'Affordable' Astoria, LIC Apartments Require $68K, $72K Salary

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Over a dozen apartments have hit the affordable housing lottery in two northwest Queens buildings on Crescent Street, but only for those making at least 130 percent of the area’s median income.

The seven-story building in Astoria, located at 30-82 Crescent Street, has one studio, one two-bedroom, and five one-bedroom affordable apartments up for grabs to those making at least $68,572 per year for one person.

About a mile away in Long Island City, the six-story building at 38-35 Crescent Street has three one-bedroom and two-bedroom affordable apartments on the market, for those making at least $72,858 per year for one person.

In Astoria, the studio, one-bedrooms, and two-bedroom apartments will cost $2,000, $2,200 and $2,823 per-month, respectively. In Long Island City the one-bedroom apartments will cost $2,125 per-month, and the two-bedroom apartments will cost $2,525 per-month, plus the owner is offering three months free rent.

According to the listing with the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development both buildings include a shared laundry room and rooftop terrace. The building in Astoria also has a gym and elevator.

This is not the first time this year that a building with so-called affordable housing has required applicants to make over 100 percent of the area’s median income — highlighting the citywide affordable housing crisis.

City Council Candidate Evie Hantzopoulos, who is running to represent Queens District 22, which includes Astoria, criticized the Long Island City building’s affordability, putting the word “affordable” in quotation marks, and comparing the expensive pricing to “modern day redlining” — a racist lending policy of the early 1930s that’s systematically disadvantaged the access that minority communities have to housing and commercial markets to this day.

The Astoria and Long Island City housing lotteries will remain on the market for the next week or two — closing on May 18 and May 14, respectively — during which time cash-strapped tenants will continue to wait for Governor Andrew Cuomo to sign a measure extending the state’s eviction moratorium through August.