NYCHA Tenants in Boerum Hill Balk at Plans to Build Market-Rate Apartments
Tenants of Wyckoff Gardens reacted negatively to the city’s announcement last week of plans to build a new half-market-rate, half-affordable apartment building on two parking lots at the Boerum Hill project, reported the Daily News. Though tenants received a prerecorded call from NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye on Wednesday evening in advance of the official announcement, Wyckoff residents felt that the…
Tenants of Wyckoff Gardens reacted negatively to the city’s announcement last week of plans to build a new half-market-rate, half-affordable apartment building on two parking lots at the Boerum Hill project, reported the Daily News. Though tenants received a prerecorded call from NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye on Wednesday evening in advance of the official announcement, Wyckoff residents felt that the call left out some salient details.
The recording did not explain that a new apartment tower would soon rise on Wyckoff grounds, or that the building would contain roughly 300 market-rate units and an equal number of affordable ones. Tenants learned the details of the development from the media and drew their own conclusions.
“How are you going to have people here paying $200, $300 rent, then you’ve got tenants in a brand new building paying $1,500, $2,000?” one Wyckoff Gardens resident told the Daily News. “I think they’re trying to force us out.”
Wyckoff Gardens is in a gentrified area of Boerum Hill bordering on Carroll Gardens and Gowanus. NYCHA selected the site precisely because it will be able to charge higher rents for the market-rate apartments.
But tenants fear that adding even more people to the neighborhood will further skew amenities toward the wealthy and away from what current residents could reasonably afford.
[Source: Daily News]
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I’m not surprised at the possibility of some people paying closer to market rate and $1500 and above, while others are paying $200 or so. If anything, it makes sense in light of what is already happening. There are people currently living in NYCHA housing who earn way above the income threshold, apparently because the NYCHA doesn’t check income eligibility once residents are in their apartments:
http://www.govexec.com/management/2015/08/one-public-housing-family-new-york-city-had-annual-income-nearly-500000-2013/119108/. So why not make it above-board?
So I say, make it above-board from the start and bring in higher income people. If the NYCHA has the space, create market-rate housing and generate higher incomes. From what I understand, the NYCHA needs it.
The lack of a nearby supermarket is hot topic that transcends income levels. Maybe residents are dependent on their cars to travel to grocery stores such as Pathmark and Fairway. The closing of the Met on Smith really hurt and the Met on Henry doesn’t deliver to me.
Any word from Steve Levin and the others? I know there was a proposal in Lander’s Bridging Gowanus presentation that the lots could be used for senior housing so that larger apartments could be freed up for families.
This impacts all of us as does the Fortis LICH development and the Gowanus rezoning. But whatever.
What, you don’t go to C-Town on Bond & Butler? You’re missing out!
Someone made comment that some people pay $200 or $300 a month. You can’t take that as fact nor generalize it
to most tenants. But good chance there are some since people often pay a % of their income. So an 78 y.o. collecting SOc.Sec and little else with about $1000 income before adjustments for medical, etc may pay about that amount. And these public housing buildings have a large number of elderly living in them.
Yeah – I know a woman who lives in one of the BH housing project with her mother and two children. She pays well over $1,000 rent and works three jobs to support her family. I don’t think $200-$300 is the norm, probably the old timers.
Some of the hateful, Trump-style comments above really make you wonder if the city can be (remain?) both diverse and desirable. Some people just resent the idea of working-class folk remaining in the areas where they have lived for decades, even if it’s in the style of unfancy NYCHA housing.
“Community groups are really the only thing we as citizens have to force governments and developers to build responsibly” REALLY? LOL. I have yet to see any community group, or even CB to “force” developers to build responsibly.
I second that. They can live forever in a $390 flat, at tthe expense of the taxpayer who has to work until he is 65
Every neighborhood should be concerned about what is being built. I applaud these citizens for being concerned.
Community groups are really the only thing we as citizens have to force governments and developers to build responsibly. And because people are poor and pay “$200-300 does not mean that they don’t have full citizenship and “have anything to complain about.” Further, the majority of NY’ers do now own land and lack of ownership does not mean that they should not participate in the development of this city.