New York City Department Of Housing Preservation & Development

Greenpoint tower with outdoor pool opens lottery for 127 middle-income units, from $2,370/month

All images courtesy of NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development, unless otherwise noted

June 30, 2021

Greenpoint tower with outdoor pool opens lottery for 127 middle-income units, from $2,370/month

A housing lottery opened this week for 127 middle-income apartments at a brand new rental tower in Greenpoint. Two Blue Slip, one half of a pair of luxury towers developed by Brookfield Properties and Park Tower Group, is a 40-story building located on the waterfront at the northern end of the Brooklyn neighborhood. New Yorkers with combined household incomes between $81,258 and $192,400, or 130 percent of the area median income, can apply for the apartments, which start at $2,370/month studios, $2,542/month one-bedrooms, $3,063/month two-bedrooms, and $3,530/month three-bedrooms.
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Affordable Housing

First two rentals open at huge South Bronx housing complex La Central

Photo © Julienne Schaer

June 18, 2021

First two rentals open at huge South Bronx housing complex La Central

By Devin Gannon

The first two rentals at the five-building South Bronx complex La Central officially opened on Wednesday. The mixed-use towers, located at 556 and 600 Bergen Street in the borough's Melrose neighborhood, contain 500 units of housing, a new YMCA, studio space for BronxNet, and a rooftop farm operated by GrowNYC.
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NYC wants to offer renters alternatives to lump-sum security deposits

Photo by Jeffrey Blum on Unsplash

January 4, 2021

NYC wants to offer renters alternatives to lump-sum security deposits

By Devin Gannon

Before lawmakers passed sweeping rent reform legislation in 2019, New York City renters moving to a new apartment paid a hefty lump sum, typically including an application fee, broker fee, and a security deposit. With the new law limiting application fees to $20 (and broker fees next on the chopping block), city officials are now looking to make it even easier to move into a new home. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Housing Development Corporation last week issued a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) seeking companies that would provide alternatives to paying a security deposit all at once at city-financed affordable properties.
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Policy

All 950 units at city’s Gowanus housing development will be affordable

Rendering courtesy of Marvel Architects/SCAPE Landscape Architects

November 23, 2020

All 950 units at city’s Gowanus housing development will be affordable

By Devin Gannon

The city's proposed six-building residential development in Gowanus will be 100 percent affordable, officials announced last week. The Gowanus Green project, part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration's plan to rezone the Brooklyn neighborhood, will contain 950 units of affordable housing, with at least 50 percent designated to extremely low and very low-income households. Previously, the plan called for roughly 74 percent of units to fall below the market rate.
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NYC rolls out revamped affordable housing lottery system

Photo by Emiliano Bar on Unsplash

June 16, 2020

NYC rolls out revamped affordable housing lottery system

By Devin Gannon

New York City's highly competitive online affordable housing lottery system is getting a revamp to make applying for the income-restricted apartments easier. The city's Housing Preservation and Development on Tuesday rolled out a new web portal that aims to be more user-friendly, allowing applicants to view available lotteries on their smartphones and upload required documents online.
More here

March 10, 2020

City seeks ideas for two 100 percent affordable senior complexes on NYCHA land

By Devin Gannon

The city is looking to construct two affordable senior complexes with between 150 and 200 housing units each. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development on Friday released a request for proposals for two underused city-owned sites, one in the Bronx's Morrisania neighborhood and the other in Crown Heights in Brooklyn. The developments fall under Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration's "Seniors First" housing program, which aims to serve 30,000 senior households by 2026 through the creation and preservation of affordable housing.
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City updates housing lottery policy to ease process for immigrants and low-income New Yorkers

Via Creative Commons

August 21, 2019

City updates housing lottery policy to ease process for immigrants and low-income New Yorkers

By Devin Gannon

New Yorkers applying for affordable housing no longer need to provide credit scores or social security numbers, making it easier for low-income and undocumented immigrant households to qualify, the city announced Wednesday. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development expanded the guidelines of its affordable housing lottery policy to allow applicants to show 12 months of positive rental history instead of a credit check run by a landlord. This erases the need for adult household members to provide a social security number or an individual tax identification number.
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City withdraws plan for mixed-income tower proposed for Upper East Side playground

Previous rendering of the original project; Via NYCHA

June 17, 2019

City withdraws plan for mixed-income tower proposed for Upper East Side playground

By Devin Gannon

The New York City Housing Authority has ditched plans to build a private 47-story apartment building on top of a playground on the Upper East Side, agency officials said Friday. The original plan called for a 300-unit tower to replace the playground at the Holmes Tower public housing complex with half of the units affordable and the other half at market-rate, the latter meant to raise funds for repairs at the tower. The new plan for the site will increase the number of market-rate apartments in order to collect more money, NYCHA officials told THE CITY.
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Affordable Housing

See how five architecture firms designed affordable housing for small vacant lots in NYC

“More with Less,” a winning entry by Palette Architecture

May 15, 2019

See how five architecture firms designed affordable housing for small vacant lots in NYC

