[
Reader-submitted photo of 204 Avenue A]
Plans are moving forward to demolish two long-vacant, city-owned properties — 204 Avenue A and 535 E. 12th St. — to erect new buildings for fixed-income housing.
CityLand, published by the Center for NYC Law, has
a post with all the details.
Earlier this month, the City Planning Commission heard an application that would allow for the demolition of the existing buildings and the development of 10 co-operative units at 204 Avenue A between 12th Street and 13th Street, and 11 one-bedroom rental units at 535 E. 12th St. between Avenue A and Avenue B. The proposal calls an additional three floors (from 4 to 7) at No. 204, and one additional floor (from 5 to 6) at No. 535.
Per CityLand:
To facilitate the proposed development, the applicant team requested approval for the disposition of the City-owned lots and designation and approval of the lots as an Urban Development Action Area Project. The application was brought by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), along with the selected developer for the project, Juan Barahona of SMJ Development.
Both buildings, part of the HPD’s
Tenant Interim Lease Program, have been vacant (save for squatters on 12th Street) since 2008. "Due to deteriorating structural conditions," tenants from both buildings were relocated at that time.
The former tenants of each building will be able to purchase the co-op units in the newly constructed building at 204 Avenue A, which would include ground-floor retail. Meanwhile, the all-new 535 E. 12th St.'s one-bedroom rentals "will be a middle-income rental building with an income restriction at 130 percent AMI."
And details about all this via CityLand:
The project was proposed as an Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program (ANCP) project. ANCP is an HPD program where developers are selected to rehabilitate distressed City-owned properties managed by the Tenant Interim Lease Program, in order to create affordable cooperatives for low- and moderate-income households. Under the program, developers receive low interest loans in the form of City Capital subsidy, in addition to construction and permanent financing sources provided by private institutional lenders and New York State Affordable Housing Corporation programs.
As an Affordable Neighborhood Cooperative Program project, following the construction loan closing, the 204 Avenue A building will be conveyed to a Housing Development Fund Corporation cooperative with unit purchase requirements, income restrictions, and resale requirements. The projected maintenance for the cooperative is expected at 40 percent AMI.
In addition, although the entire building will be affordable, two of the units are going to be permanently affordable as required by the Inclusionary Housing Designated Area bonus, which gives an applicant a higher residential Floor Area Ratio in return for 20 percent of residential units being designated as permanently affordable.
CB3 and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer have already signed off on this project. The City Planning Commission will be next to vote on the application at a later date.
EVG readers spotted workers
taking soil samples at both buildings this past February.
Gut renovations are currently taking place next door to 204 Avenue A, where a condoplex conversion will see 202 Avenue double in size.
[
Photo of 202 Avenue on Nov. 26 by Steven]
