Ahead of Rebuilding Summit, Amy Peterson Talks Sandy Recovery

Since her appointment in April as New York City's director of housing recovery, Amy Peterson has moved quickly to shift the public perception that the city is moving at a snail's pace in making individuals and communities affected by Superstorm Sandy whole again. 

From hiring additional staff to engaging affected residents to streamlining the design-consultation process for rebuilding damaged homes, Peterson has worked feverishly to ensure that the city will meet a key benchmark. Mayor Bill de Blasio's stated goal is that by Labor Day, construction will have started on 500 damaged homes and 500 reimbursement checks will be handed out for rebuilding work that homeowners paid for out of their own pockets. Thus far, 457 reimbursement checks have been doled out, while construction has started on 167 homes, with another 769 design consultations completed--the final step before construction. 

To continue reaching out to impacted communities, Peterson will be in attendance at a summit Tuesday night on the "Future of Sandy Rebuilding," an event organized by the advocacy group Faith in New York and hosted at Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York in Jamaica, Queens. The event is the largest of its kind since de Blasio has been in office, and will bring together Sandy survivors, faith leaders and city officials, including Public Advocate Letitia James and City Council Members Carlos Menchaca, Donovan Richards and Mark Treyger, to discuss progress in the Sandy rebuilding process, and how to create more good jobs and real affordable housing in communities hit hardest by the storm. 

In advance of the summit, City & State spoke with Peterson on how the administration is using the recovery effort to create new jobs and leverage affordable housing, and whether the city will meet the mayor's Labor Day goal. 

The following is an edited transcript.

C&S: Amy, you have something of a nontraditional background, having previously worked at an organization that focuses on workforce development. How has this background has informed the massive recovery effort around Sandy?

AP: My background is varied in that I do have actual managing construction projects background. From the earliest part of my career, I’m an engineer. Then I did manage the community development block grant disaster funding at [Lower Manhattan Development Corporation]. But there was before September 11 and certainly for the last seven years, my focus has been on workforce development. So the opportunity to move people who’ve been impacted by disaster into construction jobs through the Sandy recovery is something that is real and I’m excited to be a part of and really think that this administration has the opportunity to really do that.

C&S: Tell me about the jobs aspect. You and the mayor have talked about that a lot. What is the administration doing in terms of creating jobs as part of the recovery? And what is the status of the Sandy jobs fair?

AP: One of the reasons I think I’m in this job is because of my commitment to workforce development and hiring people and making that happen. I think that we’ve been lucky to have the Alliance for a Just Rebuilding in New York and all of the partners that we can collaborate [with] on this process. Since I’ve started I’ve been meeting with them on a regular basis and really trying to put in place a plan for moving people into the jobs that are created. As we move further along into construction, there will be more job opportunities both in the Build it Back program, job opportunities in the NYCHA work, in the infrastructure work, and all of the resiliency projects that are happening. We’ve been talking and focused on a couple of the communities, talking in general about the Sandy impacted neighborhoods, both specifically in Far Rockaway and Coney Island, and trying to identify community-based-organizations on the ground who know the people and can connect them to the jobs, and then working from the employer side and making sure that the employers understand that this is a commitment for the administration, and they’re moving forward with that.

A perfect example of that is the four local Far Rockaway residents that were working on the home in Canarsie last week with Arverne By The Sea, and had been hired as a result of that commitment by both the contractor and this administration, and by the community.

C&S: Are there specific provisions, in terms of the procurement of contracts for Sandy-related construction, that these contractors have to hire locally?

AP: [The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Block Development Grant] funding has the Section 3, which is all about the local hiring. I’ve certainly found in my most recent career it’s all about how you implement those, and how you really make those connections between the employers and the local residents. The contract requirements are there, and we’re really working to make sure they work for the community.

C&S: I’ve talked to people both on the advocacy side of Sandy recovery and victims of the storm in general, and many have expressed a desire to strengthen that Section 3 requirement—to expand the number of local hires and the amount of wages paid. Is that something being entertained by the administration?

AP: We’ve been collaborating with the Alliance for Just Rebuilding and talking to them about what works, and so we’re certainly focused on the priorities of the administration, which certainly are local hiring and good wages and apprenticeship programs and health insurance, and making sure that the local hires get into careers, and figuring out ways that we can encourage that through contract language, if it works that way, and also through really implementing a program and showing the contractors that you’re serious about the contract language that already exists.

