Ask 10 New Yorkers whether they're "for" affordable housing and I'll bet 9 1/2 will say yes. I guess it's good to take a look at what affordable really means, and I welcome your feedback to the following analysis:
Since moving to New York these many years ago, I've heard a constant refrain from elected officials and community activists that NYC has become the refuge of the poor (through subsidies) and playground for the rich (through subsidies, heh heh), and that for your typical working stiff, finding a truly affordable rental in NYC is like hunting Sasquatch (pictured).But what IS affordable, really? I have only my own experience to go on. When I first moved here in the fall of 1988, I paid $300 for a room without windows in the back of a converted bodega. By the time I got my first real full time job, with benefits, at the Brooklyn Museum in 1989, I was paying $425 for a decent size room with two roommates above the Royal Video Store at Flatbush and 6th Avenue, where some dorky sports bar is now. (Don't get me wrong, Royal Video was pretty dorky too.) I was a glorified secretary (executive assistant) and I made almost exactly $20,000 a year. In other words, I paid roughly 1/4 of my gross pay in rent. To this day, that's considered the max one should pay in rent (more if you own, wherein you get a tasty deduction). That was just barely affordable then, but beer was cheap and there were no fancy restaurants at which to blow dough. (Even blow was cheaper, so I hear. And crack? More ubiquitous than Coca-Cola) The neighborhood was okay, not great, and there were three or four shootings that first summer within a couple blocks of my house. And the 78th precinct is basically right there. The times they were a-changing.
Flash forward to PLG/Caledonia circa 2012, as it relates to the newcomers who are driving the market rates. A young person looking to make a go of it in this slice of the Big Apple must plunk down at least $800 for a share, and $1,200 or more to live alone. That's in "affordable" NE Flatbush. You need to make roughly $40K to do the share, or $60K to live alone to pay 1/4 of gross in rent. $40K is roughly median income around here. Don't believe me? Check out this handy-dandy gizmo, and what you see will most certainly not shock you. 11225 and 11226 are on the low, though not lowest, end of the Brooklyn spectrum. To get lower you must (surprise, surprise) head east. The North Slope is flush with high-earners - more than $100K is median. Prospect Heights hits the middle ground between the two. And starting salaries for recent college grads in NYC is about $40K. So if you've looked to your right and left at the subway and seen a lot of recent college grads and were wondering why, well, there's your reason. Because the same apartments in Prospect Heights cost you roughly 50% more. And you can forget about affording trendier and tonier nabes without help from ma and/or pa.
In other words, and I'm sure I'll take some slack for saying it...our neighborhood is priced about right for what it is and where it is - this according to my own cockamamie rendering.That's not to say it's not unaffordable to many. In fact, I'd say, it's unaffordable to about half. That's the nature of market rates when they're actually reflecting the market, rather than being speculative or excessive, as they are in many parts of Brooklyn.
By the way, I'm talking purely about rentals. Ownership, particularly in brownstone Brooklyn, has become the privilege of those who have the means to "buy high" expecting that their investment will pay off in the long run. I mean geez louise look what people are paying these days! You need nearly $200,000 down to afford a house, then $150K a year for a mortgage, at least! We've all heard stories of the Park Slope house that went for, I dunno, $100,000 in 1968, only to be worth $3 million now. But dollars to doughnuts I'll bet that $100,000 seemed like a lot of money back then, and the Slope was no great shakes. So maybe million dollar houses around here aren't such a stretch. Still, owning a million dollar house in a census tract where the median household income is $40,000 sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? Personally I think that's where some of the tension derives...the extremes are so...well, extreme.
I'm withholding judgment til I have a chance to see what this guy - Tom Anderson Associates - has done and whether he's known to be good to his word. It would be nice if his architecture added something to the area, and it would be GREAT if his retail spaces could accommodate the needs of the neighborhood.
