Habitat for Humanity Wrapping Up on Halsey
The nine-family development being built by Habitat for Humanity on the corner of Halsey and Marcus Garvey looks just about done. As some readers may recall, this project is distinguished by the fact that it’s using a cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly construction approach known as Insulating Concrete Forms. While the aesthetics of the building itseld aren’t particularly…
The nine-family development being built by Habitat for Humanity on the corner of Halsey and Marcus Garvey looks just about done. As some readers may recall, this project is distinguished by the fact that it’s using a cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly construction approach known as Insulating Concrete Forms. While the aesthetics of the building itseld aren’t particularly compelling, it’s pretty darn good as far as affordable housing goes: The scale is perfectly contextual, the windows and ceiling heights aren’t too small and they even made an attempt at a cornice (though we wish they’d ditched those railings on the roof). In order to qualify for one of these units, “Families must be living in either substandard or overcrowded housing conditions or have a severe rent burden (pay more than 50 percent of household income for rent).”
Current Projects: Brooklyn [Habitat NYC] GMAP P*Shark DOB
Checking In on Habitat’s Halsey Homes [Brownstoner]
Habitat for Humanity on Halsey [Brownstoner]
Blogga please! No one can argue with the beauty of Habitat but seriously, if any of the “bad” builders had put up this same building the posts would have been pretty ugly.
I participated w/ my compnay in building out this property alongside some of the owners to be. The concept is great and the experience was rewarding for me. I really like the concept of sweat equity!
From the picture I tend to agree with the write-up: while certainly not fancy the design does many things right: shadow lines created by a variety of materials in different planes, windows that aren’t too small, and a facade treatment (including the cornice) that addresses the specifics of a corner siting.
Railings would have been OK if they had enjambed the cornice cut-out on either side, but one can see they were built offsite, carried up and bolted on.
Note that the city did not build this. These days, the trend is to rely on the private sectors and non-profits to build affordable housing. Habitat is an interesting program because families have to put in sweat equity and help build the house they will live in and end up owning, rather than renting. And there are many factors in choosing participants, aside from income.
http://www.habitatnyc.org/own_criteria.html
Bill DeBlasio should take note of this as he tries to tell us that the only way to make afordable housing in Brooklyn is to cram 14 story towers into Gowanus. Trading a rezoning of Carroll Gardens for and out of scale Gowanus is the same deal with the development devil that was made in Park Slope and 4th Ave.
Wake up Bill. Is more wild west development like that on 4th Ave what you want to bne your lagacy
greenscam, i was thinking the same thing, while it’s nice when the city actually takes an interest in fixing up things like the park entrance, that money is so much more urgently needed for worthwhile affordable housing. let’s hope this type of project continues to pop up around here.
and KD, i doubt anybody would look at net income over gross income, there are too many factors in net income to use it as a base.
Looks great…
Take that exorbant $1.3 million earmarked for that Ft Greene (my nabe) park entrance (doen’t really need it and shouldn’t cost that much anyway), and build more of these buildings, demolish ALL of the projects in the city, and give the apts to those who really need them…job placement, higher education assistance, etc. wouldn’t hurt either.
Is that 50% of gross or net income? This always confuses me because almost everyone I know pays close to 50% of their take home pay for housing.
I’m glad they are building affordable housing and I really hope it goes to truly deserving families and not ones that simply work “off the books”.
I’m not big on the railings either, but if there isn’t a full parapet, then the railing is required by the building code.