122 units are up for grabs in Norwood directly across Woodlawn Cemetery and while that might sound creepy, it is really one of the most beautiful spaces in the city and one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world so why not?
At least you know the neighbors across the street aren’t going to be noisy.
Webster Commons Building D is part of a larger development that has over 400 units across four buildings and 50% of the units are set aside for those living within Bronx Community Board 12 who make 40, 50, 100, and 110% of the fake Area Median Income (AMI).
Income requirements for 3620 Webster Avenue
Rents range from $519 for a studio for individuals making $19,680-$26,720 up to $1,965 for a 3 bedroom unit for a family of 6 making $69,909-$121,770.
Transportation is a bit sketchy so you’ll either walk to Metro North’s Williams Bridge station or just rely on the bus to take you to the nearest subway station.
MELROSE—A new Burlington Department Store opened today at the old Alexander’s building (which was also a Conway’s) on Third Avenue and 153rd Street.
The massive store occupies just under 40,000 square feet on the second and third floor of the building which just recently underwent a multi-million dollar gut renovation after being purchased in 2013 for just over $16 million.
Burlington’s arrival at the Third Avenue Business Improvement District at The Hub, The Bronx’s oldest shopping district, brings back the type of one stop shopping destination like Alexander’s used to be for decades until it closed down in the 1992 after declaring bankruptcy.
Shoppers were already taking advantage of the bargains at Burlington
Many residents were already eagerly shopping at the new location when we arrived and expressed excitement at having a Burlington so easily accessible in the neighborhood but not everyone was thrilled.
A local small business owner, who wished to remain anonymous in fear of losing their lease, said they are concerned about already high rents at The Hub and how they will most likely increase now that big chain stores like Burlington continue to make their way into the area.
With increased confidence in the real estate market in the South Bronx, it is becoming increasingly difficult for mom and pop shops to stay afloat not to mention almost impossible to open up as rents continue to rise beyond the grasp of the average business owner.
Only time will tell what kind of an impact Burlington will have along Third Avenue.
Marshall’s will also be opening at the same location later this Spring.
The new store is open 7 days a week, Monday through Saturday from 9:30AM to 10PM and Sundays from 9:30AM-9:30PM.
Although community organizations have been vocal as to which redesign of the Sheridan Expressway they want, the State of New York will proceed with its own vision which rather than help truck traffic will actually divert it next to parks and community facilities used by children.
NYS Department of Transportation is beyond negligent and disrespectful to the community’s vision of making the Bronx River and parks along it more accessible as well as decommissioning parts of the underutilized Sheridan Expressway to nowhere which was originally supposed to extend to Co-op City.
Rather than building ramps at Oakpoint from the Bruckner and directly into the industrial heart of Hunts Point, thus avoiding the residential areas, NYS has chosen to proceed and build the ramps at Edgewater right next to the residential portions of a neighborhood long suffering from environmental injustices.
The Edgewater ramp would divert traffic onto Edgewater Road right next to the residential core and trucks would barrel down the road making it difficult for residents and children to get to Hunts Point Riverside Park, The Point Campus, and Rocking The Boat.
In a borough where we are constantly being shafted with top down decisions without following true community vision, this decision is not just irresponsible but unacceptable.
The South Bronx River Watershed Alliance, a coalition of Bronx-based organizations, issued a scathing press release today on the matter.
Adam Green, Executive Director of Rocking the Boat said, “Over 4,000 young people and community members come to Rocking the Boat each year to build wooden boats, learn to row and sail, and restore the Bronx River. Every one of these people must cross Edgewater Road to get to us.”
Green added, “As it stands, the constant truck traffic whizzing in front of our building on Edgewater Road –leading to reduced air quality and never ending noise pollution –creates a major safety issue for our students. The prospect of an even larger thoroughfare, designed specifically to funnel truck traffic onto Edgewater Road, is devastating.”
“The South Bronx deserves better. South Bronx neighborhoods have historically been excluded from planning decisions that have been catastrophic for our health and the local environment. We have some of the highest asthma rates in the country due to the highways that divide our neighborhoods. We lack open,green spaces and suffer from dangerous pedestrian conditions due to decades of funding neglect for infrastructure improvements. We deserve and demand to be part of the decision-making process. We demand Oak Point and Leggett ramps to be put back on the table.” said Angela Tovar, Director of Community Development at The Point CDC, member of SBRWA.
These community voices are the ones who have to live with these decisions that NYS is making, not Cuomo or the State who’s pushing for these.