By the way, to the Maple Street School hater I would say only that I have some knowledge of the potential deal in question, and while MSS would be housed in something called "community space" it's very much a commercial lease that's being discussed, no free lunchbox. MSS, it's true, is a private nursery school, but so are most pre-schools and day-cares. A "public" Universal Pre-K would be an option I suppose, and I don't even think free public day-care exists, really. But free Pre-K most often happens in schools and as an extension of day-cares and community centers. That could be an option of course, but they (some non-profit org, much like MSS) would have to pay the going rate. The fact is, Maple Street has established itself as a bedrock of stability on the block, and were it to expand many more families could have access to the co-op model. It ain't cheap; that's because it pays its employees somewhat fairly and received no subsidies. But it's unfair to say it's not a neighborhood school, in the most generous use of the word neighborhood. (full disclosure, little miss Q jr. attends MSS).
Please comment away. I think this is a very important conversation to have, particularly leading up to CB9 vote.
32 comments:
"We've all heard stories of the Park Slope house that went for, I dunno, $100,000 in 1968'
1968? More like $20--30,000 and THAT was a LOT of $$ back then.
PLG is like Park Slope circa 1989. If i were to make a solid investment i would invest it in a townhouse right here. Everything surrounding the park is going to become like Park Slope one day.
Thank you for that Q. I was shocked and hurt by the mean spiritedness of (presumably) my neighbors with regard to "affordable" housing. I am a real estate broker and I deal with these conflicting realities every day. I recently had a nice, renovated two-room studio for $995/mo. in one of the only rental buildings in the babe that I would actually consider for myself. Within a day of listing it I had one full application and three back-ups, at which time I stopped showing it, though I continued to get 5 - 6 e-mails per day until the leases were signed. And who were all these people? All young, well-qualified (at least $40K/ yr in gross income and good credit, or a guarantor making double that). They were schoolteachers, musicians, artists, chefs, any number of things you could name, but with one thing in common: they chose their careers because they were passionate about them and they want to live in safe, vibrant, diverse communities within reasonable commuting distance of Manhattan or Downtown Brooklyn. It was truly heartbreaking to tell so many people I couldn't help them - if I'd had 10 apartments like that I could have rented them all in a week.
So to anyone who thinks there's enough affordable housing in the nabe (or NYC in general) I'd say you try making under $50K a year and finding something truly decent in this (or nearly any) hood.
And I believe Tom Anderson was the developer (though not the archtiect) of 145 Park Place in Park Slope - that relatively new luxury condominium building that's brownstone on the Park Place side (Landmarks oblige) and a huge ugly behemoth on Flatbush - and has already had several serious facade problems as well as needing to replace all the floors within one year of occupancy - proof that you don't need to do affordable housing to cut corners.
Ha, ha - that's nabe, not babe - thanks autocorrect!
I think this building is the right fit for this site - it's tall, but density right next to train makes sense, and much better than that behemoth proposed earlier. From the little I've read here, it seems like the developer is sensitive to integrating current community institutions (eg daycare) and has used the site in a smart way (the shape makes it a hard site to work with).
And importantly, it will help to preserve some of the (relatively more) affordable housing stock as rents rise elsewhere in the neighborhood. Usually as rents rise, lower income residents (other than those w/rent controls/stabilization) are pushed toward lower quality apartments. The good thing about new affordable housing is that it creates decent quality housing for low (and moderate) income households - not just whatever is left at the bottom of the barrel. We need more of this, not less of it.
And check you math, Q - $200K is 20% down on a $1,000,000 house - leaving you with an $800K mortgage. Today's mortgage interest rates are the lowest they've been since they started tracking them in the 1960s - 4% for a jumbo mortgage like this would be conservative. So that $800K mortgage comes out to about $3.8K/month - or about $46K per year - BEFORE the mortgage interest tax deduction, which at the 35% rate (which is just about every working person in NYC earning over $100K/yr.) reduces that figure to an effective $2.9/mo., or $35K/yr.
So you see why so many people can plunk down that kind of dough on a house these days? Seriously, one bedrooms in Manhattan rent for more than that these days, and all it takes is that magic down payment. Or, as they say, the rich get richer.
And real estate taxes, as I'm sure you're aware, are really low on single and two family houses - maybe $5K a year max, so unless your home requires extensive renovation you aren't going to need more than $60K/yr to cover mortgage, taxes, and ongoing maintenance - heck, that's a two bedroom rental in Manhattan.
