Grateful Historic Districts To Begin Building "Affordable Townhomes" In Greater Lefferts Area

Coming soon, all over. A new proposal is for a couple hundred on and near the old Spice Factory site, instead of market and affordable high-rise.

Imagine you're someone with family take-home pay between $150-$250K. Can you afford to pay $2.5 million for a home near the Park, Garden and public transportation? Probably not without help from a healthy inheritance or selling valuable heirlooms. And for many young professionals, that just doesn't seem fair. Enter SHATON.

The Q recently attended a meeting at the Montauk Club of a coalition of homeowners in Historic Districts, some from our own Lefferts Manor and the PLG HD. The group is called Single-family Home-owners for Affordable Townhomes for Overbuilt Neighborhoods, or SHATON. Their goal is to see that the City ensures that not only high-rise apartment buildings get built. They want to see more attractively appointed two or three story single-family homes too, and they've found innovative ways to make sure that happens.

Bo Mervin, longtime resident of Lefferts Manor, put it this way. "While many of us have seen enormous gains in the price of our homes, and don't get me wrong we're very grateful for NYC's economic health and growth, we feel uncomfortable knowing that the next generation of solidly middle-class professionals won't be able to enjoy the benefits of multi-floor living, massive equity gains, with room for gramma in the basement and a plot of land for gardening. It's the sort of life that lawyers and non-profit executives should be able to afford! It's ghastly how much my house is worth in 2018. And I'm no One Percenter, believe me! Well....maybe now!"

Mervin, along with some of his compatriots in leafy nabes of Park Slope, Ft. Greene and Crown Heights, have identified a number of major investment banks who also see the advantage of creating "affordable" townhomes. Through clever use of 601b(e) NY State funding streams, it is now possible to profitably build modest brownstone replicas and sophisticated townhomes with all the mod-cons and marble countertops that can retail for considerably less than $2 million - and in some lower income neighborhoods, even under a million dollars.

You might have noticed that some of the most vocal opponents of allowing for taller buildings in exchange for rent-stabilized below-market units come from single family home owners. Rather than sit back and watch Victorian after Edwardian home be razed for unsightly apartment buildings, SHAT-ON believes in building more single family homes in popular neighborhoods.

The $950,000 price tag seems a steal. There's one catch though. You need to win the lottery. SHATON estimates between 5 and 10,000 potential homeowners will qualify for loans that will allow them to bid for these spacious gems.

And it all comes at tax-payer expense, leading some housing activists to rethink their alliance with NIMBY groups.

What do you think?