Troy's City Council has discussed upgrades to public housing and insurance benefits for retired city employees.
The Troy Housing Authority owns and operates 13 affordable housing facilities with nearly 1,100 units, and services roughly 925 vouchers on private properties.
The council on Thursday unanimously adopted an ordinance waiving building permit fees and authorized the execution of a Payment-In-Lieu of Taxes or PILOT agreement.
Housing Authority Executive Director Deborah Witkowski presented the council with before-and-after pictures of renovations at Griswold Heights in South Troy. Witkowski says the renovations are long overdue.
“We are doing building system upgrades, which includes HVAC, we're doing roofs, we're doing sewer lines, infrastructure,” Witkowski said.
Witkowski says the authority is working with a developer to complete the upgrades. After five years, the developer will depart, leaving the ownership and management to T-H-A. The authority is also working with the state's Homes and Community Renewal for the next 30-40 years to ensure required maintenance is completed, tenants are protected, and finances are on track.
Republican Council President Pro Tem Thomas Casey is a former T-H-A employee, completing inspections and evictions.
"Improvements in Griswold Heights, these apartments, it was beautiful. It was really like night and day, very. And these families are going to have not only new landscaping and water pads and playground equipment,” Casey said.
Democratic Councilmember Katie Spain-McLaren of the 3rd District agrees, saying she has accompanied some of her students on home visits and has seen some units in rough shape.
“Things that had gone wrong things that had gotten broken and not fixed,” Spain-McLaren said. “Sometimes it's tenants not taking care of the apartment to, but definitely not the shape that they're in now. And I just think it's so important to take pride in where you live.”
While construction is being completed at 340 units, residents will be temporarily relocated, either to another unit on the same property or other properties. Witkowski says some units have been held vacant with the upgrades in mind.
"Some people can move back in the same day. If they had minor work to do, they we have hospitality lounges,” Witkowski added. “So, they move into the hospitality lounge during the day they go back at night, they can still cook their food, they can, you know, use their restroom, their facilities.”
At the council's regular meeting, following a finance meeting, funding for neighborhood improvement projects was approved. Projects include planters, signage, maintenance, and a little free library. Steele says she was thrilled the council could come together for residents.
“We were able to fund all of the applicants, which is great. Unfortunately, we couldn't fund them all their requested amount. But it provides each group with a small amount of money to hopefully begin their projects or, in some cases, actually completing them,” Steele said.
The council also approved a change to the health insurance provider for retired city employees. In October, retirees were abruptly informed that some doctors’ offices would no longer be accepting Humana. Deputy Mayor Seamus Donnelly says retirees will now receive coverage through Anthem Insurance Companies.
“They wanted to do an increase with those individual providers like Albany Medical and stuff,” Donnelly said. “That was their ploy by saying, ‘Well, then we're just going to cut off those services, get all the retirees and the health care members up in arms,’ but it just caused a standstill.”
Surrounding municipalities like Rensselaer County and Watervliet experienced similar frustrations with Humana.
Humana did not respond to WAMC’s request for comment.
Casey withdrew a resolution authorizing the issuance of more than $1.3 million in additional serial bonds for infrastructure upgrades along the Congress and Ferry Streets corridor — a measure the council spent nearly an hour discussing at a special meeting last month.
"They wanted it to be as accurate as possible,” Casey said. “So, they just said, ‘Well, we're going to take a step back, withdraw it, and we're going to revisit it.’”
Steele says she's glad the administration of Mayor Carmella Mantello rethought the measure, for now.
"I understand this administration came in with someone else's budget, so I’m sort of giving them a pass this time, but going forward, we’re going to continue scrutinizing the bonding,” Steele said. “We don't want to slip back into bad practices of the past.”
The council's next regular meeting is June 6th.
