Luxury Apartment Building Will Have Separate Door For non-Rich Residents

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/07/21/3462120/new-york-city-poor-door/

BY BRYCE COVERT JULY 21, 2014

A luxury condo building on New York City’s Upper West Side has gotten clearance from the city to have a separate entrance, or a “poor door,” for low-income tenants, according to the New York Post.

Extell, which is building the 33-story complex, will build a specific door for the 55 affordable housing units it’s including in order to be allowed to build a bigger building. The low-income units, which are available to people making 60 percent of median income or less, will also be in a segment that only contains affordable apartments and that faces the street while the luxury apartments will face the river.

In New York City, this arrangement is relatively common. Luxury builders get credits to use up more square footage than they normally could by promising to build affordable units as well. Those developers can then sell the credits to cover the costs of building the low-income housing. Because Extell considers the affordable segment to be legally separate from the rest of the building, it says it is required to have different entrances.

And besides being made to use a separate entrance, some low-income residents in luxury buildings are prohibited from using the amenities offered to the wealthy tenants, which in the case of this particular building include swimming pools and regulation-sized basketball courts. Several buildings in the city ban affordable housing or rent-regulated tenants from using perks like gyms, rooftops, and pools, and the practice is on the rise.

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These issues come at a time when the ability to afford rent is out of reach for more and more city residents. Median rent is nearly 40 percent of median income in New York City, much higher than what is considered affordable. And as in the rest of the country, rents are rising, with the median Manhattan apartment going for $3,247 a month

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