Capital Needs in the Public Housing Program 2010
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Capital Needs in the Public Housing Program Contract # C-DEN-02277 -TO001 Revised Final Report November 24, 2010 Prepared for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 451 7th Street S.W. Washington DC 20410 Prepared by Meryl Finkel Ken Lam Christopher Blaine R.J. de la Cruz Donna DeMarco Melissa Vandawalker Michelle Woodford Craig Torres, On-Site Insight David Kaiser, Steven Winter Associates Abt Associates Inc. 55 Wheeler Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................ii Measures of Capital Needs ..........................................................................................................ii Study Sample ..............................................................................................................................iii Existing Capital Needs................................................................................................................iv Average Annual Accrual of Capital Needs.................................................................................vi Total Capital Needs Over the Next 20 years...............................................................................vi Changes in Capital Needs from 1998 to 2010 (See Chapter 4) .................................................vii Chapter One. Introduction.............................................................................................................1 1.1. Overview ...........................................................................................................................1 1.2. Data Sources......................................................................................................................2 1.3. Study Sample.....................................................................................................................4 Chapter Two. Methodology for Estimating Capital Needs and Costs........................................7 2.1. Observing Needs through Inspections...............................................................................7 2.2. Estimating Costs..............................................................................................................11 Chapter Three. Estimates of Capital Needs in 2010......................................................................17 3.1. Inspection-Based Estimates of Capital Needs .................................................................17 3.2. Key Drivers of Capital Needs..........................................................................................25 3.3. Estimate of Total National Existing Capital Needs.........................................................34 3.4. Costs Not Included in the Total National Estimate .........................................................39 Chapter Four. Change in Capital Needs Between 1998 and 2010..............................................41 4.1. Reasons for Changes in the Estimate of Existing Needs between 1998 and 2010..........44 4.2. Comparisons of 1998 and 2010 Inspection-Based Needs under Different Scenarios .....47 Chapter Five. Other Research Goals...........................................................................................51 5.1. Assess Whether Current REAC Inspections Can Provide Useful Estimates of Capital Needs...............................................................................................................................51 5.2. Describe the Way in Which PHAs are Now Estimating Needs ......................................53 5.3. Impact of Conversion to Asset-based Management on Estimating Capital Needs .........57 Chapter 6. Conclusion..............................................................................................................59 Appendices Appendix A. Sampling Approach Appendix B. Data Collection Appendix C. System for Estimating Inspection-Based Existing Modernization Needs and Accrual Costs from Inspections Appendix D. Capital Cost Calculator for Energy and Water Improvements Sub-Appendix D-1: Technology Multiplier Values per End-Use Load Appendix E. Comparison of the Inspection Process of REAC versus the Capital Needs Assessment for the Key Drivers of Existing Capital Needs Abt Associates Inc. Contents i Executive Summary This document presents an analysis of capital needs in HUD’s Public Housing Program. The study builds on earlier studies of the capital needs in the public housing stock, most notably the Formula Capital Study that estimated capital needs of the public housing stock in 1998. Measures of Capital Needs The main goal of the study is to provide national estimates of two key measures of capital needs: existing or "backlog" needs and accrual needs. Existing Needs are the costs of repairs and replacements beyond ordinary maintenance required to make the housing decent and economically sustainable. Accrual Needs are the costs needed each year to cover expected ongoing repairs and replacements beyond ordinary maintenance assuming that all existing needs are met. Both existing1 and accrual needs are estimated through direct observation and inferences using the Observable Systems Approach. The approach was initially developed by Abt Associates Inc. for the 1985 HUD Modernization Needs Study and was refined by Abt Associates Inc., On-Site Insight and others for several later studies that include the 1990 Assessment of the HUD-Insured Multifamily Housing Stock, the 1995 Assessment of the HUD-Insured Multifamily Housing Stock, and the 1998 Formula Capital Study, as well as studies for individual housing authorities around the country. The Observable Systems Approach combines on-site inspection and rating of the condition of more than 300 mechanical, electrical, and architectural systems with an external costing program that provides repair or replacement costs for each system based on the observed condition. Examples of systems are roof coverings, building exterior walls, boilers, elevator shaftways, refrigerators, bathroom fixtures, landscaping, parking areas, site electrical distribution systems, and building power wiring. For each observed system a trained inspector recorded the action level required to bring the system back to original working order, a take-off measurement or count of the number of times each system is present (for example the number of elevators or windows per building or the square footage of the landscaped and parking areas), and the system’s expected remaining useful life. Inspection-based existing needs are estimated using the repair or replacement costs for each system based on observed condition, multiplied by the number of times the system is present. Annual accrual costs are the costs needed each year over the next twenty years to repair/replace systems that reach the end of their useful life that year, assuming that all inspection-based existing needs are addressed. In any year that a system has reached its expected life, its repair/replace cost is added into the accrual total for that year. The study presents the average accrual costs over the next twenty years. 1 Throughout the document “existing needs” refer to the inspection-based portion of capital needs. The terms are used interchangeably. Abt Associates Inc. Revised Final Report ii The inspection process excludes certain categories of costs because of the high costs of collecting data. The study did not obtain inspection-based estimates of capital needs for modifying units to comply with the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS), lead paint removal, or upgrades to improve energy and water efficiency. Instead, estimates for these components of costs are obtained through other means and added to the inspection-based estimates to obtain the total estimate of capital needs. Study Sample The study findings are based on inspections at a nationally representative probability sample of 548 properties in 140 housing authorities. The sample was selected from a file of public housing developments provided by HUD in early June 2008. The initial file contained 1,205,198 units in 7,404 Asset Management Projects (AMPs). To define the sampling universe, the study team made a number of exclusions from the file. The study is intended to estimate the capital needs of developments likely to remain in the stock, so we removed from the file 86,896 units with proposed and approved demolition/disposition plans, completed demolitions/dispositions, or HOPE VI implementation grants that were in progress as of June 2008. To avoid prohibitively expensive data collection costs, the study universe excluded certain categories of properties and certain categories of capital needs. The study universe excluded the 10,596 units located in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For the same reason, the universe excluded 27,927 units in 278 developments identified in the HUD PIC system as “low density” scattered-sites (fewer than 1.5 units per building). Such developments were too expensive to inspect for the number of units they contain. Finally, as was done in the 1998 study, we also removed 218 units in 12 Turnkey developments from the study universe. The final sampling universe included 1,079,561 units in 6,744 AMPs. During the data collection process, we identified additional properties that were excluded from the inspection universe: units in demolished developments, units in developments no longer owned by the PHA, units in low-density scattered-site developments, units