Partnership Great News for Affordable Housing
Finally! A large provider of lower-income housing has teamed up with a high-end architect to create a batch of 117 townhouses along Jamaica Bay that will embrace design and bring a dose of urban planning reality to an end of the market that has suffered at the hands of cheap developers and small thinkers for…
Finally! A large provider of lower-income housing has teamed up with a high-end architect to create a batch of 117 townhouses along Jamaica Bay that will embrace design and bring a dose of urban planning reality to an end of the market that has suffered at the hands of cheap developers and small thinkers for too long. Alexander Gorlin, a SoHo architect responsible for both Daniel Libeskind’s TriBeCa apartment and the Congregation Orach Chaim synagogue on the UES, is planning a series of modular, colorful homes that will range in size from 1,600 square feet to 3,200 square feet and in price from $180,000 to $450,000.
In addition to dispensing with the inexpensive equals low-quality, the project challenges some of the traditional underpinnings of affordable home building in the City over the past couple of decades. Recognizing what a disaster it has been putting driveways in front of townhouses (as Nehemiah and countless mom-and-pop developers have done to the great detriment of the urban fabric), Gorlin is placing them in the rear. “It’s better to have the front door open directly to the street,” he said. “The sidewalk, not the driveway, becomes a place to meet and talk.” Even if the end product is not to everyone’s taste (what design is?), the attitude alone is a huge step forward for Brooklyn–and the city as whole.
Affordable Houses Infused with Color [NY Times]
I’M ALL FOR THE AFFORDABLE HOUSES BUT; IT’S NOT AFFORDABLE IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO APPLY. I HAVE YET TO SEE ANY INFORMATION FOR AN APPLICATION. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO APPLY.
QkorBK,
That’s not true. There are many places in the country like Atlanta, Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, the list goes on and on, where housing is still cheap.
Why you lucky LOTTERY winners get tax payer subsidized housing? It’s not fair unless it’s available to EVERYONE, which simply is not possible.
CAPITALISM is the only fair solution. Move somewhere else, if you can’t afford NYC. If you can’t afford to move, you sure as hell can’t afford a TAX PAYER subsidized $400,000 house!
The lack of housing for families making a decent income, who may not be rich or have assets from the pre-real estate boom and dot.com era, is a serious problem.
I am all for free-market and capitalism, but its gotten to the point where prices in even far-flung or less desirable nabes don’t make economic sense. All that’s left is expensive housing hastily made of plywood and brick siding for families who make a decent income, but not low enough to be considered poor or high enough to pay for housing north of a million dollars.
IMHO, the lack of options for the middle-class is going to the biggest driving factor of the impending real estate downturn.
sorry- the above post is mine. for some reason it didn’t register my name. Weird.
Actually I think she has hiccups 🙂
But doesn’t this prove that you can do affordable housing that is interesting and upscale looking? Of course, first you have to care, and many developers don’t.
As fa as moving to Newark, why would we want to send so much of our tax base to New Jersey? In case some of you don’t get it, there are hundreds of working class people who can’t afford to find decent housing no matter how hard they work, or how many jobs. They pay taxes and are an enormous part of the economic engine that runs NY. And works in NY. And eats, and spends its money in NY.
Like it or not, long time residents are invested in this city, and it is their home. They have every right to be able to live here- it shouldn’t be a matter of how much you can pay. If you object to the way poor people live, maybe you should try improving the condition under which they are forced to live. The failure of subsidized housing is not the tenant, its the failure of the Dept. of Housing to make sure they get what they pay for.
Sorry! Computer had a regurgitation problem. Didn’t even get to finish my thought, which is probably just as well.
My apologies.
Anon 5:45 at no time in the article or anywhere else did anyone say that people had won a lottery and got free housing, nor did it say it was public housing, ie the projects. Subsidized housing, as 5:57 points out, is a different animal. Sometimes hard working people need a helping hand to get a start, not your fist pounding them further into the ground. Why do people who believe as you do always automatically believe someone is getting something for nothing, or that if they can’t make it, screw ’em, “move to Newark”? I hope you are never
affordable housing developers are able to build where there is vacant land–which, today, usually means outer borough. a decade ago it might also have meant harlem, but not so much anymore.
also, this is not public housing. it is subsidized; there’s a difference.
Looks pretty cool for Unfair Housing.
I wish I won the housing lottery and you taxpayers subsidized a nice new 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom townhouse for me!
Public Housing is a complete and utter failure. If you can’t afford NYC, move to Newark!