As one of those who are advocating for a portion of the building to be market rate, I don't think there is any mean spiritedness involved. I don't think anyone said this should be only market rate. There should be a balance and not go to one extreme or the other. Most of us recognize the need for quality affordable housing. My main concern is that the developer already does not sound very good and there is even less incentive to build something great if it is not going to give a market return.
Developers choose to build affordable housing because it offers them access to cheaper financing and certain tax breaks. These buildings are most often built for-profit, and are often even more profitable than market rate buildings. Further, there's no real indication that affordable housing buildings are built to poorer standards than market rate. The reason more developers don't choose this option is that it's next to impossible to muddle through the red tape necessary to build such buildings and qualify for such financing. Finally on that point, no developer builds a building without financing - the only variable is the rate they qualify for.
The curbed article indicated that the building applied for HDC financing; HDC's involvement would be a major win for the neighborhood. Aside from providing mostly conduit financing, HDC monitors construction and vets potential tenants. Unlike with subsidized housing (section 8) or rent-stabilized units, "affordable" housing requires on-going income restrictions and strict credit checks. These buildings end up having a highly responsible, highly employed tenant pool. Furthermore, eviction is far easier for problematic tenants than with the other mentioned programs.
hey Q, was your $300 windowless apartment in the back of a bodega on the corner of Metropolitan and Havemeyer in W'burg, by any chance? If so we may have occupied the same place a decade apart.
One of the things that's hard to reconcile about the expense and competitiveness of the housing market in PLG is the fact that the neighborhood is actually losing population density in a pretty profound way. And unfortunately the socioeconomics behind that shift are completely wrapped up in race. There is some sobering data on the 2000 and 2010 census collected here: http://www.urbanresearchmaps.org/comparinator/pluralitymap.htm
and here: http://www.urbanresearchmaps.org/plurality/#nabes
you can see, block by block, how profound the demographic shift has been in the last decade. For Greater PLG, the total population has dropped 2841 to 67,459. Behind that figure is a pretty stark tale of ethnic displacement/migration: a net 7258 black people have left the neighborhood, and 3866 white people have arrived. So basically for every white person that has arrived in the neighborhood, looking for an affordable (to them) place to rent, two black people have left. The first link shows the data on a block-by-block level, and it can be even more shocking. For Q's block of Clarkson, e.g., 476 black people left between 2000 and 2010, while over that same period 103 white people arrived. The block's total population dropped by 439.
And these numbers are for the 2010 census! Anyone who's been looking around the neighborhood knows that, if anything, the shift has greatly accelerated in the last two years.
Everyone is being a rational economic actor in this scenario-the people moving here to rent because prices in Prospect Heights or Park Slope are even higher, the people holding on to their overcrowded rent-stabilized apartments, even the people buying brownstones for over a million dollars in a poor neighborhood.
If anything, I'm surprised that this economic pressure cooker doesn't boil over. ANd I don't know how noticeable an impact this one development of affordable housing will have on the long-term socioeconomic forces that are shaping PLG.
I'm curious as to what the rents in this new building will actually be...I think the rents in the neighborhood are already too high, for the quality of apartment that one gets...this coming from someone who has been in the same over-priced apt for years, shooing out the cockroaches and watching the place fall apart at the seams...why don't I move, you ask? Because I can't find anything else even remotely nearby that I can actually afford. I look every year, and all I see are apartments even more expensive, yet smaller and more ramshackle than my own. I would love to buy, if I could afford to do so. Sigh...
I both own a house in the neighborhood and work on development financing for these types of projects for living. I can understand why some of the homeowners commenting on this blog say they want to see market rate housing, because the fact is there has been close to zero market rate housing built in PLG probably in decades (at least in terms of new construction). However, I think those people should understand that the "middle income" units comprising 80% of this project will, for all intents and purposes, be leased at market rates to tenants with the jobs and incomes necessary to afford those rents. That is because the market rent for those units is probably not much higher than the rents they would be allowed to charge under the HDC financing program.
The tenants are all going to be rent stabilized and the building will have to have a long term rent regulatory agreement with the City, so most likely those rents will increase only modestly over time, but the fact is that affordable housing in this context does not mean panhandling crack addicts (or however the Q so eloquently put it).
