Finally, Affordable Housing in The Village
By Alec Pruchnicki
GATED COMMUNITY: Eduardo Kobra’s five-story tall mural “Ellis” pays homage to NYC’s Immigrant legacy and looks over a controversial site for affordable housing on Hudson Street. Immigrant families, among others, are often the most in need of the opportunity that affordable housing provides. Photo by Bob Cooley.
So, some affordable housing is finally getting built in The Village, specifically in Community Board 2. There have been complaints that the 500 units of affordable housing, originally promised in exchange for zoning and air transfer rights, have now been scaled back to 175 units with an additional 130 market rate ones (“Google’s New HQ Opens With Only a Fraction of the Nearby Low-Cost Housing Promised by the Pols,” Village View July 2024.)
The history of the St. John’s Terminal is more complicated. It opened in 1934 as the warehouse for the rail line bringing goods into New York City and closed in that capacity in 1960 when the rail traffic stopped. The promise of 500 affordable units was one of many promises made during a complex series of negotiations about zoning changes, right of way options, air rights transfers, ownership changes, and modifications of the original plan. There was community opposition to various aspects of these plans including, if my memory serves me right, complaints by Village Preservation and Borough President Gale Brewer that the 500 units would be all single person apartments and should have more apartments for couples. Plans were modified and this delayed the project a little bit. Whether this delay was significant in the final version isn’t clear, but maybe if the local community and CB2 had worked with the developers to expedite the building instead of picking it apart we could have 500 units.
What did we get instead from the developers? Absolutely nothing! Except 175 affordable and 130 market rate apartments (57% instead of the usual 25%), $100 million for Pier 40, a subway improvement, no right of way big box store, possibly thousands of jobs, and revitalization of an entire neighborhood. But, other than that, absolutely nothing! (Apologies to Monty Python.)
Still, present and former members of CB2 and other community activists are disappointed at this outcome since they have such a burning desire to get affordable housing in the area. But do they?
Just two blocks away at 388 Hudson Street, housing proposed by the city is already drawing some critical comments. It is too tall, it will cast a shadow over the nearby athletic field for a few hours a day, and there wasn’t enough community input or there wasn’t the right type of community input. Whether this will delay the project significantly or not remains to be seen.
But the most obvious fact that undermines a real desire for affordable housing is CB2’s track record on Elizabeth Street. The housing planned for Elizabeth Street was originally proposed as part of the redevelopment of the Essex Street Market around 2013. Although the original plan called for all affordable apartments, funding, market changes, and zoning resulted in only 50% affordable. Margaret Chin negotiated additional housing on Elizabeth Street in a city-owned plot of land that had been renovated by a nearby businessman, Allan Reiver, into an attractive open space. The proposal would shrink the size of the garden but build housing, called Haven Green, for about 120 individuals at affordable and low-income rates. Where was CB2? Immediately, again if my memory serves me right, CB2 opposed the housing and wanted the garden to remain intact from the very start. Some of the very same people who now complain about the lack of housing in CB2 either actively opposed the housing with court action that has now lasted about ten years, or were silent and sat on the sidelines. Some local politicians got plenty of favorable press for their opposition to the housing and some political careers got their start in this conflict.
Of course, none of the opponents of the housing admitted to being opponents. They were preserving a garden and open space, or they had possible alternative sites, or they were citing promises made decades ago and would be used in court. As I have written in several community papers over these years, if the opponents had worked with the city instead of suing they could have more accessible hours of operation and maybe even more open space. If CB2 wants to show its commitment to affordable housing then help build housing on Elizabeth Street already.
Alec Pruchnicki, MD is a fellowship trained geriatrician with a primary care practice in a non-profit, community run, Medicaid supported assisted living facility in Manhattan.
