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Q&A
New initiatives and strategies to address HPD project backlogs
0:28:24
·
135 sec
Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani outlines several new initiatives and strategies that HPD is implementing to address project backlogs and improve efficiency in preservation programs.
- Addition of 16 new preservation staff lines for project management and 5 for legal transactions
- Use of 18 temporary workers focused on the preservation pipeline
- Launch of the Community Partnerships for Affordable Renovation program with CPC and LISC
- Reorganization of the office of legal affairs to dedicate more resources to preservation projects
- Pilot program with 9 projects to test new streamlined processes for less complicated properties
Ahmed Tigani
0:28:24
There are some things I do want to note that are newer to HPD and particularly focused on preservation to deal with the pipeline.
0:28:31
So as part of City of Yes we actually have 16 new preservation staff lines just on the project management side with five additional lines just focused on the legal transaction side of moving those projects forward.
0:28:45
We have temps through that, temporary workers through the capacity work to also supplement the things that they're doing.
0:28:55
So 18 of our 28 temporary workers are actually focused on our preservation pipeline to continue that work moving through.
0:29:04
We also launched a new program to try and leverage, and again, I mentioned this in the testimony, but working with the OMB and other partners, we've tried to be as creative as we can to build in capacity.
0:29:15
So we've heard from development partners, non profit, for profit that leveraging the broader real estate community could help us make this work very well.
0:29:25
So we're actually working with two community development finance institutions, CPC and LISC, to help us prepackage loan applications to work through those pieces and bring them in a state of readiness to allow us to move them faster.
0:29:42
It's called the Community Partnerships for Affordable Renovation.
0:29:46
These are really focused on properties that are not very complicated.
0:29:50
Those are the ones that we say that we're really still continuing to work through our core full time staff.
0:29:56
These are for properties that have affordability under 80% of AMI because again the entire preservation pipeline as we work through it, we're really targeting the most difficult and urgent cases and is providing funding for moderate rehabilitation.
0:30:14
So we have nine projects in the pipeline with this pilot.
0:30:17
If it works well we'll continue to expand it and it'll become another stream of work to supplement the new staff and the existing staff that we have.
0:30:26
And then we've also reorganized our office of legal affairs to make sure we have dedicated, more dedicated people just on the preservation side so that we can continue to build up that capacity.