Newark Is Pushed to Build More Public Housing Units - NYTimes.

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Newark Is Pushed to Build More Public Housing

Units

By RONALD SMOTHERS
MAY 27, 1998

Nine years ago, when Newark was beginning to demolish its high-rise public
housing complexes in favor of low-rise housing, a Federal court agreement directed
the city to make sure it quickly replaced 1,777 lost units and just as quickly
renovated others.

Late last week, a Federal judge ruled that the Newark Housing Authority had failed
to meet those goals. But the judge stopped short of finding the housing agency in
contempt of court as tenant advocates had asked. Instead, Judge Dickinson R.
Debevoise of Federal District Court in Newark ordered the agency to come up with
a revised schedule for building replacement housing. He also ordered the agency to
hire a construction expert to make sure existing units were quickly repaired so they
could be rented again.

The judge said he would defer any formal finding of contempt until the housing
authority had a chance to put into motion the remedial measures he was requiring.

Judge Debevoise said he had some sympathy for the problems the authority was
facing and cited a host of human factors and ''circumstances beyond the control'' of
housing authority officials that had frustrated efforts to reach the goals set in 1989.
But he also noted that only 42 percent of the replacement units had been built and
that renovations and re-rentals of some existing public housing units were taking
as long as 18 months rather than the 60 days set by the court. Meanwhile, there are
4,000 families on the housing authority's waiting list.

In his order on Friday, the judge also directed the authority to focus on the
''physical and social realities'' of the Stella Wright Homes, the seven red brick
towers that are the sole remaining high-rise public housing complex in a city which

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was once honeycombed with them. The housing complex currently has 300 vacant
units out of 1,200 and there have been problems in re-renting vacant apartments.

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The ruling allowed both sides, the advocates for public housing tenants who had
sought the contempt citation and officials at the housing authority, to claim victory
today.

Harry Robinson, the interim director of the authority, praised the judge for
''understanding the common-sense factors.'' He said the ruling came at a time
when the authority had shown tremendous improvement in the Department of
Housing and Urban Development's standard assessments of the nation's 3,200
public housing authorities.

Mr. Robinson said that in addition to the 753 new housing units completed, 196
others were under construction. The plans for the remaining 828 units required
under the court order were in various stages of planning, he said, while another
700 new units that were not part of the court settlement were also under
construction.

The judge's ruling came in response to a motion filed by the Newark Coalition for
Low Income Housing. Harris David, a lawyer with Legal Services of New Jersey,
which represents the coalition, said that the ruling vindicated the group's frequent
complaints over the last four years that the authority had been lagging in
compliance with the order. He said that the appointment of a construction expert
and the re-examination of conditions at the Wright Homes would go a long way

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toward opening up desperately needed affordable housing in Newark.

David Weiner, an official of Local 1081 of the Communications Workers of America

and secretary of the Newark Coalition for Low Income Housing, said that more
public housing was needed in a time when welfare reform was driving people off
the rolls and into low-paying jobs.

Newark's original decision to tear down high-rise public housing came after the
buildings were falling into disfavor among urban planners as ''vertical ghettoes''
that concentrated social problems.

The judge's ruling, the latest of several over the years in the complicated and
emotional case, tended to echo the findings of Gustav Heningburg, the special
master named by the court to monitor the agreement.

Mr. Heningburg refused to discuss his work, but a copy of a letter he wrote to
Judge Debevoise about the tenant advocates' complaints was obtained by The New
York Times. In it, he said that the city had fallen short of its goals because of
difficulty in wading through competing political interests in assembling the
contiguous, city-owned parcels of land necessary for the more dispersed
development of town houses.

In his letter, Mr. Heningburg also cited delays in getting Federal construction
approvals from HUD, unanticipated problems with contractors and a period when
city personnel levels were insufficient.

''I am not suggesting that N.H.A. has evolved into the nation's ultimate example of
efficiency,'' he wrote, ''but it is worth noting that they are presently managing
almost $100 million in new housing construction activity in Newark.''

Indeed, HUD has found Newark's housing agency to be growing in efficiency. The
city agency has moved from being one of the nation's most troubled in the 1980's to
among the top performing authorities in the department's 1997 grading, said Stan
Vosper, a spokesman for HUD.

That capacity will be needed if Newark hopes to meet the housing needs of low-
income residents as laid out in yet another HUD survey last month about housing
shortages in the region. According to the Federal agency, 9,054 families in Newark
alone were on lists waiting for various forms of agency assistance, from public
housing to rent-subsidy programs.

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