There are a lot of other good things about the project that have been pointed out already. I'm sure everything agrees that it would be great to have new retail space on Flatbush and Lincoln Rd. Also, the fact that this project has to go through the HDC's design review process and have HDC oversight throughout construction means it will be a quality building; it may not be Richard Meier architecture but it's not going to be a cheap piece of garbage.
I think it would probably very difficult for a developer to get financing for a straight market rate job at that location. The fact is that rents are pretty low in PLG, at least compared to what you need to charge to support the cost of new construction. If it were a purely market rate project, I would be afraid that we'd wind up with something like that abandoned apartment building on Sullivan Place over by the Ebbets Field houses, or like the one at Lefferts and New York. The only way for a developer to make money would be to cut corners and pinch pennies on construction and on the design and we'd wind up with either an project that never gets completed or is so cheaply designed and built that it starts falling apart from the moment it is put up.
Maybe after one or two jobs like this one get built, developers will find they can do market rate housing on this side of park. It has happened elsewhere in the city. So I think being in favor of seeing more market rate housing in this 'hood does not mean you should oppose this project.
Anonymous 12:33 - This demographic shift is not just happening in PLG. It is happening in most areas of Brooklyn and in fact in lots of other areas of the city and in other urban cities around the country.
Anonymous 5:02 pm: yes, of course that's true elsewhere in the city, and in other urban areas, but that makes it no less relevant to the current state of affairs in PLG. And even within New York City, the sheer volume of the exodus from PLG stands out (Crown Heights North and Flatbush are the only two other neighborhoods with comparable raw numbers.) I'm not a demographer, but it seems that these population movements are going to affect life in PLG far more than any new-build developments.
Anonymous 5:41: I think this shift is not going to decelerate but only accelerate over time. The Millenial generation is looking for a more urban experience contrary to their surbuban upbringing. In addition the price of gas will continue to increase and dramatically shift the population to make NYC resemble more of a European city demographic. Most European cities have the rich upper class living in the city center (i.e. Manhattan), the professional class resides around the city periphery (i.e. Brooklyn), and the working class resides in the suburbs. This is the shift that is happening right now here in PLG and will only continue. My only advice for you is to buy as much real estate in PLG as you can possibly afford.
The only new construction I have seen in the hood was Ocean on the Park (185 Ocean Ave). I know people were up in arms when it was built but it sold quickly and has been a very positive addition.
So many complaints any time there's the possibility of something new coming here that will better the neighborhood in terms of safety, or services And so many complaints that services and amenities are lacking and that there are So many gangs and hoodlums here. The only way to clean up this hood is to support new development and new business and be thankful that recent college grads are moving here... I applaud anyone who wants to set up shop here or build something new and really wish all the haters and complainers would just think for a minute before they open their mouths or in this case, start typing. I don't want to see working people priced out of here either but I'm also tired of seeing the drunks and druggies outside and want them outta here. This is how it's done! I hope all the supporters of new construction will show their faces at the community board meeting and not just the naysayers so the builder and community is aware that there are people here who want change!
Interesting to read that people are "self deporting" out of NYC when they cannot afford it any more. And to support that, affordable housing should be targeted to profession and not just income. We need creative economy workers who may not have the income now but will one day, not the low-skilled so-called 'working poor', who are already too numerous in this neighborhood. Maybe a requirement could be that in order to get affordable housing in this type of new development you have to have a college degree or be enrolled?
Damn, Anon 3:18. "Low skilled, so-called 'working poor' are already too numerous in this neighborhood" because, not that long ago, PLG WAS their neighborhood! I swear, most times, I struggle real hard to keep my comments as principled as possible on this blog. Other times, I just refrain from posting altogether. But this time I have to call it as I see it: I take that first statement of yours, in tandem with your call for affordable housing to be limited only to those who are college educated or college enrolled to be downright racist and classist.
