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. (read more…)

HPD claimed that abandoned railway complicated the development of two lots. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development applied for use variances in order to construct a three-building affordable housing development on two vacant through-block lots zoned for manufacturing in the East Tremont section of the Bronx.

The Phipps Houses Group’s 141-unit project will include an eight-story residential building and a ten-story mixed-use building at 1155 East Tremont Avenue, and a ten-story mixed-use building located directly across the street at 1176 East Tremont Avenue. Both lots were previously occupied by the elevated New York, Westchester, and Boston Interurban Railway. Remnants of the abandoned train trestle, including several in-ground concrete supports, remain on both lots.

HPD claimed that the trestle remnants, subsurface contamination, and the area’s high water table would constrain a viable manufacturing use for the site. HPD estimated that it would cost a combined $6.1 million to clean up the sites and remove the railway remnants. HPD also claimed that the requested variances were necessary in order to provide the minimum number of apartments needed to maintain the project’s financial viability and fulfill the agency’s programmatic goals. (read more…)

New development would provide affordable housing while incorporating green design features. On October 7, 2008, the City Planning Commission unanimously approved the Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development’s plan to build a mixed-use, mixed-income development in the Melrose section of the Bronx. The proposed project, known as Via Verde/The Green Way, is a product of the New Housing New York Legacy Project competition, sponsored by HPD and the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The competition sought to inspire new forms of sustainable design for a mixed-use, mixed-income project on the irregularly shaped, City-owned parcel at East 156th St. and Brook Avenue. The winning plan, developed by Jonathan Rose Companies, Phipps Houses Group, Grimshaw Architects, and Dattner Architects, proposed a development that would range in height from three- to 20-stories and provide approximately 220 units of affordable housing, 8,532sq.ft. of retail and community space, and 27,700sq.ft. of open space.

The proposal includes three- to four-story townhouses, a six- to 14- story mid-rise building, and a 15- to 20-story tower that would wrap around two interior courtyards and an amphitheater. In addition, a series of gardens beginning in the courtyard would spiral up the structure through a series of green roofs. The Commission noted that the proposed design was sympathetic to the broad range of surrounding uses. The low-scale section of the proposed building would avoid shading the ballfields to the south, and the taller part of the building would be of similar height to an existing 18-story residential building to the east. (read more…)

Council member for the district supported projects. On May 30, 2007, the City Council approved two housing projects proposed for Harlem by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development despite residents’ criticisms over the affordable housing components.

HPD submitted a proposal by BRP Development for a 38-unit condominium project called The Savannah to be built at 2110 Frederick Douglass Boulevard. The nine-story mixed-use building would also include 5,273 sq.ft. of commercial space and 815 sq.ft. of community space. BRP proposed to reserve eight of the 38 residential units for persons with incomes at or below 80 percent of the area median income.

The second project, proposed for 21 West 128th Street, would contain 26 rental units in a six-story building to be developed by the Phipps Houses Group. The affordable housing plan called for eight units to be targeted to formerly homeless families and reserved for persons earning 30 percent of the median income. Phipps would also reserve the remaining 18 units for persons earning under 60 percent of the median income. (read more…)