A 751,000-square-foot mixed-use development devoted to advancing Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing agenda will rise on the site of four community gardens in East Harlem.
Most of the block bound by Madison and Park avenues and East 111th and 112th streets—save for a vacant lot and a four-story apartment building that are not owned by the city—will be transformed into Sendero Verde, a 655-apartment affordable housing development, Politico reports.
It will also include a supermarket, YMCA, job training center, a preventative health care facility operated by Mount Sinai, an 85,000-square-foot charter school, and space for East Harlem organization Union Settlement.
The city has tapped Jonathan Rose Companies to work with L+M Development Partners on developing a project that adheres to passive house standards. The four community gardens being ousted from their sites will be granted new spaces within the development. “Our goal is to create a complete community … not only housing but services for all the residents,” Rose told Politico. The development’s amenities were decided upon in part by a community visioning workshop held in February 2016.
Apartments in the building will be rented to an assortment of income brackets, starting at three-person households earning up to $24,480. The highest income bracket considered exceeds market rate rents in the neighborhood per a Furman Center study cited by Politico. According to Politico, the city is referring to the project as wholly affordable because the housing authority will regulate all rents in the building. Of the 655 apartments, 79 will be set aside for seniors and 163 will remain permanently affordable under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy.
Just a few blocks away, L+M Development Partners is teaming up with Tahl Propp Equities a different major affordable housing development. The 400-apartment project, Lexington Gardens II, has been approved by the City Council and will be located on the eastern half of the block bound by East 107th and 108th streets and Lexington and Park avenues.