The Case for City-Led Housing Retrofits
A policy memo by Julia Wagner jointly published with the Climate & Community Institute
Julia Wagner makes the case for an ambitious, procurement-driven program to scale residential retrofitting across New York City.
While debate over housing policy in New York City tends to focus on levers like rent regulation, land-use reform, and new housing construction, a critical aspect of affordability is housing quality.
NYC’s affordable housing stock is among the oldest in the nation and on a downward trajectory of physical deterioration. Inefficient energy systems, high insurance rates, and frequent emergency repairs increase these aging building’s operating costs, which are ultimately passed on to residents. Renovating buildings to make them better functioning, energy-efficient, and climate resilient—known as building retrofits—has the potential to make operating housing more affordable in the long-term, while improving quality of life across the city.
Despite these many benefits, building owners often hesitate to initiate comprehensive retrofits due to a lack of capacity, labor shortages, and high costs. To address such challenges, this memo proposes a program in which the City of New York uses public procurement to scale the delivery of residential retrofits. By achieving costs unattainable by most operators—let alone single households—such a program will yield benefits for residents, building owners, contractors, and workers, while also reducing citywide building emissions and preparing residential buildings for future climate risks.
Julia Wagner is a Visiting Scholar at Boston University with a research focus on housing justice as a framework for climate action.