Beacon News

Over the years, Beacon has provided construction consulting services related to many Public Housing construction and renovation projects. Recently, the company was retained by a leading Surety company to provide construction consulting services related to a public housing renovation project in New York City. The job relates to a high-profile initiative underway at various public housing buildings owned by "NYCHA" (the New York City Housing Authority). NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in North America and the largest landlord in New York City.

Beacon is currently providing construction consulting services to the Surety related to the "excavation and cementing" of dirt floors in the crawlspace areas under very large NYCHA residential apartment buildings. The project is part of New York City's multi-year plan to reduce rat habitat at NYCHA buildings (and to improve quality of life for residents).

NYCHA contractors are currently in the process of replacing dirt basement (and crawlspace) floors in many (approximately 50 total) buildings and installing concrete “rat pads." This process involves first excavating basements, adding gravel, and finally "cementing the basement floors" by pumping in concrete. Combined with NYCHA's extermination and other abatement efforts, this work reportedly greatly reduces rat populations at NYCHA buildings by removing rat habitat and sealing up entry points for rats.

More about NYCHA: NYCHA serves over 339,900 NYC residents in more than 162,000 apartments within 277 housing developments through the conventional public housing program (Section 9). NYCHA also serves 29,789 authorized residents in 15,426 units within 58 developments that have been converted under the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program.