Wondering About Newish Townhouses on Underhill
We were driving through Prospect Heights on Sunday when we noticed this development of townhouses on Underhill and Dean. They look to be of the same vintage as the ones Ratner built on Fulton in Fort Greene. Does anyone know how and when these came to be built? How about the quality of the interiors?…
We were driving through Prospect Heights on Sunday when we noticed this development of townhouses on Underhill and Dean. They look to be of the same vintage as the ones Ratner built on Fulton in Fort Greene. Does anyone know how and when these came to be built? How about the quality of the interiors? Have any sold in recent memory? GMAP
I think these won’t last either. What a waste of space. No imagination. Why does low cost housing always attract the lowest common denominator of architectural design. I liked the weed fields that were there before better. They served as the important proverbial “cautionary tale”
At least they seem to be holding together-unlike the lousy new housing HPD is involved in in East Harlem and East New York. Struggling families saddled with crumbling crapboxes.
Just slightly off topic, but you can bet much of the new construction going up in the nabe, and NYC as a whole, is done on the cheap, and what with the housing market unsteady, it’ll be done on the even-cheaper. Anyone remotely interested in buying these kind of properties – go get a good engineer – and I mean a pro -not a home inspector. Cost a couple hundred bucks more (my last was 600), but worth every last penny when you’re making what’s the biggest financial decision of your lives. Especially cause many of these boxes are warrantied for only a year (and built to start falling apart after that).
Funny, they don’t look Newish! 😉
Roberta is correct — they were indeed built by HPD as middle-income housing in what is the happy end to a story with a bumpy middle. The developer who built the townhouses on Dean St between Underhill and Vanderbilt and walked away from the project in the middle of the job — pocketing a serious amount of city $$ and leaving many of the residents with repair and maintenance issues but no one to address them. That’s why so many of the houses were boarded up. The situation lay fallow for years. Then HPD stepped in and got the project finished in 2002. The formula of owner-occupied housing plus rental income is a winner and the folks who live there got a great deal — good for them! My only grouse is that I have to believe there are models for new townhouse developments that are aesthetically more interesting yet still inexpensive to build. I’ve said it before but if the Europeans can do it, why can’t we?
I live across the street from these homes. They were built about five years ago and they were HPD homes. I think they were selling for about $360,000 (3 family). They were given out by lottery and there was a family minimum/maximum earnings cap. We applied but were told that the first people to get are those already living in the zip code. They are really nice inside (a little small for me). I think with these homes they must be owner occupied for a couple of years before they can be sold. But really nice people live there and they maintain their properties well.
You know, I have wondered about the row around the corner on Pacific (or is it Dean? no car, can’t check). 5 years ago, these houses, with driveways, were at least half boarded up, the other half occupied. The lots on Underhill and on the parallel block (dean?) had foundations dug but they were just sitting there. It looked like a late-80s project that failed.
We were there a few weeks ago, and now it looks like a success story. Anyone know the history?
Roberta