Transforming urban corridors and revitalizing public housing are priorities for Polina Bakhteiarov.
During her career, the 31-year-old has gained deep experience in both Washington, D.C., and New York. She found her passion for development when she participated in the Capital City Fellows Program in D.C. and then built the case to be hired full time.
In the District, she had her first foray into public housing with a revitalization initiative between the mayor’s office and the D.C. Housing Authority.
“That’s when I found my niche,” she says. “Being part of the New Communities Initiative really allowed me to gain a specialized set of skills, particularly around public housing recapitalization.”
Shortly thereafter, she moved north to hone those skills with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), where she started as the inaugural deputy director of preservation and special projects and later became the director of real estate development. At NYCHA, Bakhteiarov played an integral part in rolling out the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.
She led NYCHA’s real estate development preservation team in repositioning distressed public housing units via subsidy conversion to Section 8, closing on the RAD conversion of more than 5,000 units and setting up another 10,000 units for conversion over the next 18 to 24 months.
“Prior to NYCHA, I had never been able to come in and build something from the ground up,” she says. “We started from scratch—just a 5,000-unit RAD application—and so it was great to really learn the dynamics of the New York market working with all types of stakeholders on the city, state, and federal levels.”
Now she’s expanding her skill set. In July, Bakhteiarov moved to the Newark Community Economic Development Corp., the primary economic development catalyst for New Jersey's largest city, as senior vice president of business development.
“I see my purpose in service to others, and I truly enjoy serving through my expertise and strategic thinking around how to solve some of these issues we’re having on the preservation side in the affordable housing space,” she says.
Outside of work, she is a board member of Unique People Services, a Bronx, N.Y.–based nonprofit that provides supportive housing. She also is passionate about diversity and inclusion in the STEM fields.
Bakhteiarov isn’t shy to share her goals for the future. “I would love to run a housing authority sooner rather than later,” she says.
