By SHANNON LEE GILSTAD
For over six years residents in Bedford Park, which lies in Community District 7, have heard buzz about the future of 150 Van Cortlandt Avenue East/186 St. George Crescent, a small curved street that currently has just five buildings on it. The block is a local gem hidden in plain sight, just off the Grand Concourse and Mosholu Parkway, yet quiet and serene, away from the bustle. Residents say that this is exactly how they like it and want it to stay.
But this could all change very soon.
In March, this lot was sold to a well-known developer for $7.1 million, which plans to turn the property into a tower boasting 259 apartment units.
The address, shared with 150 Van Cortlandt Avenue East, the site of a now-defunct auto body shop, is on a 19,811-square-foot on typical west Bronx hilly topography. The lot once had thick brush and trees, though most were removed after several storms weakened the trees. Since then the lot has been a place of illegal dumping, including box springs, Christmas trees, construction waste, food, and household refuse. Despite several calls to 311 from concerned neighbors, garbage continues to collect.
This lot has historical significance and development delayed by the last Community Board 7 board. Known as Negro Fort, this hill was prominent in American history as the place where African American soldiers fought for our country’s independence during the Revolutionary War. The late Bronx historian and activist Morgan Powell was a very staunch advocate of the preservation of its history. Powell, who passed away suddenly in September 2014, was known for his views on the overdevelopment and gentrification of New York City neighborhoods. He incorporated this site into his tours.
In recent years parts of Bedford Park have been rezoned–and up-zoned–most notably the Webster Avenue corridor, for residential development. Such projects in the neighborhood include the corner of Grand Concourse and Bedford Park Boulevard., where a supportive housing apartment building was built on the former site of the Grace Lutheran School, an affordable housing building on Villa Ave. and East 204th Street, The Lisbon, a 9-story market rate building on Lisbon Place and Mosholu Parkway South, and another large building that is near completion on the former site of an empty lot on the corner of Villa Ave. and East 204th Street, across the street from the aforementioned building. Cluster-site homeless shelters have also been an issue. This is not counting the numerous low-rise projects over the years, most of which include small one and multiple-family dwellings that were demolished to be constructed at a much higher-density housing on the same lot. There are various other large-scale buildings have been built or are in-process within the bounds of Community District 7.
Affordable housing is arguably Mayor Bill de Blasio’s biggest initiative. There is no doubt that housing is needed for New Yorkers. However, with new buildings comes an increase in population. A developer is planning 259 units. Do the math. That can potentially add over 1,000 people to that tiny plot of land. What’s not being added are larger schools, more public transportation, and more services to accommodate this sudden influx of residents who have and will be moving into our community. What’s more is that these will be renters, not property owners, thus more people will be using our already subpar services yet will not be paying any property taxes into this community. With increased people we have increased traffic and less green space. The Bronx has the highest asthma rates in New York City and the country.
Despite affordable housing being added, what is not taken into consideration is the adverse effects of gentrification when new housing is built. In a December 2014 report by The New York Daily News, it was revealed that the Bronx is the least affordable county in the United States where Bronxites are spending 68 percent of their income on housing, paired with one of the lowest national median incomes. 30% of our population lives at or below poverty rate. We are also the poorest county in New York State and are adjacent to one of the poorest congressional districts in the country.
In 2007, the popular real estate website The Real Deal called Bedford Park “hidden in plain view” with “…handsome buildings, an abundance of greenery” and that “streets are quiet, clean.” That is changing and not necessarily any longer the case. As a person with 17 years of history in this neighborhood, streets are dirtier and have more garbage than I can ever remember, more building are in foreclosure, vacant, or damaged by fire, and our quiet streets are rapidly disappearing.
After carefully considering all of these factors, so does it make sense to add a building to a vacant lot, one that may potentially be 17 stories high and over 1,000 new residents? Should we really continue to be adding more buildings at such a dizzying pace?
Shannon Lee Gilstad is a lifelong Bedford Park resident, activist, and nonprofit professional, holding a Masters Degree in Sociology.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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This could use a little fact checking:
– It is an exaggeration to claim 259 units would result in “over 1,000 new residents.” The average number of persons per household in The Bronx is 2.85 (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/36005.html). That would be 739 people. New apartment construction tends to have somewhat smaller household sizes, which could make the figure even smaller.
– Development on this scale will not overwhelm the D train. A building with 259 units would only contribute around 80 subway trips during the morning. Since the D runs 8-9 trains per hour with ten cars on each train, we’re talking about adding less than one person to each train car.
(Based on the trip generation rates from the Webster EIS: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/env_review/webster_avenue/append_a_e_feis.pdf. Calculation: 259 units x 8.075 daily trips per unit x 9.1% am x 40.9% subway mode = 77.84)
– It is incorrect that rental units don’t pay property taxes. The landlord pays the tax bill, and the taxes are paid indirectly by the residents as part of their rent check. Renters do not get deductions on their income taxes like homeowners do, either.
– None of the specific developments referenced (the Post-Doctoral Center, the Lisbon, the corner of Villa and 204th) are located in areas that have been rezoned.
– The arguments about deteriorating quality of life and sparking gentrification are mutually exclusive. The new buildings will either make the area more attractive, increasing demand that causes gentrification, or they’ll make the neighborhood worse, which would forestall new demand. It’s one or the other.
– Gentrification is primarily a result of too little housing supply on the market to meet demand. Lower-income residents end up getting priced out of their own communities because there are other people willing to pay more. Fighting new construction only puts more pressure on the existing housing stock, driving up prices and pushing lower-income residents out, or getting chopped up into smaller (often illegal and unsafe) units to crowd more people in.
– The African Americans at the Negro Fort didn’t fight “for our country’s independence during the Revolutionary War” on the Negro Fort. The small fort served the British forces. There is virtually no information about the African-Americans associated with the Negro Fort, but they did not fight for the cause of American independence. http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/arch_reports/1211.pdf
– Developing either property at St. George’s Crescent or Van Cortlandt Avenue will not threaten any historic resources. Right now it’s just weedy vacant lots. If anything, it would provide the resources and impetus for archeological work to unearth any unlikely artifacts that might be there and could provide the motive to add some type of commemorative plaque. Given the relatively minor importance of the site and low probability of any historic artifacts, there would never been any funding to do anything, unless it was part of a development effort.
It is laughable to contend that this area is subject to overdevelopment. Relative to the population, there is actually a paucity of new construction in the area, which limits renter’s options, drives up prices, and prevents market forces from increasing the quality of the housing stock. As mentioned in the other comment, the claim that renters are not contributing to the tax base could not be further from the truth. While the rent is billed to the landlord, it is the renters that are essentially footing this bill, in addition to the fact that rental properties pay much more taxes than single to three family homes. While there is an argument that more development leads to increasing pressures on infrastructure, particularly with regards to transportation and school capacity, the D train has plenty of excess capacity and it is the government’s responsibility to higher more teachers as they collect more taxes from this new development–that’s what taxes are for!! The op-ed here is advocating for less investment, fewer jobs, more housing scarcity, and higher prices for all.
The only way it is a problem is if this is another low income development. What the Bronx needs is more diverse income neighborhoods. If you keep piling on poor in the name of “affordable housing” then there will be no improvement.
I also agree (and so does a homeowner I know in the area)… If more buildings were co-ops in the area (of which many are architecturally gorgeous) and there were condos being built – the area would not decline. People who own where they live – care more. That’s a fact of human nature.