After 50,000 tenants applied to live in the affordable apartments at Stagg Group’s first project in Norwood, Bedford Park Manor, the Bronx developer paid $4.1 million for a property only a few blocks north at 3084 Webster Avenue. Now they’ve filed plans to build an 11-story apartment building on the L-shaped lot between 202nd and 203rd Streets.
The rental development will be 80% market rate and 20% affordable, just like Bedford Park Manor. It will have 116 apartments divided across 112,039 square feet of residential space, yielding nicely sized units averaging 965 square feet. The ground floor will host 4,100 square feet of retail, topped by 10 stories of residential with 10 to 12 units each.
There will be off-street parking for 37 cars, which is less than zoning requires for a typical market-rate project. The city will allow Stagg to waive parking for the affordable units under the zoning tweaks that have just entered public review. Otherwise, the Purchase-based developer would have to build 58 parking spots.
And the building will likely receive the 421-a tax exemption, which mandates that the 23 affordable units rent to families making 60% of the Area Median Income or less. The income caps range from $36,300 for a single person to $51,780 for a family of four. Stagg is probably filing now to make sure they have approval from the city before the 421-a rules change in January. If they don’t have shovels in the ground by then, they’ll have to set aside slightly more apartments—25% or 30%—to rent at below-market rates.
This project also gets a big bump in floor area for including affordable units, thanks to the city’s inclusionary housing program. But, it runs up against the height limits for the newly rezoned swath of Webster Avenue. In 2011, the city switched the zoning west of Bronx Park from commercial to residential and mixed-use. The new zoning caps the heights of new developments at 100 feet, and in the case of 3084 Webster, it prevents Stagg from using all of its inclusionary housing bonus.
However, under the new Zoning for Quality and Affordability rules, future developers in this area will be able to squeeze two extra stories of apartments. Then they can use their full zoning bonus and generate more below-market units, advancing the mayor’s goal of building 80,000 new affordable apartments by 2024.
As with all of Stagg’s projects, Badaly Architects are the architects of record.
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I thought you only had to have filed your plans before Dec 31…? You sure construction has to start by then (for the tax rules)?
AFAIK, your plans need to be approved by the DOB and the HPD by the end of year deadline. And generally developers start construction once they get approval.
This parking loop hole, along with all the other loop holes really stinks for those that live in the area. I just cannot understand how they are letting these developers not put in enough parking to service the community. Along with getting away with not putting in enough affordable housing (affordable to who???). Just super frustrating. I really hop the give existing Norwood residents preference, but I am sure that will not happen either. And where are super markets, and good retail stores in this mess?