By Michelle Cohen

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the American Institute of Architects New York (AIANY) announced on Tuesday the selection of five New York City-based firms as finalists in the Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC design competition for small-scale, urban infill housing. As 6sqft previously reported, the program was organized by HPD and AIANY as a way to address the challenges associated with the design and construction of affordable housing on 23 lots of underutilized city-owned land. First announced by the city last year, the program falls under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Housing New York 2.0 plan. The winning proposals were selected by a panel of nine jurors and evaluated on their design, replicability, and construction feasibility. The finalists will advance to the final stage of the program.
See more of the finalists' designs

Find affordable NYC apartments you actually qualify for with this new tool

Via Creative Commons

April 4, 2019

Find affordable NYC apartments you actually qualify for with this new tool

By Devin Gannon

Apartment hunting in New York City is not easy. Figuring out who qualifies for the city's hundreds of income-restricted units (what even is AMI?) is another challenge entirely. In an attempt to streamline the process of finding affordable housing lotteries, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development this week unveiled a new tool that allows users to search by borough, household size, and income to find lotteries currently accepting applications.
Explore the tool

Proposed project would bring 167 affordable housing units to East New York using modular construction

By Devin Gannon

Hoping to create affordable housing more quickly and at a lower cost, New York City is turning to cutting-edge construction methods. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced on Monday plans to develop 167 affordable housing units in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York using modular construction. The $70 million project would become the first under Mayor Bill de Blasio's Housing New York 2.0 program to use this method of building on property owned by the city. As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, officials think modular construction could reduce the project's timeline by 25 to 30 percent.
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City calls on architects to design innovative affordable housing on super small lots

The city hopes to develop affordable housing on this lot at 829 Freeman Street in the Bronx; via Google Street View

February 4, 2019

City calls on architects to design innovative affordable housing on super small lots

By Devin Gannon

The city is calling on architects to help design innovative affordable housing on irregularly-shaped lots, the New York Times reported Monday. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development will launch a design competition, along with the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, seeking ideas for housing on 23 unusually small or narrow lots across the city. The program, called Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC, was first announced by the city last year and falls under Mayor Bill de Blasio's ambitious Housing New York 2.0 plan.
More details this way

Odds of winning an affordable housing lottery in NYC are better than you think

Via public domain

January 11, 2019

Odds of winning an affordable housing lottery in NYC are better than you think

By Devin Gannon

While applying for affordable housing lotteries in a city with millions of applicants seems daunting, paying below-market rent in New York City is enough of an incentive to persevere through the process. Especially since it's not totally unattainable. The New York Times reported on Friday that in 2018, the odds of winning an affordable apartment through a lottery were 1 in 592. Those are actually better chances for those applying now rather than for applicants in 2016 when the odds were about 1,000 to 1.
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Affordable Housing

The Collective Old Oak in West London

November 1, 2018

New York City to launch affordable co-living pilot program

By Devin Gannon

On the heels of London-based housing brand The Collective's announcement to bring a huge, co-living community to Brooklyn, the city of New York announced on Thursday plans to get involved with the growing housing trend. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development said it will launch a pilot program that lets developers seek public financing in exchange for creating affordable, shared-housing developments, the New York Times reported.
More here

July 26, 2018

880+ affordable homes, new performing arts center and public space upgrades coming to Brownsville

By Devin Gannon

A proposal to revitalize Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood was announced one year ago, with a plan to bring a seven-building housing development to the area unveiled last month. And on Thursday, city officials released more details about the massive project, with new renderings and updates on its progress. As part of the Brownsville Plan, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development will bring a new arts center and school run by a group from the Brooklyn Music School and a media lab run by BRIC, new retail and commercial space, and a rooftop greenhouse with locally sourced produce. Plus, two proposals were selected as the NYCx Co-Lab Challenge winners, a competition that sought to find ways to enhance the area's "nighttime experience."
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Plan released for a seven-building, 800+ unit affordable development in Brownsville

Rendering via L+M and Curtis+Ginsberg Architects

June 26, 2018

Plan released for a seven-building, 800+ unit affordable development in Brownsville

By Devin Gannon

Plans for a seven-building affordable housing development in Brooklyn's Brownsville were released this week, as part of the city's revitalization effort in the neighborhood. As part of the "Brownsville Plan," the proposed project includes eight-to nine-story residential buildings with new retail and community space along Livonia Avenue. The project would extend the existing Marcus Garvey Apartments, a housing complex built in the mid-1970s that currently has many underutilized parking lots (h/t YIMBY). Overall, the more than 900,000-square-foot development will bring over 840 affordable apartments, currently estimated to be set aside for New Yorkers earning 80 percent or below the area median income.
More details here

June 19, 2018

NYC’s new housing lottery guidelines will help vulnerable and low-income New Yorkers

By Michelle Cohen

Finding and applying for affordable housing in New York city can be a challenge for anyone. The application process can be confusing and daunting for those who need it most. Today the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and Housing Development Corporation (HDC) announced new guidelines for the process that are intended to help provide access for low-income residents and protect people who have survived domestic abuse.
Find out about the new guidelines

