These luxury apartments are the best deals in town — but people are either too rich or too poor to live in them.
Developers behind some of Brooklyn’s toniest new high-rises are struggling to fill out their affordable-housing stock — which rents for $540 to $900 a month — because there aren’t enough qualified locals to take them, community members say.
Robert Perris, district manager of Community Board 2 — which comprises Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn — said affordable apartments are sitting empty for lack of lower-/middle-income people in the neighborhood to rent them.
“There has been so much gentrification in recent years that the pool of potential candidates who are eligible has just shrunk further and further over time,” Perris said.
There are only a small number of people who can meet the strict income criteria for the new affordable units, 50 percent of which are legally obligated to be given to low-income local residents.
To qualify, renters must have a household income between $20,000 and $40,000, depending on family size, and already be from the neighborhood.
But that part of Brooklyn is so wealthy now, there just aren’t enough qualified locals.
“Of the people in the district who do meet the requirements, many of them are already dug into public housing or rent-controlled apartments,” Perris said.
The developers of projects like 66 Rockwell Place in Fort Greene say they have barely found any eligible tenants from CB 2 to occupy units because of rising income levels, according to community board members.
Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for a luxury property at 60 Water Street, said that demand for the building’s cheap pads was staggering, with roughly 5,000 applicants looking to get their hands on one of the building’s 68 affordable units. Seven Hundred of those applicants were residents of CB2.
“Its still early in the process. We haven’t started the interview process yet,” Soffin said. “But we are confident we will fill all of the units and meet the 50 percent preference for CB2 residents.”
Even with the high demand for affordable apartments, Rob Solano, director or Churches United for Fair Housing, said that doesn’t necessarily mean they will all be qualified, depending on factors like their credit score.
Solano’s group provides financial literacy for housing applicants and gives tips on how to successfully navigate the application process.
“The developers are suffering because of this,” Solano said, “It’s hurting them because they can’t rent all of their market apartments until they rent all of their affordable apartments.”