The New York City Housing Authority released its much-anticipated heating action plan Thursday after two months of delays and much official hand-wringing.
The plan, which is required under a monitoring agreement with the federal government, will be distributed to heating plant technicians and other workers this month. The required release date of the plan was Oct. 1.
The heating plan was revealed with the approval of both NYCHA’s federal monitor Bart Schwartz and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Every NYCHA resident is entitled to heat and hot water and this heat action plan will help ensure that happens at every development,” said Schwartz. “It aims to minimize the length of an outage, increase maintenance and the repair of boilers and to provide adequate alternative heated spaces and warming centers.”
The 35-page plan lays out much more specific protocols to respond, repair and prevent problems with heating in the authority’s buildings than previously existed.
It also details specific sub-plans tailored to 20 individual developments that have especially struggled to provide and maintain heat for residents during the winter. Those developments include the Lower East Side’s Baruch Houses, which had 78 outages last year; the Sotomayor Houses in the Bronx, which had 66 outages; and Brooklyn’s Whitman Houses, which had 38.
More generally, heating superintendents and other NYCHA workers will now be required to scan the agency’s complaint tracking system at least four times a day for heating-related complaints. The report stipulates that boiler room inspections be made at least once a week.
It requires after-hours “heat desk” workers to record all emergency visits to boiler rooms and also includes standardized steps on how to address heat restoration in the event of flooding.
NYCHA is required to notify tenants through robocalls within two hours of any unplanned heating outage.
Congressional delegates were clamoring for the plan’s release just weeks ago. The letter, sent to NYCHA Chairman Gregory Russ, expressed the increasing concern among 11 New York Congressional reps over what they described as a “lack of transparency.”
“The long-term plans and resident-focused protocols we have created, and have already implemented, are bringing results to NYCHA developments,” said Russ in a statement released with Schwartz. “We are committed to strengthening this work throughout the season.”