February 8, 2018

Find and apply for current affordable housing lotteries in NYC with this new map

By Devin Gannon

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development on Wednesday released an interactive map of housing lotteries currently accepting applications. Users can click icons displayed on the NYC Housing Connect Map for more information on a lottery, including required income levels, household size and the application deadline. Earlier this week, the department launched a map that displays all of the affordable housing units, buildings and projects which count towards Mayor Bill de Blasio's Housing New York 2.0 plan.
Explore the map

Affordable Housing

February 5, 2018

City releases map with all of the affordable housing units created or preserved since 2014

By Devin Gannon

In addition to upping the number of affordable housing units created or preserved in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio is pushing for greater transparency of his ambitious plan to bring 300,000 affordable units to the city by 2026. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) launched an interactive map on Monday that displays all of the units, buildings, and projects that count towards the mayor's Housing New York 2.0 plan (h/t Curbed NY). The counted units, with data starting with units from January 1, 2014 on and will be updated quarterly, are shown by the number of units and occupancy size.
See it here

Affordable Housing

To save Nolita’s Elizabeth Street Garden, a nonprofit wants to take ownership from the city

Sketch of Elizabeth Street Garden’s Site A courtesy of Ella Barnes/ESG

January 9, 2018

To save Nolita’s Elizabeth Street Garden, a nonprofit wants to take ownership from the city

By Devin Gannon

A nonprofit with a mission to protect and preserve the Elizabeth Street Garden in Nolita released on Tuesday a plan to designate the park as a Community Land Trust (CLT), meaning it would no longer require funding from the city. The group, aptly named Elizabeth Street Garden (ESG), unveiled renderings of what the park could look like as a CLT, including a new composting station, solar panels, a volunteer work shed and more. The proposal from ESG comes after the city announced last month plans to demolish the garden to make way for an affordable senior housing development.
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Second phase of Hunters Point South development moves forward with 960 affordable unit proposal

Rendering of Hunters Point South courtesy of Handel Architects

November 17, 2017

Second phase of Hunters Point South development moves forward with 960 affordable unit proposal

By Devin Gannon

Plans to redevelop Hunters Point South, a project first proposed by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is finally making some headway. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Housing Development Corp. on Thursday selected a proposal that will bring a 1,120-unit apartment complex, with 80 percent of them permanently affordable, to the southern tip of the Long Island City neighborhood. According to the Wall Street Journal, the $500 million, two-tower project is being developed by Gotham and RiseBoro Community Partnership Inc.
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Renderings revealed for controversial mixed-income tower on top of UES playground

Rendering via NYCHA

May 19, 2017

Renderings revealed for controversial mixed-income tower on top of UES playground

By Devin Gannon

After over a year-long debate, the city has finally unveiled renderings of a mixed-income tower set to rise on an existing playground at the Holmes Towers public housing complex in Yorkville. The New York City Housing Authority’s plan, which falls under the city’s NextGen program, will construct a 47-story building among the complex on East 93rd Street, as well as a new 18,000-square-foot recreation and community center run by Asphalt Green (h/t DNA Info). The new building will feature 300 total units, with half of them at market-rate prices and half of them affordable. However, an alleged plan to separate the floors by income level, as well as the fact that high-end housing is coming to a low-income site where the community wasn't consulted, has sparked a good deal of controversy.
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May 3, 2017

City to develop 2,400 new affordable housing units in East Harlem

By Devin Gannon

Mayor de Blasio and his administration have made progress in meeting their goal of building 200,000 affordable units over the span of a decade, as 21,963 new units were added in 2016, the most in 27 years. However, there continues to be a shortage in East Harlem. Out of the nearly 20,000 affordable units, the city brought to all five boroughs, just 249 units have been built in East Harlem, according to a new report by the Department of Housing and Preservation Development (HPD). To better accommodate these residents, the city plans on expediting the construction of 2,400 units of affordable housing over the next few years, as DNA Info reported.
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April 28, 2017

Nearly 900 affordable housing apartments are currently empty

By Devin Gannon

An investigation by Public Advocate Letitia James’ office found that nearly 40 percent, or 884, of the 2,322 apartments in the Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program sit unoccupied. After hearing multiple complaints from constituents at town halls, the public advocate’s office launched a full review of the program and discovered it does not meet its goal of providing New Yorkers with self-sufficient, low-income rentals (h/t NY Post). Even more shocking, at one TIL building on 615 West 150th Street, tenants had to move out in 1996 for what was supposed to be a two-year renovation. Per a policy briefing by the public advocate, they still have not been able to return to the units, and their possessions are locked up without access.
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Want to Enter an Affordable Housing Lottery? You’ll Be up Against 696 Other Applicants

Photo via Wiki Commons

August 4, 2015

Want to Enter an Affordable Housing Lottery? You’ll Be up Against 696 Other Applicants

By Dana Schulz

Photo via Wiki Commons According to a new report from the Daily News, for every affordable apartment offered through the city's housing lotteries since 2013, there were 696 applicants, leaving you with a measly 0.14 percent chance of being selected. "All told, there were 2.9 million applications for 4,174 affordable units available from 72 lotteries run by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)," says the News, yet another signifier that average New Yorkers are struggling to pay ever-increasing rents.
Find out more here

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