The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development

Client
The New Jersey Rehabilitation Subcode: A Model for New York City?
Faculty
David Hansell and Regina Quattrochi
Team
Jason Goldstein, Oyeshola Olatoye, Regina Syquia, Marlyn Torres, Patrick Wehle, Chris Winward

In 1998, New Jersey enacted the Rehabilitation Subcode, which simplified all construction codes pertaining to the rehabilitation of buildings and spurred a significant statewide increase in rehabilitation. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) asked a Capstone team to study New Jersey’s Subcode as a possible model for affordable housing in New York City. To determine the impact of the Subcode on the creation of affordable housing in New Jersey, the Capstone team interviewed key stakeholders and conducted case studies of five New Jersey cities. To analyze its feasibility in New York, the team studied New York’s building construction process, interviewed developers and architects about the need for building code reform, and performed a cost comparison between two adaptive reuse construction projects in Paterson, New Jersey, and the Bronx. The Capstone team proposed recommendations to HPD about the development and implementation of similar code reform.