It’s our children, not theirs, that will have their health and lives endangered. We already have the worst health outcomes in the entire state so why are we not doing things like the community back planned to ameliorate some of the situations surrounding asthma which also contribute to cardiovascular diseases?
Jessica Clemente, Executive Director of We Stay/Nos Quedamos which is a member organization of the South Bronx River Watershed Alliance echoes these sentiments on how the our communities are continuously ignored on what we need.
“After failing this community for 20 years and closing the project against our wishes in 2012, NYSDOT certainly seems to be in a rush to push through its own version of the plan.What’s worse, they have provided virtually no information about the reasons for their decision –the Scoping Report lacks basic citations and requests for additional information have been ignored” said Clemente.
Elena Conte who is the Director of Policy at Pratt Center for Community Development said, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime, multi -billion-dollar project that is an opportunity for the Governor to undo a legacy of racist planning. There’s no excuse not to get it right. NYSDOT’s process thus far has failed basic transparency and public engagement standards, adding insult to the injury of the mistakes of the past.”
Conte also added that this is a chance for Governor Cuomo to make things right for low-income communities of color that are often ignored and bear the brunt of environmental injustices. “We are calling on him to do so by requiring NYSDOT to provide basic data to the public and to take a hard look at alternative ramp alignments.” she said.
We know this is an election year and although we hate pandering, this is something Cuomo can get behind and do right by the people of Hunts Point and the South Bronx.
Some more background information from SBRWA is available below from their press release:
In 2010, New York City received a $1.5 million federal planning grant to study how changes to the South Bronx’s transportation infrastructure could improve neighborhood living conditions through a sustainable housing, land use and zoning plan. Hundreds of stakeholders including residents, advocates and businesses, participated in an extensive planning process that resulted in the 2013 Sheridan-Hunts Point Land Use and Transportation Study (SEHP) SEHP provided a series of recommendations to transform the Sheridan Expressway corridor into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard and creates direct access to the Hunts Point Distribution market by building ramps at Oak Point and Leggett.
After twenty years of advocacy and consensus building by local stakeholders, in 2017 Governor Cuomo announced the state would finally invest $1.8 billion to realizing long-awaited improvements, allocating $700 million in the 2017-18 NYS budget towards these initiatives. These investments provide a rarely seen opportunity to provide transformative change in a community that has been overburdened with the cumulative health impacts of environmental hazards. However, NYSDOT’s decision to remove alternatives from environmental review and dismiss widely accepted plans raises questions.
The final Project Scoping Report contains limited detail and lacks standard analysis to explain the State’s decision to cut out five alternatives from being studied. Four of these alternatives were not presented to the public until the final report. The final scope references data without citations and source materials and does not include basic information such as the exact location of impacted properties or businesses. SBRWA requested data at the June and September 2017 Scoping Meetings, at meetings in November 2017 and February 2018, and in writing. No official response has been received.
The community is calling on Governor Cuomo to re-open the scoping process and mandate that NYSDOT study all design scenarios through the environmental review process and use additional scrutiny in their analysis given the long history of environmental justice issues in Hunts Point.
Permits have been filedfor 16 unit residential development at Marine Street on City Island.
New York YIMBY reports that the it will be a condo but there is no indication that it is going to be a homeownership project, at least not according to permits filed with Department of Buildings.
The building will be 19,691 square feet and will only rise 2 stories keeping in character with the height of buildings on City Island.
There will also be onsite parking for 48 cars which we’re sure will be a relief to City Island residents not having to give up parking spaces to yet more development on their tiny island.
The Bronx is booming as population is just hundreds away from the historical high set in 1970.
As New York City hits a record 8.6 million residents, our borough’s population continues to explode as The Bronx added 88,052 new residents from 2010 to 2017 according accounting for a 6.21% increase according to the Department of City Planning.
That places our borough at 1,471,160 placing us just 541 residents away from our historical high of 1,471,701 set in 1970 before The Bronx lost almost 400,000 residents as our borough burned through landlord led arson.
With the newly approved Jerome Avenue Rezoning earlier today paving the way for potentially increasing the housing stock in that area by 4,600 apartments not to mention the thousands of apartments currently under construction, we probably already have surpassed the historical high of 1970.
But our transit system is collapsing and our borough has one less subway line than we did in the 1950s when the Third Avenue El zoomed down all the way from Gun Hill to downtown Manhattan.
