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On Earth Day, the mayor will lay out a commitment to adding energy efficient heating systems, modern induction stoves, and electric vehicle charging at NYCHA campuses over the next five years.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani will unveil a series of promises Wednesday morning aimed at making NYCHA campuses more environmentally sustainable.
The city’s aging public housing stock has long been troubled with repair and maintenance issues. With the investments, the mayor hopes to improve quality of life for residents while also chipping away at climate goals.
Over five years, the “sustainability agenda” calls for installing heat pumps in 20,000 units, adding 10,000 induction stoves, retrofitting 45,000 apartments with energy-efficient lighting and water systems, and installing electric vehicle charging at 150 parking lots.
“Affordability and sustainability go hand in hand. This agenda makes clear that when we invest in public housing, we are investing in lower bills, cleaner air and healthier communities,” Mayor Mamdani said in a statement to City Limits. “Across City government, we are acting with urgency to cut emissions, lower costs and deliver a greener New York for working people.”
Last month, the mayor highlighted a plan to add heat pumps at Far Rockaway’s Beach 41st Houses. Over the next five years, the heating and cooling systems—which use electricity rather than fossil fuel-powered boilers—will also be installed at Saint Nicholas Houses, Claremont Consolidated Houses, Bay View Houses and Campos Plaza II, according to a spokesperson.
The mayor will announce the investments at Queens’ Woodside Houses Wednesday morning, where heat pumps were first installed as part of a pilot program that began there in 2023.
But it might be hard to win over some NYCHA residents, who have seen similar promises broken over the years.
“Reliable heat shouldn’t be a luxury in public housing. We appreciate the Mamdani administration for taking this step. But, let’s be real, NYCHA residents have too often seen big announcements come and go without much to show for it,” said Winnie Wu, co-executive director of the Flossy Organization, a group that looks to organize marginalized communities in Canarsie, home to the Bay View Houses. “What matters now is whether this is followed by real investments.”
After decades of government underfunding, the city’s public housing needs $80 billion in repairs over the next 20 years, with heating among the largest categories of need. In October, an outdated boiler at a NYCHA building in the Bronx caused a partial building collapse.
Mitchel Houses on Oct. 1, 2025, after a
boiler exploded.
(Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Getting those repairs done will be a challenge for the Mamdani administration. Some of the potential solutions, like converting public housing to private management, are controversial.
“I find it encouraging,” Jessica Katz, director of the NYCHA Regeneration Initiative and former Chief Housing Officer for the city under Mayor Eric Adams, said of the new sustainability agenda. “Public housing does not lend itself well to a bumper sticker. It’s good to see real measurable steps.”
The commitments expand on previous plans that promised conversions to heat pumps and piloted induction stoves at 100 developments.
“Over the last 10 years we have tested and refined a variety of approaches to addressing the Authority’s most pressing physical needs, operational challenges and resident priorities,” wrote Shaan Mavani, chief asset and capital management officer at NYCHA, in the agenda.
“[This agenda] is about taking what we have demonstrated to be the most effective strategies and technologies for the challenges we face, and integrating these in our capital investment programs and how we operate and maintain our properties,” Mavani said.
The plan requires a $2.5 billion total investment over the next five years. NYCHA identified $1.3 billion in funding, leaving them $1.2 billion short—gaps they hope to fill through city, state, federal, or private funding, according to the sustainability report.
That gap specifically affects traditional public housing developments that remain in the federal Section 9 program, not developments which have been converted to private management as part of the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) iniatiative, the report said.
Take NYCHA’s Bay View houses, which are getting the climate friendly upgrades as part of a comprehensive renovation project through PACT, which will also convert the units from traditional Section 9 public housing to Section 8 project based vouchers. Bay View’s new heating system will be funded with extra federal dollars unlocked by their Section 8 conversion.
But only select campuses have converted to PACT—around 139 of NYCHA’s more than 300 developments—and in a high profile vote last month, residents at Manhattan’s Isaac’s Houses voted to stay in Section 9.
“NYCHA’s capital expenditure in Section 9 properties hit a historic high of $1.25 billion in 2025, with a $6.8 billion portfolio of over 500 active capital projects. Close to $700 million of City funding will support the initiatives detailed in this agenda,” wrote NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt in the sustainability report.
Turning around conditions at NYCHA will likely take even more investment. “I understand NYCHA residents, and New Yorkers at large, for whom politics has been nothing to find faith in,” Mamdani told reporters in February at his first press conference at a public housing development since taking office.
The administration has promised that public housing will be a central component of his larger forthcoming housing plan.
“We definitely plan to take a much bigger role than past administrations have when it comes to engaging residents directly on the decisions that impact their lives,” said Deputy Mayor for Housing Leila Bozorg in an interview with City Limits earlier this month.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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