apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

low-income?

I'm with you, but the avg. apartment in NY costs A LOT more than $330K. In Manhattan I think it is over $900K now.

I saw this in Dwell and was dissapointed when I relalized that they didn't take any pictures inside. This being "low income" families' homes, I guess the lack of mid-century modern pieces turned the editors off?

I noticed the same thing (no interior shots) and had the same thought (because of no eames rockers). Super annoying, if that is the reasoning.

Perhaps someone from AT can make the trek out to East NY, meet the families, and do an interior shoot. That would make up for the fact that we heard about this place in Dwell before our local AT. :)

I had a chance to visit these just before they were finished - the reason there are no interior shots is becuase the interiors are bare bones off the shelf materials - not that the architects had any choice. I think HPD told them exactly what kinds of materials they had to use, and even how big all the rooms had to be (down to the closet sizes). To get the exteriors to look the way they did was an extrordinary acheivment in the low cost New York housing market - especially considering the typical low cost housing unit in the neighborhood costs 15% less/sf and looks 100% worse.

But it's not Manhattan - It's East NY and you can still find nice apartments in the burrows for $250K (not that they have this modern appeal)

I'm not low income by any means, but I still couldn't afford that.

$330k is a chunk of change but for $2,200 square feet! That is so much space, if those were here in Boston people would be clamoring for them, myself included. They aren't properly low-income, but the loser term "affordable" might be applied.

It's sad state of affairs when $330,000. is considered low income, bizarro inflated Republican new improved Manhattan aside. For MOST people, that is nowhere near affordable. I'm a high school teacher with a Masters degree and a single mother, and I guess this just puts me in the "extreme poverty" zone. How depressing. Though I do like the exteriors!

Having grown up near East New York, I can tell you that it is a world away from Manhattan on every quality of life indicator, so the price of housing needs to be considered in context of schools, crime, etc. This is VERY expensive for an area that spent the last few decades as THE definition of "urban blight." Since these were sold by lottery, special financing was in place. Remember: this housing is less about real estate than it is about rebuilding a neighborhood by bringing in working people and giving them a stake in its future.

The architects did a phenomenal job. And remember: the people likely to buy these houses are hardworking people, quite possibly immigrants, who probably have a fairly traditional notion of what a house should look like, so I wonder what they think of this.

Having spent my youth watching thousands of buildings in Brownsville and East New York burn, seeing housing like this is arise is just astonishing.

Taureg, you brought up exactly what I was wondering -- does the target market want to live in cheaply accoutered "modern design"?

1960s housing projects were typically "good modern design" -- and the low-income residents hated them and didn't take care of them. Most research on how to build a livable project now advocates fewer concrete angles and more traditionalism.

I can't help wondering if this species of modernism is beloved only by a relatively limited slice of intelligentsia, who then try to inflict it on the poor for their social improvement.

I agree with Wende - and like the 60s modernist blocks, there are sleek lines instead of trees. There is virtually no green in that picture. I myself like modernist design, but I'm not sure the target market does. And to be honest, I think $330K is a lot of money to spend for a place in East New York, which still has more than its fair share of urban blight.

Wait, "complex"? So you Americans are still building Projects? What the hell is wrong with your country?

wende in phoenix, you're not suggesting that modernism is a pretentious aesthetic that casts off usability in favour of competitive consumption, are you? Because surely you'll be banned from AT for such badthink.

Actually, the "low-income" moniker is incorrect. I looked it up. It's "middle-income." In NYC, "affordable" housing can mean low, moderate or middle (which is more than moderate) -income housing. You need to have make between $47,000 and something like $72,000 to qualify for one of these 9 houses. I'm curious who would choose to live there, though, because why would someone who has kids choose to live in East NY unless those kids had scholarships to private school? For that kind of money you can find a decent apartment in a decent school district in Brooklym Queens or the Bronx (like Riverdale). Perhaps the nine will be self-employed art/design people who need space.

They're building something very similar to these here, on Staten Island, with a plot of shorefront land that used to be industrial and now makes me silly with jealousy. I imagine they'll be MUCH less expensive but at prices like that it will be interesting to see exactly who moves in.
I can see more fresh-out-of-school art students, and less native families with serious need for housing.

Yes, believe it or not some lower income people want modern design. One assumes that if you threw your name in the lottery, you want it. And perhaps they want to be in East New York because they have family nearby who will help with child care, or who need help with child care. Not everyone wants to just get the hell out of the neighborhood. Some people want to stay and fight for it.

From the NYC.gov (press release?) PDF:

The Purchase Price of each of the new homes is $329,333.
Eligible buyers should have at least 3% of the purchase price for down payment, be able to afford all closing costs, qualify for mortgage financing, and meet additional selection criteria.
Six of the nine homes will be sold to families whose income does not exceed 165% of AMI ($103,620).

That's a down payment of $9880, which makes it affordable in that regard. I don't know if the rules would allow for it, but 2200 square feet is large enough for an extended family, meaning you could have more than 2 incomes.

Vagary: No, we're not still building Projects in the US. Chicago has demolished 90% of it's Projects, a few have been replaced by a handful of mixed-income town homes.

Chicago also has requires new condo developers to set aside a certain percentage of units for "affordable"housing. Those units are sold by lottery to those who qualify.

The goal is to get rid of nearly all the projects and spread people around in affordable homes.

I still kind of agree with Wende about the idea that affordable housing in a very modern style is not really what a lot of lower income folks necessarily dream of, when they think of their own home.

I think that can be kind of wonderful, but they may not. That said... if it's not really all THAT affordable anyway, then the folks that might be able to afford it, might fit love it! I like how those look.

Okay, ohjodi, good: spreading the affordable housing around is the right way to do it. So why aren't some of these units being sold at market rates?

Vagary: Are you referring to the East NY homes? I have no idea what that city is doing in this regard.