Affordable Housing

October 21, 2015

POLL: Will the Sale of Stuy Town to Blackstone Make It a More or Less Desirable Place to Live?

The hot topic right now in the real estate world is undoubtedly the $5.3 billion sale of Stuyvesant Town to the Blackstone Group and Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge. Aside from the huge sum and the fact that the apartment complex has been long-plagued, what makes this deal so huge is that the new owners agreed to […]

October 20, 2015

Blackstone Buys Stuy Town for $5.3 Billion, Will Preserve Affordable Housing

By Dana Schulz

The saga of Stuyvesant Town continues. The Real Deal reports that the Blackstone Group has partnered with Canadian investment firm Ivanhoe Cambridge to buy Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.3 billion, just slightly under 2006's $5.4 billion sale. Currently, more than half of the 11,200 apartments in the long-plagued complex (which was built under Robert Moses as affordable housing for veterans returning from WWII) are market rate. And as TRD notes, "As part of the new agreement with the city, Blackstone will reserve 4,500 units at the complex for middle-income families for the next 20 years... An additional 500 units will be slated for low-income families, and Blackstone will not attempt a condominium conversion at the complex." In order to keep the affordable units, the city will provide $225 million in funding; give Blackstone a $144 million low-interest loan through the Housing Development Corporation; and waive $77 million in taxes.
Find out more about the deal

October 16, 2015

New Renderings of Handel Architects’ Torqued 43-Story Rental Underway Near Grand Central

By Ondel Hylton

Groundwork on BLDG Management's 43-story rental tower at 222 East 44th Street is quickly moving forward now that the large block-through parking garage that occupied the site has been removed. The 441,000-square-foot development situated midblock between Second and Third Avenues will house 429 residential units, 87 of which will be deemed affordable. East 44th Street is among the most densely built streetscapes in the city, and will be more so once three other high-rises projects on the stretch are complete. But as 6sqft reported in August, the 556-foot-tall, Handel Architects-designed development employs a unique massing where its elevations are torqued away from the street wall, granting additional light and air to residents.
This way for more details and renderings

Affordable Housing Lottery Launched for Bjarke Ingels’ Epic Pyramid, VIA 57 West

Construction shot © 6sqft

October 3, 2015

Affordable Housing Lottery Launched for Bjarke Ingels’ Epic Pyramid, VIA 57 West

By Ondel Hylton

Applications are now being accepted for the 142 affordable apartments in Bjarke Ingels' tetrahedron-shaped rental building dubbed VIA 57 West, aka "the Pyramid Building." By downloading applications here, you and 141 other lucky families may have the chance to live in a future landmark that is already turning out to be the most audacious rental building ever built in the city. The massive, half-block-long development will contain a total of 709 units, of which 20 percent will be deemed affordable. Subsidized rents range from $565/month studios for single-person households making between $19,222 - $24,200 annually, to three-bedroom apartments going for $1,067/month for three- to six-person households.
More construction shots and the full pricing breakdown

September 22, 2015

Americans Are Spending More on Rent and There’s No Relief in Sight

By Dana Schulz

Complaining about high rents is nothing new for New Yorkers, but we're actually not alone in our misery. According to a new study from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and Enterprise Community Partners, reported in the Washington Post, "nearly 15 million [U.S.] households could be 'severely cost-burdened' by 2025, meaning they'll be spending more than half their money on housing." Today, that statistic applies to 11.2 million households (one in four households), which increased by three million since 2012.
What's leading to this staggering rise?

New Report Says Landmarked Districts Don’t Protect Affordable Housing

Historic brownstones in Brooklyn Heights via City Realty

September 15, 2015

New Report Says Landmarked Districts Don’t Protect Affordable Housing

By Dana Schulz

The war wages on between the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and citywide preservationists. Many thought the contention between the groups over whether or not historic districts lessen affordable housing was a personal sentiment of former REBNY president Steven Spinola. But his successor John Banks has released a new report that claims landmarking doesn't protect affordable housing. The report looks at the number of rent-stabilized units in landmarked and non-landmarked districts between 2007 and 2014, finding that "citywide, landmarked properties lost rent stabilized units (-22.5%) at a much higher rate (-5.1%) than non-landmarked properties." Of course preservationists quickly fired back. Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) calls the study "bogus" and says it does nothing to address how many units would have been lost had these areas not been landmarked.
More on the report

September 2, 2015

POLL: Would You Apply for an ‘Affordable’ $1,500/Month Studio in My Micro NY?

