In List Of City’s Worst Housing Projects, Marlboro Houses Ranks 41st Out Of 349
The Marlboro Houses at 2740 86th Street ranks as the 41st most neglected development under the New York City Housing Authorities’ management, with some residents waiting years for repairs to leaking pipes, crumbling walls and peeling paint, according to a new “Hall of Shame” list produced by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.
The rankings were revealed on Friday with the launch of NYCHAwatchlist.com, a Hall of Shame-style initiative by de Blasio to draw attention to the agency’s neglect of scores of properties throughout the city. The list came after it was revealed that NYCHA hit a peak of 420,000 backlogged complaints in January.
“Our public housing got this bad, in part, because there is zero accountability. NYCHA is a black box. Tenants deserve to know that their ceilings will actually get patched or that mold will actually be removed,” said de Blasio in a press release. “We’re going to use the watch list to hold NYCHA’s feet to the fire.”
The website provides a detailed, sortable list of every outstanding complaint in each housing project, as well as the number of days residents have waited for action.
At the Marlboro Houses, a 35-acre complex of 28 buildings with nearly 5,000 residents, there are 2,693 maintenance requests that have remained outstanding for an average of 240 days.
Requests for fresh paint leads the requests, accounting for just over 40 percent with 1,151 outstanding requests. The average number of days they’ve remained outstanding is 283, although several of the requests have been on the books with the agency since 2009 – more than four years ago.
Crumbling ceilings and walls, broken floorboards and damaged doorways account for just over a quarter of complaints, with 683 on file. The agency has ignored these requests for as long as four years, and an average of 231 days.
But they ignore vermin even longer. The complex’s 246 calls for an exterminator have gone unanswered for an average of 237 days, with the earliest having been put in on January 3, 2012. Residents have had to live with mice, roaches and other pests for more than two years.
The Marlboro Houses are the third worst of the 13 NYCHA complexes in Southern Brooklyn, with the Sheepshead Bay Houses and Nostrand Houses ranking first and second.
