300 Affordable Harlem Apartments Hit Housing Lottery

EAST HARLEM, NY — More than 300 affordable apartments in a new East Harlem development have gone up for grabs through a city housing lottery, offering rent-stabilized units as low as $388 per month.

The 324 apartments are part of Sendero Verde, an enormous, three-building complex under construction between East 111th and 112th streets and Madison and Park avenues.

Applications are open on the Housing Connect website, with a deadline of Feb. 25, 2022. This lottery includes only the first phase of Sendero Verde, which consists of a 15-story and 10-story building with 361 apartments combined — plus a public charter school and a community center.

Construction on those two buildings topped out last fall and is expected to be complete sometime in 2022. A second phase will construct a 34-story building with about 350 affordable units, bringing the project's total to more than 700.

A breakdown of the available units on Housing Connect shows a wide range of household sizes and eligible incomes. The cheapest units are 20 studios with rents of $388, available to people making up to 30 percent of the area median income — or between $15,806 and $25,080 for a single person.

At the same AMI level, 27 one-bedroom units are available for $492 per month; 17 two-bedrooms are listed for $582, and eight three-bedrooms are up for grabs with $662 monthly rents.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the priciest apartments include 72 units listed at 110 percent AMI — or a minimum of $52,663 for a single person.

Half of the units will be reserved for residents of Community District 11, with more units set aside for city employees and people with disabilities. Building amenities will include an outdoor terrace, fitness center, community and computer rooms, bike storage, free broadband internet and on-site laundry.

The City Council approved applications for zoning and land use variances to construct the Sendero Verde when it passed a sweeping rezoning of East Harlem in November 2017. Developers filed plans to build at the site in June 2018 and then again for a second building in Feb. 2019.

The rezoning as a whole was expected to spur the construction of 1,288 affordable housing units on the neighborhood's private development sites, but opponents argued an increase of market-rate housing will lead to gentrification and displacement of the neighborhood's long-term tenants.

To learn more about the apartments or apply through the housing lottery, view the listing on Housing Connect. To request an application by mail, send a self-addressed envelope to: Sendero Verde Phase I / Triborough Finance New Station, P.O. Box 2011; New York, NY 10035.

Brendan Krisel contributed to this report.

Previous coverage from Patch:

• Huge East Harlem Development Tops Out, Announces Union Deal
• Construction On Massive E Harlem Development Begins This Summer
• Plans Filed For Second Sendero Verde Building In East Harlem
• Plans Filed For First Building In Massive East Harlem Development