C&S: Shifting gears slightly, coming into this job you obviously had the monumental task of restructuring and reorganizing the Sandy recovery effort within government, but also streamlining the process in getting people their reimbursement checks and construction starts. What was your biggest initial challenge?

AP: I certainly understood that how to help homeowners reconstruct 15,000 homes or repair 15,000 homes was going to be a big challenge. I didn’t realize how frustrated the homeowners would be with the red tape they were facing even to get to that point. It’s very clear that because of all the regulations, homeowners were faced with a position where they didn’t have a lot of options and they were hearing "no" far too many times. What we’ve really tried to do is understanding that there’s always going to be regulations both related to the funding and related to the building codes that we’re really trying to work to get people through the process to the point where they say "yes" and they’re happy with the options being presented to them. That’s been shown in the dramatic increase in the number of people who have actually signed selection agreements, which at the time of the press conference was over 2,500.

C&S: On that note, there’s no question the recovery pace has picked up, but are you still hearing frustrations from homeowners? Is it tough to project the message that the administration is making Sandy recovery a priority while translating that messaging to actual results?

AP: I’ve spent most of my evenings out in the community at civic association meetings and talking to residents, and it’s clear we’ve made a lot of progress and people see that progress, but it’s clear that we’ve got a long way to go with 15,000-plus homeowners that are impacted. What we’re trying to do is hear what all the issues are and to try to get people to the next step in the process and show them that this is a program that works and we are here for them and we are going to help rebuild their homes or get them reimbursed for the money that they’ve already put out. As much as we can, I think that message is getting out there and people are hearing it.

C&S: I know this is not necessarily in your portfolio, but in talking to Council Members Mark Treyger and Carlos Menchaca, who represent Sandy-impacted neighborhoods, they bring up the fact that it’s one thing to rebuild people’s homes, but if you don’t repair the critical infrastructure that was damaged during Sandy, it’s hard to make these communities whole again. Is it tough for you, being in a position focused on housing recovery, to deal with that effort from a two or three-pronged perspective that includes infrastructure repairs?

AP: This administration is focused on all of these issues. With the appointment of [Senior Advisor to the Mayor on Recovery, Resiliency and Infrastructure] Bill Goldstein, when I was appointed and Dan Zarilli, the three of us worked closely together, but also in partnership with DEP and DOT and the other agencies. I do spend a lot of time in communities, so when we’re in communities and people identify an issue, specifically Council Member Treyger about sewers. We’re able to bring it to the person in city government that’s responsible for that and they’re able to respond. The communities have seen a good response there too.  

C&S: You’ve talked about setting up satellite recovery offices in close proximity to different impacted areas around the city. What is the status of those? Is there a timeline for when they will be fully operational? Are they already fully operational in some neighborhoods?

AP: We’ve been working closely with the local elected officials, we actually have staff in their offices. In some of the offices, like in Sen. [Joseph] Addabbo’s office in Howard Beach, we’re actually processing cases one day a week. In Council Member [Alan] Maisel’s office we’re processing cases two days a week. So we’re continuing to expand that option for the residents and tailor it to the specific needs of the community.

C&S: On affordable housing, obviously the mayor has a very bold plan that he’s put forth and a lot of people are anxious to hear more details about that. As it relates to Sandy, will the administration commit to leveraging the public funding of reacquisition in impacted areas to ensure that any housing that is rebuilt will be affordable?

AP: What I’ve learned since I’ve been in this job and what I probably knew before, is everything that is Sandy-related is neighborhood-based. So I think how the acquisition for redevelopment program is handled is going to depend on the community where the homes are acquired. That’s going to be one of the guiding principles: The neighborhood and how that neighborhood should have new housing provided for it.

C&S: The administration has set the goal of having 500 construction starts on new homes and 500 reimbursement checks handed out by Labor Day. Judging by the updated numbers, while the city is moving at a pretty decent pace, we’re a little over a month away from when the mayor wants to meet his goal, and the city is less than halfway there. What are you doing to ensure that this goal will be met?

AP: It’s all about working with the homeowners to get them to the point where they’ve selected their option and then through the design process. Then we have a contractor, a design team and the owner working together to agree on what’s going to happen on the home and schedule a start. Every week we continue to pick up the pace, and we are going to hit our 500 target and we’ve got a lot people out there working to make that happen.