City to Spend Millions Updating Leaky Roofs at Housing Units

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday afternoon the city will be replacing 66 roofs at four housing developments around the city — a long-overdue project for thousands of residents who have endured water leaks for years.

“People have had to suffer through the leaky roofs and so many other problems in buildings that have been crumbling for years or even decades,” the mayor said during a press conference held in the courtyard of the Queensbridge South Houses in Queens, one of the four housing authority sites targeted for new roofing.

“These buildings were neglected,” de Blasio said. “They weren’t invested in.”

In addition to Queensbridge — the largest public housing development in the nation - buildings in the Sheepshead Bay Houses in Brooklyn, the Parkside Houses in the Bronx and the Albany Houses in Brooklyn, will also undergo roof replacements.

De Blasio said the project is $300 million — with $80 million coming from the federal government.

Frenchie Williams, a longtime resident at Queensbridge, does odd jobs for his neighbors. He said he hears often about the roof.

“There’s water leaking through their air conditioner, there’s water leaking through the wall,” he said, as de Blasio greeted residents at the complex. “If somebody leaks upstairs, it runs down through the next floor, because the floors are not even.”

Earlier this year, the mayor said the city was in line to get $100 million from the state. However, he said on Monday that the state has yet to release the funds.

How that money is to be spent has been a point of contention between de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. De Blasio wanted the funds to go to the New York City Housing Authority for new roofs, but the governor indicated the money should be used on improvements such as better lighting, landscaping, playground equipment and security cameras — not larger infrastructure projects.

A spokesman for Cuomo did not answer a question about when the $100 million will be released.