NYCHA Watch List Shows Deep Backlog of Repairs

A new website tracking New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) repairs confirms what many have thought all along: NYCHA is sorely behind in fixing up their buildings.

Launched Friday by Public Advocate Bill deBlasio, NYCHAwatchlist.com was created "to help increase transparency and accountability for repairs at the New York City Housing Authority."

The website currently contains 349 NYCHA developments, including nearby developments including Wyckoff Gardens, Gowanus Housing and Warren Street Housing, which have 4,997 outstanding requests among them. The website encompasses 369,090 outstanding work orders as of Feb. 15, 2013. 

At Wyckoff Gardens, located at 130 Third Ave., 1,899 requests have gone unresolved. Though issues are wide-ranging, the majority of work orders put in focus on floors, windows and interiors. It takes an average of 261 days to solve such problems. 

Down the block, at 572 Warren St., 1,003 issues have yet to be tackled, and those that have been take approximately 248 days to do so. Like Wyckoff Gardens, the majority of work orders put in focus on floors, windows and interiors. Though only making up 2.9 percent of outstanding orders, extermination requests take an average of 372 days before being addressed. 

There are 2,105 outstanding requests at Gowanus housing, located at 238 Bond St., and those that have been resolved take an average of 221 days to complete. There, paint jobs are the most frequently requested, and take 276 days to resolve.

To drill down on the issues, visitors of the website can search the map by entering an address or zip code, clicking on a housing development and choosing to "see details." There, visitors can see details organized by request type and average amount of days a request goes unresolved. 

De Blasio has filed a Freedom of Information Request with NYCHA for updates to the repair backlog, and all updates will be immediately uploaded to the NYCHA Watchlist, the website explains.