The Bronx Ink

Compared to the fast-paced, chaotic borough of Manhattan, Throggs Neck sticks out as an almost suburban neighborhood. Located in the southeastern corner of the Bronx, it’s made up of mostly single, free-standing homes. It can be hard to remember it exists within the boundaries of New York City until making the mile trek to the closest train station at Pelham Bay.

“It’s mostly a working-class, middle-class community that appreciates urban living but not congested urban living,” said Janine Franciosa, a Throggs Neck resident who has lived in the neighborhood all 40 years of her life. 

Currently, some Throggs Neck residents like Franciosa are worried that’s about to change. 

A for-profit developer, Throggs Neck Associates LLC, is seeking to build four multi-story buildings across Bruckner Boulevard, some of which will include affordable housing units. But to do so, they first have to change long-standing low-zoning laws which are designed to prevent larger developments from being built. 

The debate has stirred things in the community, with some residents battling to maintain the zoning laws in an effort to “preserve” the neighborhood and others rallying in support of the project if it means more affordable housing units for residents in need. 

Those in support include Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and Mayor Eric Adams.

“Housing construction has not kept up with population growth in New York City,” explained Brendan Cheney, Director of Policy and Communications at New York Housing Conference, an affordable housing policy advocacy group.

“New York City is constrained in terms of vacant land. It is expensive to build here in the city. There are also zoning restrictions that can prevent growth,” he added. 

According to NYC planning, Throggs Neck is currently designated as a low-density district, meaning there is a restricted number of residential units allowed on one zoning lot. The majority of residential buildings also have height limitations. In 2004, residents in the area amended the zoning to include more restrictions after raising concerns about over-development.

These zoning laws have prompted Throggs Neck Associates LLC to ask for a rezone of the area in order to build their project, which includes a 3-story building, a 5-story building, and two 8-story buildings.

According to the developer’s proposal, the four buildings will have a total of 349 residential units, 168 of those units will be reserved for low-income residents, 99 units primarily for seniors, and 22 units reserved for veterans whose rents will be paid by Tunnel to Towers, a non-profit organization. 

Around 46 percent of Throggs Neck residents are renters—nearly half of those renters are considered rent burdened, according to the US census report. 

At the end of last year, more than 900 households in the 13th Council District, which includes Throggs Neck, ended up in homeless shelters, according to Cheney.

“So you’ve got people who are rent burdened, you’ve got people who are living in poverty in the council district, you’ve got people whose housing crisis is so severe in the neighborhood that they’re needing to enter shelter,” Cheney said.

“That neighborhood should be looking for ways to get more affordable housing in the neighborhood instead of rejecting affordable housing coming into the neighborhood.” 

In May of 2022, when the proposal was introduced to Community Board 10, it was voted down with a near unanimous vote, Matthew Cruz, Bronx Community District 10 Manager told The Bronx Ink. 

“This is a rezoning that is far too expansive for our taste,” Cruz said. “In short, and to be kind, there was no planning behind this rezoning application and I think that’s why the community board and much of the community remains opposed.” 

Like Cruz, many residents are skeptical of the developers’ long-term plans within the neighborhood.

“I think it is an opportunistic endeavor for a small number of developers that are kind of exploiting the situation of this community,” Franciosa said.“It’s setting precedence for any developer to come and over-develop and…exploit what they can do in this area for their own personal financial gain.”

According to NYC Planning, Bronx Community District 10 is one of just four in New York City’s 59 community districts that are labeled as “lower density growth management”. This means certain rules are in place, such as parking and yard/open space requirements, to help manage growth.

“This is the last neighborhood of its kind because so many other neighborhoods have been exploited with over-development,” Franciosa said. “People should feel agency where they live. People should have a say in how they want to live.” 

Open New York, an affordable housing advocacy group, has been involved in the zoning proposal since it was introduced and has advocated to see it through. 

“This is a community that’s been able to draw a line around itself and say, ‘no, you have to build everywhere but here.’ And that’s not fair to the rest of the city,” said Logan Phares, Political Director of Open New York.

Over the last eight years, Council District 13 has added just 58 affordable housing units, ranking fifth lowest across all New York City council districts, according to data compiled by NYHC. Over the same course of time, City Council District 17, also located in The Bronx, topped the list, with 8,555 affordable units built. 

Michael Kaess, a resident in Council District 13 and a member of Open New York, is one of a few residents voicing support for the project. 

“It’s time that communities like mine build their fair share. I really think it has a city-wide implication whether something like the Bruckner Site rezoning passes,” Kaess said.

