Waverly Townhouses Won't Be 'Affordable' For Long

Two long-vacant city-owned townhouses will be up for bid by the end of the year, raising the specter of a private developer knocking them down and repealing the buildings’ subsidized rent.

Residents on the block of Waverly Avenue between Park and Myrtle avenues have decried for years the four dilapidated buildings owned by the New York City Housing Authority as underutilized eyesores.

Now, two of the buildings, 99 and 110 Waverly Ave., will go on the market.

“Ninety-nine and 110 Waverly are vacant and are being processed for sale via public bid by the end of the year,” said Sheila Stainback, a spokeswoman for the city housing authority. "No such requirements for affordable housing [will be in place] once the buildings are sold for fair market value."

But that news came as a disappointment to locals following the decade-long saga of the townhouses.

“If they go up for public auction, that means private developers will have the first hand in it,” said Juollie Carroll, the secretary of the Waverly Avenue Block Association. “They could build buildings out of character with the block, and they wouldn’t keep it as affordable housing. If a private developer gets the buildings, affordable housing isn’t going to happen.”

According to Carroll, whose family has owned a home on the block since 1957, the two townhouses have been vacant for at least eight years. The four-story 110 Waverly Ave. is mostly boarded up. Scaffolding surrounds the three-story 99 Waverly Ave.; rubble and trash have accumulated at the entrance.

“It’s gotten to the point where this is intolerable,” Carroll said. “It’s unbelievable how the city can let these buildings fall into nothing!”

Just last week, Community Board 2 District Manager Rob Perris announced that it appeared the buildings would be transferred to a nonprofit — such as the Pratt Area Community Council — that would be able to repair the buildings while also maintaining their status as affordable housing. The process would likely require the involvement of the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation Development, which Perris said seemed likely.

“The New York City Housing Authority has not had any formal discussions with Housing Preservation and Development about disposition … for any of these properties,” said Stainback.

An HPD spokesman confirmed that the townhouses are not in any of the agency’s “programs or plans.”

Perris said that he had been lobbying the city for some time to transfer the properties with the affordable housing intact, and that he had been hopeful it would happen — until he heard about the public bid.

“I was hearing that this was moving in the right direction,” he said.

“It boggles the mind that with these buildings — in the condition that they’re in, for as long as they’ve been in — we can’t even get NYCHA to do the right thing at the end. Are they going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?”