Affordable Housing

Affordable Housing

The building boom of recent years has left many neighborhoods awash in luxury apartment towers. For citizens of limited means, however, just paying the rent is increasingly beyond reach. City government and nonprofit real-estate developers are trying to help.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, in an effort to make good on a campaign promise to build or preserve 200,000 affordable units over the next decade, has increased funding. That’s in addition to giving tax incentives and rewriting zoning codes to encourage developers of market-rate housing to earmark units for those who meet income requirements and apply through a lottery system. Among nonprofits opening all-affordable projects, Breaking Ground goes the extra distance by enlisting the finest talents in the cause. President and CEO Brenda Rosen hired Alexander Gorlin Architects for a colorful supportive-housing project in Morrisania that has won abundant praise and CookFox Architects for a Belmont building scheduled to welcome tenants in October, offering apartments large enough to accommodate families with children. 

Photo by Michael Moran/Otto

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