Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday helped break ground on a 341-unit affordable housing development in East Harlem that city officials say will help address New York City\u2019s deepening housing shortage.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we break ground on Timbale Terrace. A 100% affordable housing development that will transform the lives of hundreds of families across East Harlem,\u201d Mamdani said, flanked by members of his administration, city and community leaders.<\/p>\n
The development will rise on East 118th Street and Park Avenue on a former NYPD parking lot. It will include 341 affordable apartments, 97 of which will be set aside as supportive housing for residents in need of on-site services.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani broke ground on Timbale Terrace, a 341-unit affordable housing development in East Harlem
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The project includes 97 supportive housing units and a new cultural center, Casa Belongo
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The site was formerly an NYPD parking lot and is part of the 2017 East Harlem rezoning
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A proposal to build housing on CUNY campuses has drawn sharp criticism from Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella<\/p>\n
The project will also house a cultural center, Casa Belongo, dedicated to Afro Latin music, education and community programming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis cultural institution dedicated to performing, teaching and preserving the music of the Americas, rooted in African and indigenous traditions,\u201d said Marietta Ulacia, executive director of Casa Belongo.<\/p>\n
The groundbreaking comes as the city faces a housing crunch, with a vacancy rate of 1.4% \u2014 the lowest since 1968 \u2014 according to the most recent study by the city\u2019s Housing and Vacancy Survey.<\/p>\n
Developers said the site, once used by the NYPD for parking, was awarded through a public request for proposals process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a formerly city owned site, NYPD parking lot that went through an RFP process, brought together public, private, non-for-profit partners to deliver this great housing project,\u201d said Emanuel Kokinakis, development principal at Mega Group Development.<\/p>\n
City Hall said the project is part of the 2017 East Harlem rezoning and aligns with Mamdani\u2019s executive order issued on his first day in office opening city-owned and city-affiliated land to housing development.<\/p>\n
The push to build on public land has sparked debate beyond East Harlem. A new report from the Center for an Urban Future suggests unused or open space on City University of New York campuses could be used for affordable housing. The report identifies the College of Staten Island as one campus with enough available land to build \u201cmultiple five-acre developments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella sharply criticized the idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really bad and it\u2019s a really dumb idea,\u201d Fossella said Wednesday, arguing the campus lacks sufficient parking, public transit access and infrastructure to support housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere comes this group that says, \u2018Let\u2019s make the problem worse. Let\u2019s take away hundreds, who knows how many parking spots\u2019 \u2014 which would only compromise the quality of life for the students and the faculty at the College of Staten Island,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In response to the proposal, a spokesperson for Mamdani said in a statement: \u201cWe are leaving no stone unturned in our work to deliver the affordable housing that New Yorkers need. Our LIFT task force will be looking at every opportunity to build housing on publicly-owned land, including CUNY campuses where appropriate, and we will be meeting with CUNY representatives as a part of the task force\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials said financing for Timbale Terrace is being led by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and the Department of Cultural Affairs contributed funding for the construction of Casa Belongo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday helped break ground on a 341-unit affordable housing development in East Harlem that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2908,109,25,2907,75,9,24,55,54,12,26,56,87,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-138630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-housing","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-housing","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nia-clark","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}