Whether you choose to believe it or not, the majority of the "working poor" in this neighborhood are hard-working, God-fearing, family-oriented, decent folk of color who want to see a better PLG more than you do. Fact is, they've been trying to survive and/or struggle against the same issues of crime, drug dealing, inadequate housing, reckless driving, lack of access to quality goods and services, etc. just like the rest of us gentry of all colors. Difference is, in most of their cases, their struggle has been 10X worse. (Some, like Fatima Gordon, for example, have it so damn hard they risk leaving their young sons motherless just for daring to walk down Clarkson Ave after dark on a simple errand to the supermarket!)
So now a developer wants to come into PLG and offer up 133 units of "affordable housing" including setting aside a mere 26 apartments for "low-income" residents. Great! But you would rather speed up the "self-deportation" of the working poor in this area by suggesting that in order to qualify for one of these proposed new units they must also be college-educated? A “creative economy worker”? Wow. As opposed to what? The sanitation worker who picks up your trash, or the nanny who babysits your kids, or the cashier who bags your groceries at the local bodega? I swear, that's just the kind of trollish, anonymous statement on the blogs that make my stomach turn and my heart ache. Time was in PLG, even in the blogosphere, when we didn't see the public airing of such sentiments. However, a change is surely coming to our neighborhood. And, with posts such as yours, I can see it ain't all gonna be pretty.
Wow, that's really scary and harsh, Anon 3:18, and worthy of Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney. It is incredibly difficult to qualify for this type of apartment - you need to meet strict income guidelines (and prove them with tax returns, employment letters, etc.) and have good-to-excellent credit, AND these items are re-verified on an ongoing basis. It's MUCH easier to get a bank loan to buy a place (assuming you have that crucial down payment) - once you've got the mortgage, they're not going to come check on you each year, and call your loan, for example, even though you've been making you payments, just because your income may have slipped out of the desired bracket. And if you don't like "working poor" people, why did you move to a neighborhood full of them? To drive them out and take this place for yourself and those like you, because you are so much more deserving than they?
And if you don't think there's mean-spiritedness in these comments Anon 10:53, just read Anon 3:18. Wow!
And what has Ocean on the Park done for the neighborhood besides bring in a total of 17 homeowners (mostly studios and one bedrooms, so maybe a total of 30 new residents), and 3 sales pending? Are these people all spending lots of money here and getting involved in community affairs, or did they merely enrich a developer? Was any sorely-needed community space created? Have the developers ever expressed any interest in this community, beyond exploiting its location for 421-a tax breaks? I really don't think so. This new building, with a majority middle-income units, will bring hundreds of people here (or keep them here, opening up other rental units for your "creative economy" types - who in many cases actually make less than your so-called "working poor," and have far less job security (but there's always mom & dad, thankfully. Kind of like "If you can't afford college, or to start a business, borrow money from your parents.")). Right. Sickening.
Babs, minor point, while there may be is annual income certifications for tenants of this type of housing, nobody is going to be thrown out of their apartment because their income went down or they lost their job (as long as they are paying their rent of course). The income certifications are required because of some issues with the financing that have no impact on tenants once they are in occupacny. Also - there would be no reason for a landlord to reverify somebody's credit score on a regular basis. But it is true that there are strict minimum (and maximum) incomes and credit requirements for a tenant to lease an apartment.
Check out the annual requirements for someone living in an 80/20 building in Manhattan: http://www.brickunderground.com/blog/2012/09/8020_apartment_living_my_life_as_a_20_percenter They include "yearly recertification interviews with six months worth of bank statements and pay stubs, IRS transcripts and notarized letters from my employer, school and bank to confirm my employment, status and checking account balance." Presumably there are similar requirements for these units.
Anon 3:18 is either a class-war troll with an underwater mortgage or is making a deliberately provocative modest proposal. Sounds like if Richard Florida and Romney had a baby. Why not skip the euphemisms and limit affordable housing just to white people with graduate degrees and tastefully-dressed gays?
babs, I would point out that the source of this information on tenant financial requirements is an opinion piece written by "Anonymous" for a blog. I seriously doubt this "Anonymous" really is low-income tenant because they get a lot of important facts wrong. (Of course ironically I am also named "anonymous" and I am also writing in a blog, but trust me, I know what I am talking about)
#1) this writer says "if I ... exceed the 50 percent area median salary requirements, I get evicted"
Not at all true - you can't evict a tenant if their income rises above the maximum. Depending on the tenants income, however, the landlord might be required to lease the next vacant unit to a low income tenant. (this is a federal tax law issue related to tax-exempt bond financing)
#2) writer says "After 15 years the owner/developer of the building may opt out of the program and rent out the low-income 20 percent apartments at market rate" - also not true. There is a minimum 30 year affordability requirement, after which the owner could lease newly vacant units without income restrictions. However any low-income tenants in occupancy would be allowed to continue their tenancy subject to rent stabilization. The tenant's rent stabilzied lease has to say this in big capital letters.
