that the reason it does not make those documents public is to preserve the ability to negotiate competitive agreements with each PAC partner.

2:47:53

Can you explain why withholding prior transactional documents is necessary to ensure that the contracts with PAC partners meet the needs of NYCHA residents?

Jonathan Gouveia

2:48:08

I mean, obviously to get you know, we want to get the best deal to make sure we're getting the best pricing and that we've got the best scopes of works that we can serve residents.

2:48:16

That's the whole point.

2:48:17

That's why we want to make sure we're getting the best structuring the best deals and that we're that we are doing this to favor NYCHA as an organization and our residents, not necessarily the other side.

Chris Banks

2:48:27

But but do you think it's in the best interest of the residents to keep those keep that those deals or keep those negotiations private or or keep the the the deal, the final deal that comes out of those negotiations to keep it private.

2:48:40

You don't think that should be given to the tenants so they can see and examine?

Jonathan Gouveia

2:48:45

And we do a lot with residents so that they, as we've discussed,

Chris Banks

2:48:48

through our engagement process, do

Jonathan Gouveia

2:48:49

a lot as it relates to helping them shape the scope of work and all the oversight that we provide.

2:48:55

And again, we've looked at these issues that you're raising and you know looked at the pros and cons and have decided that for now we want to keep those documents.

2:49:05

You know we're not putting you know specific deal documents on our website so that we can negotiate better deals in the future.

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NYCHA's policy on publishing PACT partner transaction documents

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Debate on transparency and resident access to PACT transaction documents