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Q&A
Q&A on HPD's enforcement and preservation efforts
0:32:40
·
4 min
Council Member Sanchez questions Acting Commissioner Tigani about the lack of specific preservation goals and indicators. Tigani provides a comprehensive response detailing HPD's approach to enforcement and preservation efforts.
- Sanchez asks about adding specific indicators for preservation targets and timelines to the MMR and PMMR
- Tigani explains HPD's multi-faceted approach to preservation, including increased enforcement capacity and various financial tools
- The discussion covers topics such as violation increases, emergency repairs, and assistance programs for building owners
Pierina Sanchez
0:32:40
So the question is why doesn't the administration have specific preservation goals?
0:32:45
What should that goal be and what additional resources would you need to reach it?
0:32:49
Can you commit to adding specific indicators to the MMR and PMMR for preservation targets, preservation timelines broken down by program?
Ahmed Tigani
0:32:58
Thank you for the question chair.
0:33:00
So just to give the full world picture, we'll start off on enforcement and then move into what is an answer that has a lot of different moving parts to it.
0:33:09
But from the enforcement perspective, we definitely take this seriously.
0:33:13
It's something that we've actually made additional investments going back to the November by November mod where we added additional heads in November to increase our enforcement capacity.
0:33:26
So the idea here is that we attack the issue of preservation from enforcement up and through our development finance piece, but it also includes staff resources in our housing access office, which is rent subsidy and rental assistance, in addition to the work that we do with our planning and neighborhood work.
0:33:48
For us, preservation has always been a tremendous part of our numbers, our total success story at the end of the year.
0:33:59
Usually it's about half, if not more in some years.
0:34:02
However, we definitely are at a place right now where in 2025 we have been following and working hard to increase the amount of capital and expense we put there.
0:34:13
So from the enforcement side, we have seen increases either in the November plan and through the investments in City of Yes to our head count in almost all of our categories of enforcement.
0:34:25
And we have seen, as you pointed out, an uptick in both violations and increase in the number of inspections that we do per year.
0:34:35
Plus if you look at the weather pattern from last year to this year, we did see a colder winter heat season.
0:34:44
But I will say proudly that our inspectors stepped up to the challenge.
0:34:48
We were able to commit to and do a tremendous job responding to not only the inspections, being able to deploy resources whether it came to emergency repair charges or pushing to get repairs when we were issuing violations.
0:35:04
Additionally, as these buildings come to our attention either through our enforcement work because we will work on the, not only will we issue out the violations, but we'll also see how we can connect this to some of our other programs like emergency repair, underlying conditions, or whether or not those buildings end up being part of more intensive programs like the alternative enforcement program, or the work that we do with housing litigation through comprehensive cases.
0:35:33
We are often working with owners who want to do the work, but need assistance on how they can make the repairs through total rehab.
0:35:40
So I had mentioned J51 earlier, which was one of the few tax abatement programs we had that we can deploy in buildings that we're seeing.
0:35:48
Building in financial distress.
0:35:50
Many of the buildings the owners aren't coming in to talk to us about preservation programs.
0:35:56
So they work through our preservation finance team to use any one of the half dozen or so preservation pipeline term sheets to repair their buildings.
0:36:06
And then we are also talking to owners who may have vacancies or looking at their overall operating expenses which have gone up.
0:36:15
We've talked about this in other hearings before.
0:36:17
Whether it's the cost of fuel, labor, obligation to meet certain legal mandates, insurance.
0:36:25
Their costs have gone up.
0:36:26
So we sometimes see this as an opportunity to match them with voucher holders and bring stable payments into the building to help with overall operating costs.
0:36:36
So I would say that the overall picture of that is to look at from the enforcement side, we are putting more investment into our enforcement staff and looking at what we can do to push for repairs and stay on top of that work.
0:36:51
And for owners who need to make these repairs due to increasing costs and building and financial distress, we go from everywhere.
0:36:58
We go from j 51 as an initial tool we can use, up and through our preservation term sheets, and then supporting that with additional rental assistance if we can, so that the operating cost can meet what they need to do to keep people in safe, habitable homes.