The parking lot, located at 324 E. 5th Street, will be converted into 131 affordable homes and will include a senior center, community space, and replacement parking facilities, the mayor's office announced on Monday.
The project, dubbed "The Aurea," will reserve 30 percent of apartments for formerly homeless New Yorkers, on top of providing for low-income New Yorkers. A third of the rooms will be for seniors.
It will also feature landscaped terraces, green roofs and all-electric building systems and provide on-site supportive services for residents.
"This building will be 100% low and very low income housing. A significant number of units for supportive services for seniors. Residents will have a community room, computer, lab, exercise room, and terrace and 2000 square foot adult day care," Steve Herrick with Cooper Square Committee.
Mamdani said it will put community stewardship "at its center" through a "community land trust."
"It's the first City land designation of our administration, and it's exactly the kind of housing we're committed to building across the five boroughs: deeply affordable, community-led and worthy of the greatest city in the world," Mamdani said.
The project advances priorities in Mamdani's "Block by Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era," which plans to build 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve another 200,000 over the next decade.
While the city applauds the effort to tackle the housing crunch, there are concerns in the East Village neighborhood that mixing vulnerable seniors with the homeless might not be safe for the elderly.
"I'm not saying that all homeless people would present a threat, but you just need one incident where a senior citizen could be bumped into, and they could fall, and they're very, you know, you could break a bone and you can no longer walk again," one resident said.
Right now, officers use the parking lot.
Plans are to include 25 parking spaces in the new building for the police so they can continue to protect the neighborhood.
"I think it's great that the city is getting behind, you know, the people in need. And as long as you benefit the right people and the people that need it, I mean, I'm all for it," another resident said.
Although the Mayor ran on an affordability platform, this project began before he was elected. The push is now on to speed up the process but it still has a way to go.
There must be public hearings and guaranteed funding before they can break ground.
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