Building will be shorter and include more apartments actually affordable to local residents
NEW YORK – (RealEstateRama) — Borough President Gale A. Brewer announced her office has negotiated a framework for residential development at 4650 Broadway in Inwood, Manhattan’s first private application considered under the new Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. Under the framework deal announced by Brewer, the developer committed to a shorter building with a significant number of apartments that will actually be affordable to Inwood residents. Brewer lauded the compromise as a victory for Inwood residents and proof that the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program can work as intended.
“The original plan for Broadway-Sherman would have created a huge tower with ‘affordable’ units targeted to income levels 50 percent higher than the median income of Inwood residents. The new plan will create affordable units at deeper levels of affordability that this community can actually use,” said Manahttan Borough President Gale A. Brewer. “If we upzoned as high as we could just to build lots of ‘affordable’ units without thinking about who they’re affordable to, Mandatory Inclusionary Housing’s critics would be justified in their fears. But what we’ve shown today is that the program can work as intended when elected officials, the community, and developers all buy into its goal and negotiate. I want to thank the developer for being a good partner and working with us to craft a precedent-setting plan.”
The site at the corner of Broadway and Sherman Avenue, commonly called “Broadway-Sherman,” is the subject of an upzoning application submitted by Acadia Sherman Avenue LLC.
The developer’s original proposal was for a 27-story tower with 30 percent affordable housing targeted to 80 percent of the New York City region’s Area Median Income, meaning a family of three would have had to earn approximately $62,000 per year to get one of the affordable apartments – 50 percent more than the neighborhood’s average median income of $41,000. Under the site’s current zoning, a developer could build a tower of 17 or more stories with no affordable housing at all.
Borough President Brewer’s compromise with the developer has resulted in a framework deal that will cap building height for this site at about 17 stories with a guarantee that 20 percent of the new development’s units will be affordable to those earning 40 percent of the Area Median Income (roughly $25,000 per year). In addition, the developer will include another tier of affordable units, on top of that 20 percent, with the goal of half of the building qualifying as affordable housing. The developer has committed in writing to these changes and is amending its land use application to codify most of these changes immediately.
Brewer credited Community Board 12’s review of the original proposal as highlighting the priority areas she negotiated with the developer to improve in the revised plan. The revised proposal will ultimately be subject to review and approval by the City Planning Commission and City Council as part of the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
Brewer’s formal land use review opinion, which explains the details of the application and her compromise with the developer in more detail, can be viewed at the Borough President’s website or downloaded as a PDF.
Please Contact:
Andrew Goldston | agoldston (at) manhattanbp.nyc (dot) gov | 917.960.1187
