From left: West 145th Street in West Harlem and Hancock Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant
Two of the city’s traditionally less affluent neighborhoods are poised to gain recognition for their historic character. The Department of City Planning said today it is launching the public review process for rezonings of West Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant North meant primarily to preserve the areas’ existing character. [more]
Homes in Bedford Stuyvesant
New York Community Bank, New York City’s biggest lender to landlords, has agreed to a 50 percent discount on the distressed mortgages for four residential properties in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Crain’s reported. This is a first for the bank. The property addresses were not mentioned. [more]
The Luhring Augustine Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn
While Bushwick has been an artsy enclave for a while, the harbingers of full-on gentrification have recently popped up in the neighborhood, the New York Times reported.
In addition to the cafes and more fringe art events, brand name art galleries such as Luhring Augustine, which has a gallery at 25 Knickerbocker Avenue, at Ingraham Street, have moved in. The gallery, which also has a Chelsea outpost, opened its Bushwick space last October. Interstate Projects, another gallery, opened at 56 Bogart Street last March, and Nurture Art, a not-for-profit gallery moved to the same address last August. [more]
The Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn has the highest density per square mile of vacant buildings of anywhere in the five boroughs, according to a new land-use study soon to be released by the city, the Brooklyn Ink reported.
While many homes are in foreclosure, others are properties that owners are “warehousing,” a practice where an owner simply waits until a property is wanted, the blog said. This has led to blight in the area. [more]
Six Bedford Stuyvesant homeowners are accusing developer Delight Construction and indicted Department of Housing Preservation and Development official Wendell Waters of demanding extra cash for their city-subsidized homes, they told the Daily News, and of leaving them with subpar construction on the buildings.
The homeowners, who won a housing lottery for homes along Lexington Avenue, made their down payments in 2005, the News said, but have since run into problems related to move-in delays, requests for more money to clean up suspected contamination, and plumbing and heating malfunctions.
“Either we paid the money or we could walk away from the contract,” said Onika McLean, one of the owners. [more]
Bedford-Stuyvesant, the area bordered by Clinton Hill, Bushwick, Williamsburg and Crown Heights, famous for its African-American history and tree-lined streets, saw a bout of foreclosures after the development boom morphed into a recession, the Wall Street Journal reported. Prices dropped and developers switched their condominium plans to rental plans.
Prices in Bedford-Stuyvesant however, though still far from 2008 levels, are on the rise, according to Streeteasy.com. The median sales price of homes that closed in the first half of 2011 was $373,500, an 8 percent jump from the same period last year. The volume of sales in the neighborhood has increased too, in contrast to a citywide trend, the data shows. [more]
A 16-year-old loan from predatory lender Delta Funding is threatening to leave an 82-year-old great-grandmother homeless. The New York Daily News reported Mary Lee Ward faces eviction from her Bedford-Stuyvesant home.
In 1995 Ward was targeted by Delta Funding, a subprime lender that was sued by the federal government four years later for zeroing in on black women in Brooklyn and Queens with predatory loans, which sent her a flyer promising a $10,000 cash advance if she borrowed against her single-family home at 320 Tompkins Avenue. Ward accepted the offer needing cash to protect her great-granddaughter from being adopted. [more]
Bushwick City Farm, a neighborhood volunteer organization, has taken over a long-vacant 9,000-square-foot lot in Bushwick with plans to install a vegetable garden, a chicken coop and and organic orchard to produce free food for the community, the website BushwickBK reported.
The lot at 354 Stockton Street near the corner of Lewis Avenue has been abandoned for at least 30 years and is currently owned by a Forest Hills-based entity called Toxo and Arrow Proper, which purchased it in 2004, public records show. Since then, it has been home to a whole host of illegal activities, including squatting, garbage dumping and even violence. [more]
United Homes head Yaron Hershco and 557 Hancock Street (building source: PropertyShark)[Updated 4:18 p.m.] A group of eight African-American homeowners were awarded a total of more than $1 million last
week, after a nine-member jury found that Yaron Hershco’s United Homes committed fraud — yet
cleared him of discrimination — in a wide-ranging property flipping scheme in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
Bushwick and other Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Hershco, a developer of single-family homes and luxury condominium buildings, had been accused in
the federal district court complaint of luring first-time homebuyers to a so-called one-stop shop, where
appraisers, lenders, lawyers and other officials conspired to sell them homes at over-inflated prices until the buyers were on the brink of foreclosure.
The jury decided that the participants in the scheme, including Hershco, United Homes, Allied
Mortgage Banking, Olympia Mortgage and attorney Benjamin Turner must pay punitive damages to the plaintiffs. [more]
As lenders remain hesitant to finance large condominium developments in Brooklyn, especially in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill, developers are migrating towards government-subsidized affordable housing apartments, and even more so, townhouses in those areas, the Wall Street Journal reported. Construction is in the works at multi-family townhomes at 37-41 Lexington Avenue and 258-262 Greene Avenue in Clinton Hill, while five townhouses are about to come to market at 101-107 Stockton Street, also in Clinton Hill. Meanwhile, at 482 Franklin Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Realty Within Reach has plans for 78-units of middle-income housing and Dunn Development closed a deal yesterday with plans for a 59-unit, affordable housing building in Clinton Hill. [more]
