Churches and Affordable Housing: A Holy Communion?
If you’re an affordable housing developer who can’t scare up a city-owned property to build on, where do you turn? In more and more cases, according to a new article in City Limits, you might eye church properties. Last year, the Dept. of Finance recorded 9,545 parcels owned by religious institutions that had exemptions from…
If you’re an affordable housing developer who can’t scare up a city-owned property to build on, where do you turn? In more and more cases, according to a new article in City Limits, you might eye church properties. Last year, the Dept. of Finance recorded 9,545 parcels owned by religious institutions that had exemptions from paying property taxes. As religious institutions look for ways to fund the rehabilitation of their houses of worship, many are cutting deals with developers who want to build affordable units on those institutions’ land. The article notes that about two-dozen such developments are in the planning stages. One that’s near completion is Dunn Development’s 50-unit affordable apartment building on a former parking lot owned by the Rugged Cross Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The church and Dunn formed a joint venture that bought the parking lot and air rights to the church, and Rugged Cross received $500,000 in a building fund to repair their church; plus, they’ll be able to buy the apartment building in 15 years for $1. On the negative side, it seems that while the spirit is willing for some churches, they end up selling their properties to market-rate builders that can offer them more money in the short term. Dunn says that while the Bed-Stuy church could have gotten 25 percent more from a market-rate developer, then they would not be able to keep their mission.”
Real Estate Revelations: Churches Weigh Deals [City Limits]
Photo of Rugged Cross courtesy of Dunn Development, who would like Brownstoner readers to know that the Fedders units are temporary.
i agree good job on the cornice.And look no balconies!
I’ve watched this building go up and have wondered what the story is. I think it’s a great building. I was really pleased they got a cornice up on top, and I think it tries within reason to be respectful to its surroundings, and it certainly looks better than 95% of all the developer in-fill crap going up around the area.
Just because housing is “affordable” doesn’t mean the tenants won’t be good neighbors. It would really seem the bigger factor at any level of rent is how well the landlord screens and selects tenants and then how well they run the building. We’ve had wealthy neighbors who were crazy and noisy and annoyed everyone in the building. Wealth alone sure didn’t cure them.
I just spoke to the developers because I was a bit concerned about who will be occupying the apartments and they just made it aware to me that the lottery is over, but they do an extensive back ground check, credit history, work references and criminal records and since the church will be involved that will come into consideration the person i spoke to also mentioned that they can not turn away welfare recipients but not that many applied which in my opinion is a good thing.
This is right in my neighborhood….
The building is completely finished i just hope that productive people are moving
i go by this building every day and it always drives me nuts that the windows are separated in groups of 2, 2, 3, 2 on one side. i guess it could be worse, esp for affordable housing.