#3) "The median household income for Battery Park City is around $108,000" - actually the income limits for any affordable project are based on the *citywide* median income with certain adjustments.. neighborhood income is irrelevant
#4) "..during the annual recertification season... We’re rounded up for examination to assess if we can stay" that's just total fiction. Any affordable tenant in an 80/20 building has a rent stabilized lease. You can't evict a rent stabilized tenant because they income increased or decreased. If that person has a income based rent subsidy like Section 8, you can take that away, but they can't be evicted. For that matter, a landlord can't ask *existing tenants* to provide "six months worth of bank statements and pay stubs, IRS transcripts and notarized letters from my employer, school and bank to confirm my employment, status and checking account balance".. in some situations, tenants might be required to sign income certification form, but that's about it. This other stuff sounds like it's the product of somebody with a very active imagination that doesn't like affordable housing.
3:18 here. There are enough nannies, cashiers and garbage men in this neighborhood & if you value real DIVERSITY, you won't support still more of them moving in. We're not going to get boutique businesses in a neighborhood full of people who are just living paycheck to paycheck. This has nothing to do with race; there are lots of successful or up and coming blacks or Latinos who I would love to see replace some of these people who can't compete economically. Sure, they deserve a place to live but they are not entitled to live here specifically and I don't want my tax dollars propping up them living in what should be a high-rent nabe. Diversity is a multi-hued neighborhood of strivers, not just a dark slum so shame on you all who think that PLG is destined to just be a poor, black neighborhood.
"However, after the initial 15 years, an owner can opt out of the program by finding a qualified buyer, and the rules may change. "
"Management spokespersons have informed us that annual recertification of income by tenants to owners is sent to responsible agencies for all except Liberty Bond middle-income residents. "
From Manhattan CB1's report on affordable housing (not anaymous and not a blog). http://www.nyc.gov/html/mancb1/downloads/pdf/About_District/AH_REPORT.pdf
Anon 3:18: Tough stuff. Tell you what, since I'm one of those folks living paycheck to paycheck I'm not going to argue about what "sort" of person I am. There's no need to argue with an ignorant aristocratic ne'er-do-well.
The gripe I have with your inelegant thinking is that you seem to loathe the neighborhood you live in. If you are so sophisticated and financially secure, why are you living here anyway? Were you duped by a real estate agent into thinking this was Carroll Gardens? You don't belong here. Frankly, you don't belong in NYC. And if you're just a troll baiting us all, then you certainly don't belong on my blog.
I don't want a boutique hot dog (Bark anyone?) so much that I want to sit at a table next to the likes of you!
Hope you're having fun...
Right on, Q. The only reason someone would post crap like 3:18/8:29 (outside of straight up nihilistic trollery) is because they feel like they're trapped in a neighborhood that's not going their way. Their mental health would be greatly improved by moving. They sure as hell don't belong in 21st century NYC.
Number one rule of the internets: DON'T FEED THE TROLLS! -Paul
When somebody says that a flat is affordable, the price per month is not the only thing we need to look at. For instance, if the neighbourhood is expensive, we will end up paying a lot for good in the grocery store and, in total, together with rent, is more than you would pay in another neighbourhood where the rent cost may be higher but things in the supermarket there are cheap. When I travelled to Argentina, I had to get a Buenos Aires rent and that was the advice the retal company gave me: first take a look at the neighbourhood and the price of food there and then decide where to live!
Carla,
In NYC lower income neighborhoods often have HIGHER grocery prices than in higher income ones--not usually enough to offset the rent differences.
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