Lead Paint
The inspection and abatement of lead paint in New Haven, N.H., homes could cost the city more than $90 million, according to the New Haven Independent. A brief from the city's former Health Director outlines the steep costs the city would face should an effort be made to remediate lead paint hazards in New Haven, where the majority of housing stock was built prior to lead paint's ban in 1978.
The cost estimates start at over $70 million, and balloon to nearly $700 million, depending on whether the cleanup in question concerns all leaded apartments or just those with children under six years old.
In recent years, the New Haven Health Department has taken a lax approach to enforcing the city’s lead poisoning protection laws, and legal aid lawyers have repeatedly sued them over it. This summer, in a case still working its way through court, a state judge rebuked city officials for deciding last November that city resources are too tight to follow through on a local mandate to fully inspect and abate lead hazards anytime a child’s blood lead levels exceed 5 micrograms per deciliter.
New Haven has roughly 50,000 units of housing, former Health Director Bryon Kennedy wrote, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Around 41,300 of those units, or 83%, were built before 1978, and therefore almost certainly still have lead paint. Around 6,530 city residences, or 13%, have children aged six years old or younger. And around 5,420 units, or 11%, were both built before 1978 and house a child six years old or younger.
Market-rate inspection costs, meanwhile, cost $300 per unit for testing paint and an additional $150 per unit for testing water or soil, he wrote. According to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Kennedy wrote, a multi-family house costs around $10,000 per unit to abate while a single-family house costs around $15,000 per unit to abate, leaving a weighted average of $12,310 per unit to abate lead hazards.
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