The New York City Housing Authority has a new senior vice president of real estate, who will head up the agency’s efforts to turn over housing to private property managers.
Jonathan Gouveia, who most recently served as a senior vice president at the Economic Development Corp., starts on Monday. Gouveia worked at the EDC for more than a decade, spending the last two years focused on the proposed Brooklyn-Queens Connector (BQX). He also helped found and led the EDC’s Strategic Investment Group, which worked with developers and nonprofits to secure financing for real estate projects. Before that, he worked for Bloomberg’s global real estate operations and Brookfield Residential.
Gouveia will be the point person for various programs aimed at renovating NYCHA’s building stock. In November, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an expansion of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, which will convert 62,000 NYCHA apartments into Section 8 housing. He’ll also be working to get buy-in for a program that seeks to encourage developers to build mixed-income housing on lots adjacent to NYCHA buildings. Under the program, revenue from the new construction will go toward renovations at the public housing complexes.
“One of the things I’ve heard is that the development community is actually very interested in the program,” Gouveia told The Real Deal. “I think it’s less a question of whether or not these programs and strategies are actually feasible, it’s more about making sure that we design systems that are going to move us forwards as quickly as possible.”
The future of NYCHA still largely hangs in the balance, since a federal judge has not yet signed off on a plan to overhaul the agency, which is in need of $32 billion in repairs. Negotiations between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the city reportedly stalled during the federal government shutdown. It’s unclear if HUD will ultimately push to takeover NYCHA.