July 24, 2017

NYC picks developers to build 400 affordable housing units in Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan

The city has named developers to build affordable housing on 67 small, vacant, publicly-owned lots, like this rendering of a Bronx unit. (Courtesy of Curtis and Ginsberg Architects, LCP)

The city has selected developers to build 400 units of affordable housing on 67 small, vacant and publicly owned lots.

The lots — grouped together into seven clusters in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan — will be the sites of 100% affordable housing, Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer will announce Monday.

“One of the key drivers of the housing plan is the creative use of public land, which is in increasingly short supply,” Torres-Springer said.

“Through new programs, (Housing Preservation and Development) is looking to unlock the development of its remaining small sites scattered across the city’s neighborhoods.”
While such small lots can be tricky to develop, the city said it grouped multiple small parcels in the same neighborhoods together when considering developers, allowing them to develop more at once.

The projects are part of the housing agency’s New Infill Homeownership Opportunities Program and the Neighborhood Construction Program.

The seven chosen development teams include six nonprofit developers and two minority or women-owned firms.

The developers designated to do the work are: MHANY, Bronx Pro, East Brooklyn Congregations, Lemor Realty and Iris Development, JMR and Alembic Community Development, Fifth Avenue Committee and Habitat for Humanity, and Shelter Rock Builders.

The new units will be located in Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York in Brooklyn; Fordham and Melrose in the Bronx; and central Harlem in Manhattan.

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, for example, 21 vacant lots will be developed into a mix of two-family homes, three-family homes, and condo buildings by Shelter Rock.

Mayor de Blasio has pledged to create or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years.