HUD Admits Defeat at Prospect Plaza Houses:
Plans to Sell Public Property to Private Developer

MEDIA ADVISORY
June 13, 2006

From:
Prospect Plaza Tenants Association
Milton Bolton, President

CONTACT:
Raul Rothblatt
646-498-6093
Raul@BatsonForBrooklyn.com

We're being hit with overdevelopment for the rich but destruction of housing for the poor."
-- Bill Batson, Co-Chair, CB8 Fire Safety Committee
Assembly Representative Candidate, 57th District

"If a country can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, then we are providing a poor example. We should not act like a patchwork of rich and poor neighborhoods, or Red states and Blue states. If we are one country, we have to act that way and stand up for the neediest among us."
-- Chris Owens, Congressional Candidate, 11th District

Brooklyn -- Back at the end of the last century, the federal government developed a plan to renovate the Prospect Plaza houses. The buildings were vacated, and the buildings sat unused. Judging from their actions, NYCHA didn't seem to think the $22 million allocated for the project was important enough to use. HUD has now admitted its failure in the NYCHA Annual Plan for Fiscal Year 2007. Instead of using money budgeted for renovation, it has decided to privatize the remaining buildings. The document, dated April 21, 2006, states:

"NYCHA will dispose of Prospect Plaza to a developer for the mixed financed development and rehabilitation on all three Prospect Plaza properties."

The missing millions seem tragic, but the loss of taxpayer money is not nearly as horrible as the cost in human lives. Between 1999 and 2003 tenants of the 365 apartments were moved to other New York City public housing projects to make way for renovation of three towers - two 15-story and one 12 story building. These residents were promised a better life, but will there be public oversight? What is the community input in the new construction? NYCHA promises the former tenants new housing, but can they even find them? Given the very poor record of NYCHA over the course of a decade, it is rather unlikely that the people who need it will get any help.

WHO:
Milton Bolton, Prospect Plaza Tenants Association
Bill Batson, CB8 Fire Safety Committee Co-Chair

WHAT:
Press Conference Defending the Public Housing Stock

WHEN:
4PM, Wednesday June 14, 2006

WHERE:
1786 Prospect Place (between Saratoga and Howard Aves.)
Brownsville, Brooklyn

IN CASE OF RAIN:
281 Dumont Ave. at Rockaway