Developers File For 164 Units Of Senior Housing In Inwood

INWOOD, NY — Developers have filed plans with the city Department of Buildings to construct a senior housing facility in a portion of Inwood that was not affected by the 2018 neighborhood rezoning plan, according to public records.

Brooklyn-based RiseBoro Community Partnership, which has developed a number of low-income housing complexes for seniors throughout the city, applied for the nine-story, 164-apartment building on Hillside Avenue between Bogardus Place and Elwood Street. The planned development will rise 95-feet-tall and include amenities such as a recreational area for tenants and bicycle storage.

Each floor in the building will house at least 17 apartments, with some containing as many as 22, according to building plans. With 94,729 square feet of zoned residential space, the average unit in the building will be about 5778 square feet.

Public city finance records show that a religious institution called the Rocky Mount Baptist Church owns the Hillside Avenue site. The organization filed plans with the city in 2008 for a 175-foot-tall development with 100 apartments, but the permits were ultimately denied. Demolition plans for the church building at the site have not been filed. It's unclear whether RiseBoro has since taken the site over from the church, as city records show no land records newer than 1979 for the Inwood site.

RiseBoro Community Partnership is also involved in the much-debated senior housing development tha will replace the Elizabeth St. Garden in Little Italy.

The Hillside Avenue site is not subject to new zoning regulations passed for most of the Inwood neighborhood by the City Council in 2018. Many opponents of the city's Inwood rezoning plan warned that the rezoning would cause an increase in development in areas of the neighborhood not affected by zoning changes. Residents living south of Dyckman Street advocated for the city to extend its zoning area to include contextual zoning protections to the area, but city officials balked at the proposal because it would further delay the rezoning.

Developers filed plans for a 7-story apartment building on a nearby Hillside Avenue site in January.