Talk Bronx New York

Winning The Lottery Could Mean Saving Thousands For NY Home Buyers 

MOST New Yorkers would greet the prospect of a $51,000 two-bedroom co-op in Chelsea with slack-jawed wonder, since the average price for an apartment in the city now exceeds $1.4 million.

They might react the same way to a three-story house in Park Slope priced at $255,000 or to a one-bedroom in a brand-new Harlem condominium for $147,500.

But these types of deals do exist. They are offered through city housing programs intended to provide affordable homes to middle-income New Yorkers. The programs set income restrictions for buyers, and most of the homes can be had only by entering lotteries, which carry odds that are barely better than those for most casino jackpots.

The people getting these homes include city workers, young professionals, growing families and empty nesters. Many of the apartments are in neighborhoods like Harlem in Manhattan, Jamaica and Far Rockaway in Queens, Fort Greene and Bushwick in Brooklyn and Mott Haven in the Bronx.

As part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 10-year housing plan, the city produced 1,676 new middle-income housing units in 14 different developments within the last two years, and there are 26 more in the pipeline. The ones that have been completed have been built by nonprofit organizations and private developers with the help of various city subsidies. Most have annual income restrictions that range from $56,700 to $124,075 for a family of four.

The city also seeks to preserve existing middle-income apartments, like the thousands in Mitchell-Lama complexes and similar affordable-housing projects that were built from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. These have been dwindling in number as many have been converted to market-rate apartments in recent years.

As for new construction, there seem to be as many types of housing and variations on rules and restrictions as there are projects. They range from single-family houses to 38-story glass towers where only about 20 percent of the apartments are set aside as affordable housing. Income limits may apply for several decades, which can limit resale value. Or the restrictions may run out after as little as five years, after which homeowners can sell at market rates.

Martha Nadell, an English professor at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York, moved into a three-story town house in Park Slope last July that cost her $460,000. It has two rental apartments, which she must let at affordable rates for at least seven years.

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Our reader says:

“I am beginning to think that we were Bamboozled by the Bronx Borough President who gave our parkland to the Yankee Organization.”

  The new Yankee Stadium, with a 2009 target date, is being built near the old one in the Bronx.

Building Yankee Stadium But High & Dry On Funds 

Several years ago, as the Yankees negotiated to build a new stadium in the South Bronx, the neighborhood faced the realities of a massive construction project in its midst: parks would be closed and moved, traffic would be horrendous, life would be, for a while, a hassle.

So, as one way to make up for these inconveniences, the Yankees and elected officials signed a community benefits agreement. It required that the team would give roughly $1.2 million a year, starting when the work began, to various community groups through a special panel. The deal was similar to agreements in other major projects, like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.

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