Lottery Opens for 116 Affordable Units in 'Poor Door' Upper West Side Development

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — An Upper West Side development that was criticized when it revealed plans to include a "poor door," is ready to fill its below-market rate units.

Prospective tenants will be able to apply to a lottery for 10 Freedom Place starting Wednesday, Aug. 31, according to the city's housing connect website. The development will offer 166 apartments — 27 studios, 28 one-bedroom units and 61 two-bedroom units — at below-market rates ranging from $833 to $1,458.

The deadline for applications will be Nov. 1.

Here's a chart containing information about the building's affordable units and eligibility:

The rest of the building — 247 units — will consist of luxury condos. In fact, the rest of the development is technically a different building, with a different address — 1 West End Avenue.

Market-rate tenants will enter the building in a different entrance to the building and have fancier amenities, all while the developers collect tax subsidies for including affordable-rate units. The separate entrance for affordable units — called a "poor door" — drew much criticism when first announced in 2014.

Publications such as the West Side Rag compared these "poor door" developments to old-timey aristocratic privilege.

"You know that show Downton Abbey? Where the servants have to come and go through separate entrances and bow their heads when they see a noble? Well, there could soon be a version of Downton Abbey right here, on the Upper West Side!" the West Side Rag wrote in 2013 in reference to a different "poor door" development.

But developers have insisted that even though the affordable-rate tenants will have a different entrance, their part of the building will still be nice.

The affordable units will be 26 percent larger than the minimum size enforced by the city in order to collect inclusionary housing tax breaks, according to a 2014 statement by Community Board 7 on the affordable housing application.

The housing connect website lists amenities such as a fitness center, bicycle storage room, children’s playroom, tenant storage room, laundry room and roof terrace for the 10 Freedom Place development.

Photo: Rendering via Silverstein Properties