As of 2019, in the New York Metro area, there are only 47 affordable and available rental units per 100 very low income households, according to data provided by National Low Income Housing Coalition. To be considered very low income, that household must make at or below 50% of the area median income, for a family of three that is anything under $60,050. Currently the New York City Metro area is short 771,855 affordable units for very low income households. 

Though Kaess is one of few residents supporting the project, he suggested that those who oppose don’t actually make up the majority of the neighborhood. 

“I don’t think the average person is that engaged,” Kaess said. “The unfortunate reality is that the people who show up to every community board meeting, those are the folks that are going to be the most against it.” 

At the end of August, members of Open New York attended a rally in support of the project. They were met with fierce opposition from community members, one even sprayed a hose towards them over the fence.

“These are folks who are so afraid of any change to the status quo that they will go to extreme lengths of hosing down supporters,” Phares said.

The Bronx Community Board 10 told The Bronx Ink it does not condone any threats made towards supporters. 

“I think these conversations bring about some charged comments and things are said that are really unwanted and do not help the conversation,” Cruz said.“That’s not indicative of who we are as a community. We’re much better than that.” 

The City Council has until October 17th to make a final decision on rezoning, according to New York’s URLUP process.

“I’m not going to say that a building going up is necessarily going to make me move,” Franciosa said. “It’s not just the building. It’s…what the implications will be.”

At Majora Carter’s Boogie Down Grind Cafe in Hunts Point, customers can order coffee with oat milk, and drink it by a window bordered by music-themed wallpaper and newsprint, all while listening to the ‘00s R&B they grew up on. There are books and magazines for free on a shelf next to a mess of posters on the wall advertising dating apps and homeowner help. 

Carter may have created a space at her coffee shop for people to work, connect and learn, but the nonprofit advocate-turned-developer from Hunts Point wants other Bronx natives to stay and invest in their community too. 

For Carter, young people don’t see themselves as having any opportunities in the Bronx. Instead, they measure their success by how far away they get away from their neighborhoods, she said.

“That is really sad, that folks just don’t see themselves investing — not just financially but emotionally — in their own neighborhood. And that brings the brain drain,” Carter said.

Carter is a real estate developer and consultant who works to create opportunities in development that retain talent. Her coffee shop, for example, offers “the type of experience we used to have to leave the Bronx to experience,” according to the cafe’s website. 

Boogie Down Grind Cafe is Carter’s most illustrative example of her work to combat the brain drain — she said she took every single dollar after tax from her consulting work and brought it back to invest in her community. But Carter also said creating the Hunts Point Riverside Park and advocating for environmental justice as the executive director for Sustainable South Bronx had made Hunts Point a place worth staying.

“I believe in the promise of America, that everyone has a right to prosperity and happiness for him or herself,” Carter said. “The way that low-status communities are set up —  it absolutely deprives them of their right to do that.”

Carter doesn’t have the data to support her claim that people are leaving the Bronx — that’s according to her husband James Chase who is also vice president of marketing of the Majora Carter Group LLC.

“When Majora speaks at area high schools (as well as similar communities around America) and asks student groups “who intends to go to college?” nearly every hand goes up,” Chase said in an email. “Her standard follow up is, “If, after college, you’re recruited for a high paying job, will you return here?” and every time, almost zero hands go up.”

Carter said her theory of a brain drain comes from what she’s noticed, anecdotally.

“I’ve been all over this country and even in Europe and found people from the Bronx who left,” Carter said.

Carter wants young people in the Bronx to reinvest in their communities and make their homes a place worth staying. Her group is looking into investment strategies that have been proven to create more opportunity. But after all, she said this is still a capitalist country, so young people are going to need to have some money to do so.

But some Bronx residents just don’t have the capability to invest. 

The Bronx population is growing steadily at 26% since 1980 — faster than the citywide growth rate of 22%, according to a report from the New York Comptroller’s Office. Most of that growth has come from people making less than $50,000, according to a report from the Regional Plan Association. 

What’s more, 29% of residents earn salaries below the NYCgov Poverty Measure of $33,562,  according to the Bronx Community District 2 profile. That measure, compared to the official U.S. poverty measure, accounts for the higher cost of housing in New York City, according to the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity website.

Bronx residents are at the highest risk of housing displacement in New York City, according to the Regional Plan Association. The report said 71% of census areas in the Bronx are in danger of being displaced.

All of this adds up to a different picture  — not one of brain drain — but of displacement, said  Maria Torres, president and chief operating officer of The Point Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to youth development and economic revitalization. 

Young people aren’t leaving the Bronx because they’re “too good to be here,” but because they just can’t afford to live in some parts of the Bronx anymore, Torres said.

“This shouldn’t just be a place you just want to run away from,” Torres said. “If we’ve done our jobs right, the kids have an affinity for where they live — they have a pride in this area.”

