A new mixed-use development will bring more than 130 below-market-rate apartments to Coney Island when it opens early next year, according to a rep for its developer, Georgica Green Ventures.
And more than 80 of those units will be earmarked for formerly homeless veterans, rep Ally Giorgos said.
The builder hopes to wrap construction on Surf Vets Place — at 3003 W. 21st Street at Surf Ave. — by January, according to an executive at the Concern for Independent Living, the organization that will work with the city’s Department of Veterans Services to administer the apartments for formerly homeless vets.
The property’s architect, the Stephen B. Jacobs Group, filed plans for the nine-story tower containing 134 total units and nearly two basketball courts’ worth of ground-floor retail space in April 2016.
Eligible veterans can apply to the 82 apartments available to them by submitting an application to the city Human Resources Administration’s online supportive-housing system.
City reps will then forward applications to the Department of Veterans Services and then to Concern for Independent Living, according to Concern honcho Elizabeth Lunde, who added that the organization’s staffers will then “screen applications and make final determinations of eligibility” based factors including financial qualifications, household size, proof of a need for housing, a review of any anticipated service needs, and a criminal background check.
Lunde did not immediately respond when asked about the minimum or maximum incomes required of veteran applicants, the range of rents for the apartments, or when vets can begin applying.
The remaining 52 units will be available to residents who make between 50 and 60 percent of the area median income. Those locals can apply for units through the city’s online Housing Connect platform when the application becomes available later this month, Lune said.
Twenty-four of those 52 apartments will be set aside for residents who earn 50 percent of the area median income, which is $41,750 for a two-person household or $52,150 for a four-person household, according to city data. The other 28 units are for locals making 60 percent of the area median income, which data shows is $50,100 for a two-person household or $62,580 for a four-person household.
The Housing Connect system randomly selects applicants at the end of the 60-day application period, based on eligibility and individuals whose requests the city prioritizes, such as municipal employees, Lunde said.
The so-called affordable units are required in the Surf Vets Place development because it sits within the special Coney Island District, a product of the area’s 2009 rezoning, which mandates that builders set aside 35 percent of units in complexes within the district for low and moderate-income families who earn between 51 percent and 120 percent of the area’s median income, which comes out to between $53,193 and $125,160 for a four-person household.