We can already see the impact of this population boom on the overcrowded subway platforms and the fact that many times commuters have to let trains go by before getting on one due to delays which further compounds the sardine-like nature of these rides.
The Bronx’s population is predicted to grow to 1,579,000 by 2040 representing a 14% increase from 2010 adding almost 200,000 more residents.
Today, NYC City Council approved the rezoning which pushes forward the redevelopment of the old Spofford Juvenile Detention Center in Hunts Point.
Known as The Peninsula, the $300 million development will bring 740 units of on the 5 acre property and Councilman Rafael Salamanca Jr, who’s the land use chair, was able to negotiate that the units which aren’t permanently affordable to remain below market-rate for 60 years.
The development will have 52,000 square feet of open space, a health and wellness run by Urban Health Plan, and 50,000 square feet of light industrial space.
Renderings by Gilbane Development Corporation
This is a perfect example of changing the land use of a lot for the greater good where once there was a jail there will now be a positive development for the area.
We must ask ourselves then, why is the city trying to build a jail in our overburdened communities then?
As expected, the New York City Council approved the controversial and massive 93-block Jerome Avenue Rezoning paving the way for gentrification and displacement.
No, this isn’t hyperbole as we already know that rezonings favor developers over actual residents. We’ve seen what is happening in the Lower Concourse in Mott Haven from the rezoning in 2009 where market-rate housing is rising contributing to rents increasing rapidly and one of the fastest rising rents in the city.
We saw what happened in Port Morris along Bruckner Boulevard when that area was rezoned in the 1990s.
Now, the people of the West Bronx will face a nightmare of a rezoning inflicted upon them by a Mayor who cares more about his record than the actual communities he was elected to serve.
He ran on a campaign to end a tale of two cities within NYC but his administration continues to deepen that divide further and further with affordable housing that is not affordable for the residents in the neighborhoods where they are built.
This rezoning will see the displacement of the small businesses along Jerome Avenue, primarily the auto workers who dominate the area now.
So what did we sell out for? The promise of two schools a few parks and preservation of 2,500 units of housing but for how long?
How are we going to support the projected thousands of new people in the areas where the transit can barely support the existing residents?
Protesters began shouting during Councilman Cabrera’s statement where he said that this rezoning was, “…a great moment for the West Bronx and a major victory for the residents of the West Bronx.”
What he neglected to say was the overwhelming opposition to this rezoning. This wasn’t something the people wanted or asked for but was shoved upon them.
During Councilwoman Vanessa L Gibson’s speech, protesters began yelling demanding “WHAT DO WE WANT? AFFORDABLE HOUSING!” “WHEN WE SAY THE BRONX WE SAY POWER!!!”
“NO REZONING! NO REZONING! NO REZONING!” “WHO’S BRONX? OUR BRONX!” “DISCRIMINATION ON THE POOR!” “THE PEOPLE UNITED, WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!”
NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson proceeded to have the entire balcony area of the council chambers cleared by police.
The entire scene stopped the meeting for a little over 10 minutes.
Councilwoman Vanessa L Gibson said that she’s, “…glad that after three years of hard work, countless meetings, roundtables, demonstrations that we are here today that $189 million dollars of capital infrastructure funds for the Bronx and the West Bronx. Now we have brighter days ahead and seeing neighborhoods change, The Bronx has the opportunity to get what it deserves. ”
“This has not been an easy journey”, added Gibson. “It has been one of the most difficult and challenging decisions ever made as an elected official. I am proud of what we have achieved. Two brand new elementary schools. ”
Councilwoman Inez Baron of Brooklyn hesitated to vote aye on Jerome Avenue Rezoning feeling that the residents aren’t properly represented. She said there is still the opportunity for market-rate housing to come to the area and she’s concerned about that but voted for it anyway.
Diaz Sr said today is a great day and a little sad to see a bunch of agitators, it’s a shame to see how agitators are against what we are trying to do.
By contrast Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez of Inwood said, “Gentrification is real in our city and we have to understand the feelings of many great organizers. Still we need to look on how to be creative to learn from previous rezonings. Everyday our city is pushing working class New Yorkers out”.
Councilman Carlos Menchaca of Brooklyn voted aye on all in a move to bring a level playing field for all. He echoed Barron’s explanation that the council may have to go back and revisit MIH (Mandatory Inclusionary Housing) to work on deeper affordability to truly be effective.
Councilman Williams said the mayor and council failed with MIH even though he’s voting aye on it.
