Mixed-income project will replace welfare center and provide more than 300 apartments and a day care center. On April 6, 2011, the City Council unanimously approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s proposal to allow L+M Development and Artimus Construction to develop a 313-unit affordable housing project on a City-owned lot adjacent to the Harlem River in Manhattan. The lot is bounded by Park Avenue, Harlem River Drive, and 131st Street, and is occupied by a four-story former welfare intake center.

L+M and Artimus will develop the project, known as Harlem River Point, through HPD’s low-income and mixed-income rental programs. Approximately 271 of the project’s apartments will be marketed to families earning up to 60 percent of the area median income, and the remaining units will be marketed to families earning between 90 and 100 percent of the area median income. The nearly 300,000  sq.ft. development will include 2,340  sq.ft. of commercial space and a 10,000 sq.ft. day care center. The project will feature sound-attenuating windows and acoustic walls along its perimeter in order to buffer noise from Harlem River Drive and a nearby elevated railway. (more…)

Tenants displaced by project can purchase or rent affordable apartments in new building. On April 6, 2011, the City Council approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s proposal to allow BFC Partners and The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board to redevelop three lots at the corner of Second Avenue and East 1st Street in the East Village. The development team will build a twelve-story, 79-unit affordable housing project with ground floor commercial  space. The project will replace two existing mixed-use buildings at 9 and 11-1 Second Avenue between East 1st and East Houston Streets.

Sixteen of the project’s apartments will be permanently affordable for households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income. The proposal amended the City’s Inclusionary Housing Program to permit nine tenants currently residing in the existing buildings to purchase or rent affordable units in the  new development. The four affordable units not reserved for the existing tenants will be sold to income-eligible individuals for $180,000 each. (more…)

Developers would offer home ownership opportunities to low-income tenants displaced by twelve-story project. On February 16, 2011, the City Planning Commission heard testimony on the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s proposal to allow BFC Partners and the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) to build a twelve-story affordable housing development in the East Village. The 65-unit project would replace two mixed-use buildings at 9 through 17 Second Avenue between East 1st and East Houston Streets. Thirteen apartments would be permanently affordable and marketed to households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income, and the remaining 52 would be offered as market-rate rental units. To facilitate the project, HPD requested a UDAAP designation and an amendment to the City’s Inclusionary Housing Program.

BFC owns a three-story building on the site at the corner of Second Avenue and East 1st Street. It is occupied by four residential tenants and two commercial tenants, including the Mars Bar saloon. UHAB owns a five-story building to the south that includes five residential tenants, three vacant units, and vacant ground floor space. BFC and UHAB plan to offer the buildings’ nine residential tenants the opportunity to purchase affordable units in the new building. (more…)

HPD-funded affordable housing projects approved without opposition. On November 30, 2010, the City Council approved separate proposals by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to allow private developers to build two permanently affordable supportive housing projects on city-owned properties in the East Village.

HPD selected the Lower East Side People’s Mutual Housing Association (LESPMHA) to develop a 46-unit eight-story building on a vacant site at 535 East 11th Street, and the Phipps Houses Group to build a 45-unit five-story building on a site occupied by a vacant four-story building at 706 East 9th Street. Both projects will provide housing for formerly homeless individuals with psychiatric disabilities. (more…)

Developer revised plan to include low-income apartments for women with children. On November 17, 2010, the City Council approved the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s revised proposal to allow Providence House to build a six-story supportive housing project at 329 Lincoln Road in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens section of Brooklyn. HPD recently demolished a four-story building on the site which had remained vacant for 30 years. Providence House’s original proposal included twenty studio apartments for single women transitioning from homeless shelters or prison, five studios for low-income single women earning less than 60 percent of the area’s median income, and one studio for the building’s superintendent. (more…)