By Dana Schulz

Yesterday, we reported that My Micro NY, the city’s first micro apartment complex, was accepting applications for its affordable units, which account for 22 of the building’s 55 studios. Located at 335 East 27th Street on the border of Gramercy and Kips Bay, the building has units that range in size from 260 to 360 square feet. One person […]

September 1, 2015

NYC’s First Micro Apartment Complex Now Accepting Applications, Units $950/Month

By Dana Schulz

We knew this day was quickly approaching; just a couple of months ago, we reported that My Micro NY (also known as Carmel Place), the city's first micro apartment complex, was fully stacked, reaching its 120-foot height at 335 East 27th Street on the border of Gramercy and Kips Bay. Now, Brick Underground reports that the $17 million development began accepting applications this morning for its 260- to 360-square-foot affordable studios. According to the site, the available units are "11 $950/month studios for one person earning between $34,526 and $48,350, or two people making between $34,526 and $55,250; and three $1,492/month studios for one person making between $53,109 and $78,650, or two people making between $53,109 and $89,830."
Find out how to apply here

August 24, 2015

Should Poor Neighborhoods Stay Poor to Avoid Gentrification? Mayor De Blasio Speaks Out

By Michelle Cohen

Recently on the Brian Lehrer radio show on WNYC, Mayor De Blasio addressed questions about the effects inclusionary development–i.e. giving developers the green light to build market rate housing if they set aside 25-30 percent of the units for low- and middle-income residents–has on the quality of life in lower-income neighborhoods. A growing concern among housing activists is that reliance on this kind of inclusionary zoning leads to gentrification that pushes out the lower income residents due to the 70-75 percent of market rate units bringing new, wealthy residents and new businesses that will cater to them.
Hear what the mayor has to say

Affordable Housing

Want to Enter an Affordable Housing Lottery? You’ll Be up Against 696 Other Applicants

Photo via Wiki Commons

August 4, 2015

Want to Enter an Affordable Housing Lottery? You’ll Be up Against 696 Other Applicants

By Dana Schulz

Photo via Wiki Commons According to a new report from the Daily News, for every affordable apartment offered through the city's housing lotteries since 2013, there were 696 applicants, leaving you with a measly 0.14 percent chance of being selected. "All told, there were 2.9 million applications for 4,174 affordable units available from 72 lotteries run by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)," says the News, yet another signifier that average New Yorkers are struggling to pay ever-increasing rents.
Find out more here

Airbnb Is Gobbling Up 20 Percent of Apartments in Popular Manhattan and Brooklyn Neighborhoods

By Dana Schulz

As if it wasn't challenging enough to find a reasonable apartment in New York City, Airbnb is now taking up 20 percent of available units in popular Manhattan and Brooklyn zip codes, reports the Daily News. According to a study from New York Communities for Change and Real Affordability For All, the East Village is the most affected, with 28 percent of its apartments being rented as illegal hotel rooms on Airbnb. Additionally, the 20 most popular neighborhoods on the room sharing site "have lost 10% of their available housing units to Airbnb."
Find out more here

July 23, 2015

Construction Begins on John Catsimatidis’ Curvy Rental Tower at 86 Fleet Place in Fort Greene

By Ondel Hylton

Construction has begun on the final building of the four-tower development on the western edge of Fort Greene. The 32-story tower at 86 Fleet Place will house 440 rental units and will be the culmination of a 15-year redevelopment of a low-slung, Robert Moses-era retail strip along Myrtle Avenue. The developer of 86 Fleet, and three other sibling buildings to the east, is Red Apple Group's CEO and owner John Catsimatidis, who we might better remember as the billionaire Republican candidate in the last mayoral election and the owner of the oft-maligned Gristedes grocery store chain. According to the Wall Street Journal, Red Apple picked up the 2.5-acre, four-block site for $500,000 from Long Island University in 1982. The site spans 900 feet along the southern frontage of Myrtle Avenue, between Flatbush Avenue Extension and Ashland Place, and shares its blocks with the Toren condominium to the west and the Fred Trump-built University Towers complex to the south.
More details on the development

