[NYguy]

Daily News

Low-income living on high

BY ELIZABETH HAYS
November 26, 2006

With vacant lots becoming luxury condos across the city in the blink of an eye, officials are looking up - and to some unlikely places - to build affordable apartments.

Low-rise schools, libraries, municipal parking lots and even supermarkets are among the unusual spots that could soon be topped with low- and middle-income housing.

Developers also would be required to renovate dilapidated city buildings, using private money.

"You have to be a little innovative because there isn't a lot of empty land left," said John Tynan, director of housing for Catholic Charities in Brooklyn and Queens. "It's driven by the scarcity of the land."

In Brooklyn, city officials are looking to build apartments over a Park Slope elementary school that needs repairs.

In Queens, the city is considering a low-slung supermarket on Guy R. Brewer Blvd. as a possible site for subsidized apartments, which would be built above it.

Meanwhile, another proposal picking up support involves building low-income homes above aging public libraries.

"Up until now, we had plenty of housing sites in New York, so no one had the impetus to look at libraries," said Kirk Goodrich of Enterprise Community Investment. The group has earmarked a handful of libraries in each borough that could be rebuilt with housing above them, such as the Grand Concourse branch in the Bronx.

City planners have even floated a plan to deck over spots such as the Sunnyside railyards or a below-grade portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for still more housing - though that's still just an idea.

City officials said the trend toward reusing public property also makes financial sense, because adding new housing brings in private funds to overhaul crumbling city-owned facilities.

"You get a new and improved library or school as well as a chance to build housing," said Housing Preservation and Development spokesman Neill Coleman.

In Park Slope, the city plans to rebuild aging Public School 133 on Butler St. near Fourth Ave. by allowing a developer to replace the school with a 120-foot tower that also would include at least 100,000 square feet of subsidized and market-rate apartments.

A similar project is underway on Manhattan's East Side. The city has tapped a private developer to tear down PS 59 and the High School of Art and Design and replace them with new schools along with an apartment tower that includes 20% affordable housing.

A Brooklyn housing group, the Fifth Ave. Committee, also is pushing the city to use private funds to rebuild four aging libraries in Red Hook, Clinton Hill and other spots.

"We really need to look at using public space in a more efficient manner," said City Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Brooklyn), who is working with the group to bring a school or apartments above the Clinton Hill branch.

Housing advocates said they welcome any city plan that adds affordable housing. But they said the proposals don't make up for the subsidized housing that already has been eaten up by the real estate boom.

"They're still at a deficit," said Jumaane Williams, executive director of Tenants and Neighbors, adding the city lost 200,000 rent-regulated apartments in the past decade, and 34,000 additional subsidized units since 1990. "We're still losing more affordable housing than is being built."