City Touts 'Affordable' $2K Studios As Bushwick Home Prices Soar

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — The city is touting a pair of $2,000-a-month studio apartments in Bushwick as “affordable” as rents in the neighborhood skyrocket at record-breaking rates.

The studios are among 30 Bushwick apartments requiring applicants earn up to $135,000-a-year that hit the New York City affordable housing lottery this week, days after Bloomberg reported rents in Bushwick are rising faster than in any other neighborhood in the city.

Bushwick ranked 90th on a Trulia ranking of New York City’s most expensive neighborhoods with home prices averaging at $788,700. Bushwick's real estate prices have jumped 84 percent since 2008, when Bushwick was 184th on the list, the study found.

“My students have been priced out of the East Village, and they’re priced out of Williamsburg, so now they’re living in Bushwick,” New York University urban-planning professor Mitchell L. Moss told Bloomberg. “As Williamsburg flourished, Bushwick was discovered.”

This sea-change in rent prices was in evidence Thursday morning when the city posted a new listing for affordable apartments at the Saint Marks — a gut-renovated church that boasts $5,700-a-month one-bedrooms — and asked for applicants who earn six-figure incomes.

The studios, one- and two-bedroom apartments at 618 Bushwick Ave. are only available to people who earn roughly 130 percent of the area median income, city records show.

The units are part of the city program that offers tax exemptions to landlords who lease a portion of their apartments at “affordable” prices.

The two studios cost $2,013-a-month and are available to applicants with an annual income between $69,018 and $95,030.

Four one-bedrooms that cost $1,997-a-month and 12 that cost $2,128-a-month are available to households with an annual income between $68,469 and $108,550.

Twelve one bedrooms — five going for $2,400-a-month and seven for $2,564-a-month — are available to households with an annual income between $82,286 and $135,590.

Building amenities include a laundry room, parking lot and bike storage, but residents will have to pay an additional fee to use them, city records show.

Developers Wildenstein & Co. Inc., bought the Saint Marks, a century-old Victorian Gothic red-brick church, for $51 million in 2017, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Sept. 2017