July 16, 2015

New Map Shows Where More Than 50,000 Rent Stabilized Apartments Have Been Lost

By Dana Schulz

At the end of last month, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to freeze rents for the first time on one-year leases for the city's more than one million rent stabilized apartments, which make up about 47% of the city's total rental units. They also increased rents on two-year leases by only two percent, the lowest in the board's 46 years. While this historic ruling is a huge win for tenants, it doesn't bring back the astonishing number of apartments that have been deregulated. Since 1994, nearly 250,000 units have lost rent regulation protections, and over these past eight years alone, New York City has lost more than 50,000 rent stabilized apartments. To put that staggering number into perspective, cartographer John Krauss has put together a handy map that shows where all of these 50,000 apartments are located (h/t Gothamist). Using scraped tax bills, he plotted changes in the number of rent-stabilized units, building by building.
How did your neighborhood fare?

July 15, 2015

One57 Received $66M in Tax Breaks in Exchange for Just 66 Units of Affordable Housing

By Diane Pham

If you need more proof that there are some serious flaws with the 421-a program, once again, look no further than One57. As reported by the Journal, the super-luxe tower was the beneficiary of a whopping $65.6 million tax cut, an abatement granted in exchange for a paltry $5.9 million contribution to help cover the cost of 66 affordable apartments in the Bronx. That means your tax dollars subsidized apartments at nearly $1 million per unit—the highest known subsidy under the program—when affordable units on average cost a mere $179,000 apiece. It's estimated that the generous cut could have provided for 367 affordable apartments. The findings came from the latest review by the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO).
FInd out more here

Affordable Housing

July 13, 2015

New Video Reveals How SHoP’s 626 First Avenue Will Dance into Midtown’s East River Skyline

By Ondel Hylton

SHoP Architects' copper-clad fraternal pair of towers is finally rising along the East River, and a handful of newly uncovered images and a fly-through video reassure us that this dancing couple will be the boldest addition to the East River skyline in decades. Developed by Michael Stern's JDS Development Group, the nearly one-million-square-foot project, now known by its address 626 First Avenue, will contain a whopping 800 rental units, placing it in the league of other recent mega-rental developments such as Two Trees' Mercedes House (864 units), Silverstein's River Place (921 rentals), and Moinian's Sky (1,175 units). Like these others, JDS is promising to provide an extravagant amenity package that they claim "will set a new benchmark for rental developments."
Watch the video and find out everything 626 First Avenue will offer

July 13, 2015

West Chelsea’s Tallest Tower Rises and Finally Reveals Itself

By Ondel Hylton

Residential construction along the High Line continues at full steam as a rash of activity along the park's northern extents rises higher and larger than earlier developments farther south. To provide a gradual transition from mid-rise West Chelsea to the enormous skyscrapers planned for the Far West Side, the Bloomberg administration in 2005 allowed more generous zoning between West 28th and 30th streets along Tenth and Eleventh avenues. Earlier this week Curbed, via ILNY's Flickr photostream, gave us our first look at West Chelsea's future tallest structure, a 425-foot rental tower at 319 Tenth Avenue that is part of a trio of buildings being developed by Long Island-based Lalezarian Properties.
Take a look at this new tower and learn more about it

July 8, 2015

Lawsuit Against City Wants to End Affordable Housing Allotments to Certain Communities

By Dana Schulz

Currently, the city allots half of its new affordable housing stock to residents of the specific community district where the project is being built and who meet the income requirements. But the Anti-Discrimination Center says this "community preference" policy violates the 1968 Fair Housing Act, "which prohibits discrimination in housing sales, rentals and financing based on race or national origin," according to an article today in the Wall Street Journal. The New York-based group filed a suit against the city on these grounds, claiming that it adds to existing segregation patterns. If they are successful, the verdict would undoubtedly impact Mayor de Blasio's plan of adding 80,000 new affordable housing units in the next ten years.
More details ahead

June 30, 2015

Rent Guidelines Board Approves Freezes on One-Year Leases for First Time in History

