On parking lots, rubbly plots and the occasional community garden, the Bronx seems awash in new apartments.
New market-rate housing is still pretty scarce, and most of what is rising are apartments priced as affordable housing, aimed at those who can’t pay market rates. Across the South Bronx, in a miniboom, several thousand affordable rental apartments are under construction or planned, according to developers, brokers and city officials.
Prospect-Lefferts Gardens was once referred to by locals as “Brooklyn’s best-kept secret.” Now, developments—many of which offer vistas across Prospect Park and onto downtown Manhattan—are shooting up as the area surges in popularity. One of those is The Parkline at 626 Flatbush Avenue between Fenimore and Hawthorne streets.
A once notorious juvenile detention facility in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx will be the site of a new project anchored by affordable housing, in a plan scheduled to be detailed Thursday by New York City officials. Spofford Juvenile Detention Center was built in 1957 and closed in 2011.
It’s easy to understand what keeps the most expensive energy-efficient features out of multifamily units. With more than 75% of owners passing the costs for gas and electricity on to their tenants, in most cases—minus philosophical views—a financial impetus is absent. But multifamily executive found four developers who say that, with the costs for such things as photovoltaic and geothermal installations dropping and more energy-saving products than ever suited to multifamily buildings, there are no excuses left for not “greening up.”
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is putting up more than $2 million in funding to help local houses of worship to develop affordable housing on underutilized church properties across the Borough of Churches.
