Developer chosen for Fulton & Elliot-Chelsea lots

By Chris Lombardi

On Tuesday night, Miguel Acevedo’s voice was full of emotion. “Do you know what this means?”

Acevedo, co-founder of the Afford Chelsea coalition and coordinator of Fulton Youth for the Future, was ready to tell Chelsea Now. “This means that we get a young single mother off poverty, into a training program with a decent salary—and when she’s ready for her own apartment, she has somewhere to go. Somewhere she can afford. Somewhere she can live.”

Acevedo was hailing last week’s announcement that the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) have chosen developers for long-awaited mixed-income affordable housing buildings to be erected in parking lots of the Fulton and Elliott Chelsea Houses, as well as Harborview Terrace, in Hell’s Kitchen.

Last Wednesday, HPD announced it had chosen a Harlem-based firm, Artimus Construction Company, which has a long history of affordable-housing developments around the city, for the Chelsea projects. The choice was hailed as a “win-win” by HPD, NYCHA and advocates like Acevedo, who have been fighting for years for such housing in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

The new buildings were born of two equally strong needs: the need for affordable housing for moderate-income families and NYCHA’s need to plug a multi-million-dollar gap in its budget. Due to rising materials and personnel costs without commensurate increases in federal, state and city funding, the authority has had to implement a series of austerity measures, and last year considered selling off some of its property to HPD.

By spring, unloading some sites seemed imminent, and NYCHA included in its May 2007 budget the sale of parking lots at the three complexes for $50 million. Well before last week’s announcement, information began to leak to those in the know: that Hudson Guild had paired with Carol Lamberg’s Settlement Housing Fund for a bid on the Fulton Houses parking lots, but that Artimus, which built its first project for HPD in 2000, was a stronger contender for both the Fulton and Elliott Chelsea sites.

Artimus Construction, which is helmed by President Robert Ezrapour, has been building affordable-housing units for most of its 20 years. The partnership between Artimus and HPD is certainly not new: In 2003, the 20-year-old company was chosen to build Triangle Court III, a mixed-income rental building on 119th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, and the Rosa Parks Houses, HPD’s 64-unit affordable condominium complex nearby. For both, the builder worked with scores of local nonprofits and businesses, including Community Preservation Corporation.

“They have a history of working with the community,” said Acevedo of Artimus, adding “It’s good to have a new face on the block.”

To Acevedo, this week’s announcement caps a struggle begun in the early 1990s, when he and fellow Fulton resident Miriam Rabban co-founded Afford Chelsea as neighborhood housing costs began to rise.

Residents of Fulton and Elliott Chelsea Houses have long watched, said Acevedo, as their children and other family members were forced by escalating rents to leave Manhattan.

And for the second generation, he added, education and job opportunities have put them in a Catch-22: As they “move on up” to a living wage, they no longer qualify for NYCHA housing but can hardly afford Chelsea’s skyrocketing rents. Afford Chelsea began in the early 1990’s to press local elected officials to help find a solution.

Among those working on the NYCHA-HPD project with Afford Chelsea were Eliyanna Kaiser at Assemblymember Richard Gottfried’s office, Anthony Barelli at Borough President Scott Stringer’s office, and Daniel Decerbo in the office of House Speaker Christine Quinn, who was key in the final negotiations. Now, said Acevedo, “I applaud Speaker Quinn, the mayor and [NYCHA Director] Tino Martinez. They really delivered.”

Unlike many such units that are scattered among otherwise luxury buildings, he added, “100 percent of the apartments will be affordable—permanently.”

All of the units at the Chelsea buildings will be reserved for families of four earning between $56,700 and $117,000 a year, or to single households earning between $39,700 and $81,900. Current residents of Community Board 4 will receive 50 “preference points” on their application, with an additional 25 percent for residents of Elliott Chelsea and Fulton Houses.

In addition, the plans announced on Wednesday also include a community center on the first floor of the Fulton building, a resource Acevedo called “essential.” Given the limited recreation opportunities for young people like those in his youth group, Acevedo said he is already shopping for youth-development programs to partner with.

“I’m having conversations with the Police Athletic League,” he said on Wednesday. “They have a lot of programs for young people/” And unlike agencies like the YMCA, he added, the PAL’s programs are free.

But the center, Acevedo admitted, was icing on the cake, with the core being the hope these buildings offer to younger residents.

“Now a young person who grew up in Fulton Houses, or Elliott Chelsea, and is moving their way up the career ladder, has an ability to live somewhere nice,” said Acevedo. “They can get a nice new apartment and raise a child. They can be near their families, where they’ve lived all their lives, and not feel thrown out of the neighborhood. What more could a family ask for?”