By Diane Pham

In a historic decision made last night, the Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-2 last night to freeze rents for the first time on one-year leases for New York City’s more than one million rent-stabilized apartments. The board, entirely appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, also moved to increase rents on two-year leases by just two percent, the lowest in the board's 46-year existence. The decision follows last week's lackluster vote at the state level to only extend but not strengthen rent regulations. "Cuomo betrayed us, the RGB can save us," tenants chanted at the meeting.
Find out more here

June 29, 2015

‘Poor Doors’ No Longer Allowed with New Rent-Regulation Bill

By Diane Pham

Thanks to a provision added to the newly extended and altered 421-a tax abatement passed last week, developers looking to segregate their wealthy tenants from their affordable rate renters will have to think again. According to The Post, Mayor de Blasio inserted a reform into the tax program plan that would ban the practice in which developers build a separate entrance for folks occupying the cheaper, below market-rate apartments in their buildings—better known as "poor doors."
More on the move here

2,000 NYCHA Apartments Are Vacant Despite 270,000-Name Waiting List

Photo via Wiki Commons

June 25, 2015

2,000 NYCHA Apartments Are Vacant Despite 270,000-Name Waiting List

By Dana Schulz

Photo via Wiki Commons For many New Yorkers, public housing is the only affordable way to live in the city, but despite an ever-growing waiting list, thousands of these homes are sitting empty, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal about an audit of NYCHA by Comptroller Scott Stringer. At a release of the findings yesterday at the Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses in Brooklyn, Stringer said: "Even though 270,000 New Yorkers are on the waiting list for housing, desperate to put a roof above their heads, we found that NYCHA is sitting on over 2,000 apartments they identify as vacant." The audit shows that 1,366 apartments are empty awaiting repairs, and 967 are between tenants.
More audit findings ahead

June 8, 2015

Harlem Rents Jump 90 Percent over the Past 12 Years, Bed-Stuy Not Much Better at 63 Percent

By Dana Schulz

Take everything you think you know about "affordable" alternatives to pricey neighborhoods and throw it out the window. This map from the Community Service Society (first shared by the Daily News) analyzes newly released census data that compares median rents between 2002 and 2014. The data is drawn from a New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Urban Development survey of 18,000 New Yorkers every three years who had recently moved, which "eliminates the tendency of lower rents paid by long-time tenants to smooth out market changes and mask the changes that affect tenants who are looking for a place to live," according to CSS. The report shows that rents citywide have increased 32 percent over the past 12 years, not a new or surprising figure. But it also shows drastic increases in neighborhoods that have been traditionally thought of as more affordable. Central Harlem saw the biggest jump at 90 percent; the average rent in 2002 for new residents was $821 and now it's skyrocketed to $1,560. Other no-longer-affordable neighborhoods are Bed-Stuy at a 63 percent increase and Washington Heights/Inwood at 55 percent. The other 'hoods topping the list include less surprising areas like Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO/Fort Greene at 59 percent and Williamsburg/Greenpoint at 53 percent.
More findings from the report

May 19, 2015

Mayor’s Plan to Revamp the City’s Public Housing Addresses Disrepair and Need for Revenue

By Michelle Cohen

Mayor de Blasio is expected to announce today the rollout of a ten-year plan to improve the city's debt-and-disrepair-riddled public housing. According to the New York Times, plan items include–perhaps most notably–the leasing of land within a number of housing complexes to developers; other items include the transference of some New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) employees (and the $90 million a year it costs the agency to pay them) to other city agencies and increased rents as well as higher parking fees for residents.
Find out how the mayor plans to shore up the city's public housing

City Council Announces New Task Force on Tracking and Preserving Affordable Housing

Image by Jorbasa Fotografie / Flickr

May 14, 2015

City Council Announces New Task Force on Tracking and Preserving Affordable Housing

By Michelle Cohen

City councilman Mark Levine announced Wednesday the creation of the Affordable Housing Preservation Taskforce, which will track existing affordable units across the city on the brink of becoming market rate. The task force is the latest in an effort to address the monumental task of preserving the city's affordable housing. According to Crain's NY, the 14-member task force, which will be led by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, will work with residents, landlords and nonprofits to identify buildings headed toward market rate rent status. Rent regulation, for example, stipulates that rent can only be raised by a certain percentage each year as set by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board.
More on the new task force

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