267 Forest Hills Apartments Hit Affordable Housing Lottery

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Hundreds of apartments in a mixed-income, Forest Hills residential complex hit the affordable housing lottery this week.

The development, known as Apex Place, includes three new buildings with 441 total apartments — 267 of which are now available in the lottery in a pair of adjoining towers located at 62-11 108 Street and 108-75 62 Drive. The final 174 apartments will hit the affordable housing lottery in late 2022, developers said.

Apex Place is managed by Phipps Houses, one of the city's largest nonprofit housing developers, which also manages the adjacent Forest Hills Co-Op Houses, a development whose residents voted to go co-op in 2017 after four decades as a New York City Housing Authority building.

When the Forest Hills Co-Op Houses apartments hit the market in 2018, however, so-called affordable units were only made available for applicants earning at least 100 percent of the area median income, or AMI — the average amount that people living in the area earned, which the city uses to assess housing affordability.

120 of the Apex Place apartments on the affordable housing lottery, by contrast, are priced at 50 and 70 percent AMI, meaning one- and two-person households making at least $27,498 can apply for studio apartments at the price of $738 per-month. The city deems those units as appropriately priced for low-income and very low-income families.

More than half of the apartments, however, require applicants to make more than 100 percent of the area median income, amounting to at least $65,795 a year for one- to three-people households applying for a one-bedroom apartment, priced at $1,847 per-month.

The development’s priciest units are only available for households earning over $105,000 annually for three bedroom units priced at $2,975 per-month.

All of the Apex Place units include modern appliances and details, like dishwashers and air conditioning, as the development gives tenants access to roof decks, children’s playrooms, fitness rooms, laundry facilities, and a landscaped campus, developers said. Queens Community House, a social service organization, has a community center on the campus too.

There is also a 4-story parking garage on site for tenants at an additional cost, according to Phipps Houses.

The 267 Apex Place apartments will remain on the market for the next 56 days, closing on Nov. 16.

Read more about the apartments available at 62-11 108 Street and 108-75 62 Drive here.