NYCHA Lights Raise

Concern for Residents

STORY BY
ADVANCED DOCUMENTARY HIGH SCHOOL ANALOG CLASS (HS2)

Published Dec 2022

Melrose Houses, Bronx New York—On a recent sunny November afternoon, dozens of LED floodlights burned brightly outside the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) complex known as the Melrose Houses. From sunrise to sunset the massive lights glared down on the residents passing by, burning precious electricity and warming the earth. The lights have been on so long that residents seem unsure when they were first turned on, or why they
are not turned off during the day.

The New York City Housing Authority is a public development corporation that provides public housing in New York City. NYCHA was created in 1935 to provide decent, affordable housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Since then, it has become the largest public housing authority in North America.

Residents of the housing authority say that the money being used to keep the lights on throughout the day should be used for a better cause, such as the backlog of repairs inside residents apartments. Nadine, 39, a neighborhood resident, believes NYCHA is wasting energy and money. “If you think about it, all that energy is being used during the day and everybody is in school or at work,” she said.

A two-month-long Bronx Documentary Center student investigation has revealed that NYCHA, home to more than 350,000 New Yorkers, is violating the agency’s own guidelines, leaving on more than 200 high-wattage lights during the day at Melrose, Patterson and Jackson Houses, three South Bronx developments that are home to more than 8,800 residents. 

“The lighting at Jackson Houses are not on 24 hours a day and function as designed,” said Rochel Leah Goldblatt, a NYCHA spokesperson.   BDC students, however, have witnessed and photographed the Jackson Houses lights left on during the day in October and November of 2022, contradicting NYCHA’s claims.

NYCHA acknowledges that lights are on during the day at other housing projects. “Development staff are working to resolve an issue that causes some of the lights to be on during both night and day at Melrose and Patterson Houses,” Godblatt wrote in a recent email.

Leaving unnecessary lights on causes environmental problems, says Karen Argenti, a board member at Bronx Council for Environmental Quality. “It’s a matter of the impact of increasing the amount of unneeded electricity in the [city’s] grid and causing pollution to go into the air in the South Bronx,” says Argenti.

(L-R, Clockwise): Image of lights on at the Melrose houses. © Brandon Carrillo Leon/ BDC; Bronx resident Michelle Macklin-Brye in the Melrose houses. © Arwen Polanco/ BDC; Image of students interviewing a resident at the Patterson houses. © Evan Solis/ BDC

Many residents are quick to give NYCHA credit for installing the lights, saying they have improved security at night.  “Back in the day these areas were pitch black and crime rates were super high,” said Melrose Houses resident Nelson Ramirez, Other residents echoed Mr. Ramirez’s opinion and said the lights were needed after dark.

The BDC’s investigation found that approximately 84 lights manufactured by RAB Lighting Inc. were left on daily at Patterson Houses, as many as 86 lights at Jackson Houses, and more than 67 lights at the Melrose Houses. Based on an estimated average of 300 watts per light, our student journalists have calculated that NYCHA is wasting approximately 350,000 kilowatt hours per year at the three developments. At current commercial Con Edison rates, this amounts to $82,804 in wasted tax dollars. A representative of RAB Lighting Inc. said that for $25 per light, the RAB outdoor lights purchased by NYCHA could be equipped with a photocell, model #RPCT-480, automatically turning the lights off during daylight hours.

The wasted electricity violates the NYCHA design standards issued by NYCHA Capital Projects, which state that electric photocells be utilized to turn off all lights during daylight hours. NYCHA’s Office of Design-Standard Notice, dated January 2016, states: “All exterior site lighting shall utilize shut off controls consisting of a photocell mounted on the northernmost façade of the building in addition to photocells mounted on each post-type fixture (pedestrian, cobraheads and floodlights) as well as a timer adjacent to the source electrical panel in the building.”

NYCHA’s practice of leaving these lights on also violates the housing authority’s own sustainability agenda which focuses on saving energy and making homes comfortable for residents. NYCHA’s sustainability agenda promises to “Ensure environmental and social sustainability is integrated into all aspects of NYCHA’s work.”

The Bronx has some of the highest climate hazard rankings in the country. The increase in light usage can only negatively affect these dangerous conditions, says Anne Rabe, Environmental Policy Director at New York Public Interest Research Group. “You know, we’re all going to have to make changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in seven years from now, or we will not have a livable planet, according to the United Nations,” says Rabe. “So we have seven years.”