Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Affordable housing falling apart
From Eyewitness News:
130,000 affordable housing units have been built in New York City in recent years, but some of them are already falling apart.
It was dream come true in the summer of 2007 for working families lucky enough to win a lottery that allowed them to buy their first home under the Mayor's affordable housing program.
But it didn't take long for the dream to come undone.
Months after moving in, ceilings started leaking, front porch's started crumbling, stairs breaking.
The families of the 29-home Marcy Development in Brooklyn have gotten together to document the never-ending problems that have cost some tens of thousands of dollars to fix.
6 comments:
Duh. What did you expect?
You get what you pay for.
Quality construction built to code costs far more than most middle income families can afford. So developers cut corners on materials, compliance, and labor; hence all the Crap in new construction.
e.g. a new "Archie Bunker" colonial being built (to code and in a conforming neighborhood appearance) on a demo-ed 30x80 plot in Forest Hills will cost its developer $600k to construct.
A lot of homes like that are often built with untrained volunteer labor.
I've been on job sites like that and they try to give them simple work to do (hang drywall, but not plumbing) but you can't expect a perfect product at the end of the day.
No surprises. I recall seeing the ads for these all over the subway a few years ago..."Newly Constructed Homes.." they cheered. Looking at them you knew they were crap.
Christine Quinn's advocating for even more "affordable" housing.
Chinese built so called "luxury" housing doesn't do much better.
Just ask Tommy Huang.
His "luxury" crap falls apart only a few years after it's put up...
if it doesn't develop faults while it's being built.
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