Even though it was a unanimous vote, some council members voted their hesitation (which baffles me why they would vote yes anyway).
Now, it’s all left for Mayor Bill de Blasio for final approval but it is already a done deal as this is his baby and he will sign it into law.
Two new “affordable” housing developments in The Bronx are now accepting applications.
Located in the Longwood and Mount Hope neighborhoods, these developments bring with them 170 units combined into the affordable housing market.
2028 Creston Avenue in Mount Hope is a mixed use development with units available for those making 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, and 120% of the area median income with rents ranging from $368 for a studio to $1,965 for a three bedroom.
50% of units are set aside for residents of community board 5 but if insufficient residents from CB5 do not qualify then the apartments are opened up to other residents from neighborhoods across the Bronx and NYC.
We already know that rarely are these developments 100% affordable to the local community so we guarantee that will happen.
Application deadline for this project is May 21st, 2018. Full details (pdf) on how to apply for these apartments hereand apply online here.
Meanwhile, over in Longwood, we have 917 Westchester Avenue and 944 Rogers Place offering 105 mixed-income units with rents for studios starting at $860 for studios for an individual making $31,372 to $40,080 a year to $1,281 for three bedroom units for a family of 3-6 individuals making $46,458 to $66,420 a year.
Income requirements for 917 Westchester Avenue and 944 Rogers Place
These incomes represent 60% of the area median income and the units will be out of reach of most residents as a typical single person household only makes $11,255 a year and a family of 3 to 5 people make on average $31,924 to $42,387.
50% of units are set aside for residents of Community Board 2 (should they qualify which they won’t).
For more information on income requirements and how to apply, go here(pdf) or you can simply go straight to the website and apply there.
Good luck with this housing lottery and as always:
A great article delves into the history of Zaro’s Bakery as well their claim to having invented the delicious and iconic black and white cookies.
Whether or not they were the first, one thing we do know is that they are the best around.
So how do you like to eat your black and whites?
amNY writes:
What makes Zaro’s different?
“Our cookie tends to be a lot more cookie than cake,” Michael Zaro said. “It has a good weight to it.”
There are more than two ways to eat a black and white. Michael Zaro takes one bite right in the middle, then breaks it in half and finishes the chocolate. If he’s still hungry he eats the rest of the vanilla.
But first, they have to be made. Laura Jaramillo and Juneisi Polance are part of the crew that specializes in black and whites at Zaro’s. With a combination of speed and accuracy, they produce mini- and full-sized versions. As cookies go down a conveyor belt, they grab them, spread vanilla icing on exactly half the cookie and place them on a baking sheet.
After the vanilla dries, the women take buckets of chocolate icing and deftly apply the second topping, using a thin-bladed metal spatula with a flourish.
Later in the day, the cookies are shipped to Zaro’s nearly 10 retail outlets to be sold. It’s especially popular among commuters; the busiest store is near Track 34 at Grand Central Terminal, while the two at Penn Station give it a run for its money.
Can shipping containers be the next wave in affordable housing construction?
One real estate developer from The Bronx seems to think so.
Nyron Chin-Sang, founder of Gold Key Group and is from our borough, has partnered up with SG Blocks, a company that manufactures shipping containers, to explore the possibility of bringing an affordable housing development in the Northeast Bronx.
According to amNY, the development would create approximately 65-75 residential units above a church and a retail store but the location is undisclosed due to the fact that everything is exploratory at this point.
The article states: “He chose to work with SG Blocks because he was impressed by its affordability, quality and speed. Using shipping containers cuts construction time by 40 percent and is 10 to 20 percent less expensive than typical construction, according to Paul Galvin, the CEO of SG Blocks.”
But others, like Oksana Mironova, a housing policy analyst at Community Service Society, aren’t so sure that initial savings will lead to real long-term affordability for low income renters.
It will be interesting to see if such a development sprouts in The Bronx but even more interesting is to see if it will be truly affordable.
“After failing this community for 20 years and closing the project against our wishes in 2012, NYSDOT certainly seems to be in a rush to push through its own version of the plan.What’s worse, they have provided virtually no information about the reasons for their decision –the Scoping Report lacks basic citations and requests for additional information have been ignored” said Clemente.
Meanwhile, over in Longwood, we have 917 Westchester Avenue and 944 Rogers Place offering 105 mixed-income units with rents for studios starting at $860 for studios for an individual making $31,372 to $40,080 a year to $1,281 for three bedroom units for a family of 3-6 individuals making $46,458 to $66,420 a year.
