The city's plan to have a developer build new residential buildings in the parking lots at the Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses that are owned by the New York City Housing Authority has run into community opposition.
According to an article in the current edition of Chelsea Now by Heather Murray "a scheduled meeting between Community Board 4 and a development team planning to build affordable housing on two public housing sites in Chelsea never materialized last week after the developer's latest proposal showed not enough affordable units in the current plan."
A flyer distributed recently announced that Community Board 4's Housing, Health and Human Services Committee would discuss and vote Thurs., March 19, on the plans, but the article said that no vote took place and that committee co-chair Joe Restuccia said that Artimus Construction, the designated developed, was asked not to come to the meeting, adding that his committee met with the developer's representatives several times but that the latest plan included too few affordable apartments.
The article said that "Artimus proposed to build 108 units for those earning more than $86,000 a year - 50 at 165 percent of area median income (AMI) and 58 at 195 percent of the AMI--and 61 for those making less than $65,000 a year," adding that an "earlier proposal, which was rejected, would have provided 90 affordable apartments - 36 at 50 percent AMI and 54 at 125 percent AMI - and 89 apartments at 195 percent of AMI."
"The project is not working financially," Restuccia told Chelsea Now, adding that the board wants "to make the project work" but "there's simply no public financing for middle-income housing."
The city plan was announced in September 2007 and then called for all of the units, according to the article, "to be permanently affordable to families of four earning between $56,700 and $117,000 annually, or to single households earning between $39,700 and $81,900." The housing authority, the article said, "expects Artimus to pay $5 million for each of the parking lots."
Miguel Acevedo, a member of the community board and a resident at Fulton Houses, said that "at no time were they going to be market rate," adding that at 195 percent of AMI, rents would be close to $4,000 a month, which he said was "not affordable for his neighbors or their children."
"Negotiations," the article maintained, "on the projects have been colored by the loss affordable housing advocates felt in November after the City Council approved Atlantic Development Group's proposal to build mixed-income units on the NYCHA-owned Harborview Terrace site in Hell's Kitchen. During Hudson Yards rezoning negotiations, NYCHA proposed selling off parking lots at Harborview Terrace and the Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses to developers to create more affordable housing and approximately $20 million in revenue for the housing authority. West Side affordable housing had advocates had objected to Atlantic's proposal to put market-rate units into an affordable housing development built on NYCHA-owned land. Detractors also argued that the project violated the commitment made to the community during the Hudson Yards rezoning that the site, along with Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses, be used primarily for permanently affordable housing."
The article did not discuss the propriety of the city destroying the "tower-in-a-park" concept of such public housing projects by permitting and encouraging that their open spaces be given over to new housing, much of it market-rate. Despite some anti-high admirers of Jane Jacobs, a planner whose legacy in New York is the extremely unattractive, low-rise, West Village Houses complex in the West Village, towers-in-a-park can be environmentally friendly, and have better views for more residents, according to some planners who believe that good urban planning is not necessarily measured only by "upfront" dollars.
According to an article in the current edition of Chelsea Now by Heather Murray "a scheduled meeting between Community Board 4 and a development team planning to build affordable housing on two public housing sites in Chelsea never materialized last week after the developer's latest proposal showed not enough affordable units in the current plan."
A flyer distributed recently announced that Community Board 4's Housing, Health and Human Services Committee would discuss and vote Thurs., March 19, on the plans, but the article said that no vote took place and that committee co-chair Joe Restuccia said that Artimus Construction, the designated developed, was asked not to come to the meeting, adding that his committee met with the developer's representatives several times but that the latest plan included too few affordable apartments.
The article said that "Artimus proposed to build 108 units for those earning more than $86,000 a year - 50 at 165 percent of area median income (AMI) and 58 at 195 percent of the AMI--and 61 for those making less than $65,000 a year," adding that an "earlier proposal, which was rejected, would have provided 90 affordable apartments - 36 at 50 percent AMI and 54 at 125 percent AMI - and 89 apartments at 195 percent of AMI."
"The project is not working financially," Restuccia told Chelsea Now, adding that the board wants "to make the project work" but "there's simply no public financing for middle-income housing."
The city plan was announced in September 2007 and then called for all of the units, according to the article, "to be permanently affordable to families of four earning between $56,700 and $117,000 annually, or to single households earning between $39,700 and $81,900." The housing authority, the article said, "expects Artimus to pay $5 million for each of the parking lots."
Miguel Acevedo, a member of the community board and a resident at Fulton Houses, said that "at no time were they going to be market rate," adding that at 195 percent of AMI, rents would be close to $4,000 a month, which he said was "not affordable for his neighbors or their children."
"Negotiations," the article maintained, "on the projects have been colored by the loss affordable housing advocates felt in November after the City Council approved Atlantic Development Group's proposal to build mixed-income units on the NYCHA-owned Harborview Terrace site in Hell's Kitchen. During Hudson Yards rezoning negotiations, NYCHA proposed selling off parking lots at Harborview Terrace and the Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses to developers to create more affordable housing and approximately $20 million in revenue for the housing authority. West Side affordable housing had advocates had objected to Atlantic's proposal to put market-rate units into an affordable housing development built on NYCHA-owned land. Detractors also argued that the project violated the commitment made to the community during the Hudson Yards rezoning that the site, along with Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses, be used primarily for permanently affordable housing."
The article did not discuss the propriety of the city destroying the "tower-in-a-park" concept of such public housing projects by permitting and encouraging that their open spaces be given over to new housing, much of it market-rate. Despite some anti-high admirers of Jane Jacobs, a planner whose legacy in New York is the extremely unattractive, low-rise, West Village Houses complex in the West Village, towers-in-a-park can be environmentally friendly, and have better views for more residents, according to some planners who believe that good urban planning is not necessarily measured only by "upfront" dollars.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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