The Bronx is no different than any area that is struggling with school systems, unemployment and student debt, Torres said. But this doesn’t lead young people to leave — it keeps them close to a home that is far more affordable than any other part of the city.

Development may excite people who have lived through the worst of times in the Bronx, but Torres also said development speculation from outside investors will be the driving force behind people’s departures since affordability in the community will decrease. Strengthening the industry in Hunts Point to make sure people are getting quality jobs and keeping housing affordable keeps displacement at bay, she said.

Carter also said predatory speculators profit by pushing poor people out, but she still feels strongly that combatting the brain drain can create a stable, income-diverse community.

In terms of economic growth, Hunts Point saw 23% of private-sector job increases in the borough and had the most businesses of any neighborhood in the Bronx. Significant job increases were reported in wholesale and retail, trade, social assistance, business services and transportation, according to the Comptroller’s report.

The Point collaborates with community groups, young people and the city to determine what the community actually needs to not only retain talent — but avoid displacement and economic hardship.

“They’re just misguided,” Torres said about people labeling the issue a brain drain. “I hope it [development] plays out in such a way that the people don’t get hurt, the community doesn’t get hurt and lose really good people and things like that because of economics.”

Carter advocates for community ownership too, but she said strictly advocating for affordable housing is not going to cut it. She said academia, media, the government and philanthropy dictate one way to “be noble,” and that if you don’t adhere to their strategy you’re deemed inauthentic.

“We can all be right,” Carter said. “I’m not saying they’re wrong. And I think that lots of folks can try a lot of different strategies — this is the one that we’ve chosen.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s battle to build affordable housing in New York will echo under the girders of the Jerome Avenue railroad in the Bronx in the months to come, as residents raise concerns about rent rates and tenant displacement.

City Hall published plans in late August for a massive rezoning of the strip, which it claims will add 3000 affordable housing units spanning 73 blocks from 165th Street to 184th Street.

But the Bronx Coalition for a Community Vision, an alliance of local organizations, says that 78 percent of residents will not be eligible to apply for affordable housing under existing income thresholds.

The tenant advocates are campaigning for housing allocations to be calculated according to local, rather than citywide, wage averages.

The de Blasio administration made affordable housing provision and maintenance a top priority when it took office in 2014, promising hundreds of thousands of additional units over ten years.

The City says that the Jerome rezoning was one of the first to be planned under this touchstone initiative, prompted by repeated requests from local community board members and politicians. These local officials, however, stress that any new housing must be genuinely low cost.

“This side of the Bronx has an opportunity,” said Angel Caballero, vice-chair of Community Board 5 and Executive Director of the Davidson Community Center. “We need affordable housing for everyone, but the City has to spell out what it means by ‘affordable housing.’”

Another key point of contention as the plans go out for public consultation is whether existing tenants will be displaced

The City says the rezoning is expected to displace fewer than 500 residents, so it will not conduct a detailed analysis of changes to the area’s socioeconomic make-up.

“How can they say that? The City doesn’t live here. They don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Caballero.

“500 residents isn’t just a number, those are real people getting pushed out,” said Clara Cruz, an activist with the People Power Movement, a community organizing group.

A spokesperson for the New York Department of City Planning said it anticipates that significantly fewer than 500 people will be displaced, but that it remains committed to working with all those in the community likely to be affected by the rezoning.

The draft plans for Jerome Avenue were released just two weeks after the City Council rejected a much smaller rezoning project in Inwood, Manhattan.

This ‘no’ vote was seen as a major defeat for a signature de Blasio policy, which would allow developers to skirt regulations if they commit to keeping a percentage of new homes affordable for lower income tenants.

In a context of rapidly rising rents, few locally dispute the idea that the West Bronx urgently requires more housing stock for low earners.

“We need it. Affordable housing, that is, not just housing,” said Wayne Logan, an entertainment manager. “I’m looking for a place.”

Many residents, however, didn’t seem to know that the rezoning was happening.

“99 percent of people don’t know about Jerome,” said Abdul Ali, whose family owns businesses on Burnside Avenue, which is slated to become a commercial corridor under the plans. “The City can do whatever it wants because people don’t know what’s going on.”

A public hearing with City officials is scheduled for September 29^th at Bronx Community College. Local residents can submit written comments on the plans until 5pm on October 10^th.

 

Tthe U.S. Labor Department and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development are probing underpayment and kickbacks at affordable housing projects in the Bronx and Brooklyn, the NY Daily News learned.

At the Bronx construction site site – 780 Prospect Ave. – workers are reportedly due $575,000.

The Bronx apartment building opened with fanfare on Oct. 7 to low-income seniors and the homeless. The project was subject to prevailing wage requirements because it received federal funds.