Rundown Chelsea Buildings To Be Replaced With Affordable Homes

CHELSEA, NY — Decades in the making, an affordable co-op building is expected to break ground in 2020.

Mostly boarded up windows in four tenement buildings dating back to the 1870s sit on the corner of 7th Ave. and 22nd St.

The buildings, which the city foreclosed on in the 1970s, have been dilapidated and passed around through various programs for possible redevelopment. The corner was once described to the New York Post as the "black hole of Chelsea."

Community Board 4 has long wanted the buildings renovated.

But now, decades after the city took over the property, the four buildings will be redeveloped into 26 affordable cooperatives.

"The project was brought to the board, and the board resisted the demolition issue dramatically," said chair of the CB 4 Housing committee Joe Restuccia, explaining the history of the project. "It came [to] a point that we realized, irrespective of every report they gave us, this was not proceeding ahead unless it was a new build site."

"And we sat amongst ourselves and said given how long this has been stuck," he said, "we reluctantly endorsed the demolition and new construction."

Restuccia said the committee then wanted a zoning override to build the site larger for more affordable units, but the effort fizzled because of difficulties around rezoning a single site, which is considered spot zoning, said Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian-Americans For Equality (AAFE).

AAFE is developing the site through the Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program, which is administered through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Amie Gross Architects is designing the building.

AAFE is proposing a 9-story building in the heart of Chelsea with 26 units — five of which are set aside for former tenants — and is expected to be ready for occupancy as soon as 2023, according to AAFE's executive director Thomas Yu. The ground floor will have 3,900 square feet of commercial space, which is expected to help subsidize the co-ops. Five former tenants, most of whom have been temporarily relocated, will be able to purchase back their co-ops for $2,500.

At a Community Board 4 Housing committee on Thursday, some were disappointed occupancy would still be some four years from now.

Developer representatives said the buildings proximity over an MTA tunnel required coordination with the MTA that isn't typical of demolition and construction.

The committee co-chair, Joe Restuccia, jokingly noted: "Let's put it in perspective — we started in 1978."

After much discussion about the design, CB 4 members debated the affordability program for the project on Thursday.

Image credit: Sydney Pereira Image caption: Amie Gross and Mauri Tamarin of Amie Gross Architects explaining the building design for a project on 7th Avenue at a Community Board 4 committee meeting Feb. 21, 2019.

Units are expected to be for families of three making up to around $155,000 a year, or 165 percent of area median income, which HPD considers middle income.

What the lowest-income for new families will be remains unclear.

Purchasing prices for individual co-ops open to new families was not clear on Thursday night. Yu said very preliminary numbers could be $350,000 to $400,000, though that is subject to change.

Under AAFE's current plan, the 9-story building will have nine studios, nine one-bedrooms, six two-bedrooms, and two three bedrooms.

Speaker Corey Johnson, who is the local councilmember for the project, has previously supported the project and has pushed for the long-awaited redevelopment of the site.

His ultimate position will be influential in how City Council votes on the project later this year, based on precedent that councilmembers often defer to the local councilmember on land use issues.

"I've been pushing for this much needed affordable housing for years and I am so excited to see this project moving forward," Johnson said. "I look forward to working with all stakeholders involved to iron out the details as we proceed."

The committee unanimously voted on a resolution requesting answers to remaining questions — such as why former single tenants would be relocated back into a two-bedroom instead of a one-bedroom, resale restrictions, and a better understanding of the range of eligible incomes for new families.

Though the committee was supportive of the project generally and cooed about the design, what the affordability program will be are kinks still to be worked out in the coming months as the project snakes through the uniform land use review procedure (ULURP).

"This program needs to make sense," Restuccia said. "It's got to make rational sense."