Brooklyn Luxury Condos Get Tax Breaks, Keep Poors Out Of Pool

A Northside Piers resident enjoys some fresh air unsoiled by the stench of bitter renters. (Ryan Griffin)

In order to get big tax breaks and permission to build bigger residential towers, two big condos on the Williamsburg waterfront agreed to throw the rabble a bone by building "affordable" rental units for low-income residents. Those who won the lottery for the units built by Northside Piers and The Edge pay as little as $398 a month, while the condo owners bought their apartments for anywhere between $385,000 to $2.9 million. And with that price tag comes amenities that the low-income renters don't have access to. Now some of the renters are becoming bitter!

One such renter tells the Times, "We joke it’s like the projects. It’s just, you see them, they’re right there, in their balconies, their decks and the pool." Both developments have separate entrances for the owners and renters; one class of resident gets a doorman and a deluxe lobby with furniture, the other gets tile and... nothing, which is about what you'd expect for $400 a month. But the renters are also barred from the gyms, the pools, the billiard rooms, the jacuzzis, the erotic sunset rubdowns and the lavish endangered species dinners.

And maybe that's for the best! After all, it's not easy owning property. Sometimes the condo owners are the ones feeling jealous of their low-income counterparts. One owner, a 32-year-old mother-to-be who—for reasons we can't understand—didn't want the Times to print her name, says she envied the renters because she paid a fortune for her one-bedroom. “Sometimes we feel they are luckier,” she explained. “We are not that rich.” And besides, if everyone used the pool, it would "be a mess." Because you know what those ~~filthy~~ lucky renters do in the pool.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on May 3, 2011 4:51 PM

Comments [rss]

bignybugs

But the condo owners are getting a big tax break (i.e. a SUBSIDY!!! from we the tax payers) in exchange for letting the unwashed masses live next door to them. They are living in a luxury they could not afford were it not for this tax break. So they are just big hypocrites.

Miami

Is the world you live in different than this that you are complaining?
Do you think it will be fair for people who paid $385,000 to $2.9 million to let everyone use the amenities paid by their fees?

http://miamiluxuryhomes.org

Kimberley Truelove

They have separate entrances because the condo owners pay a premium in their maintenance costs to have a doorman. If I shelled out $1 or more per square foot to have certain amenities on top of my mortgage, etc. and someone else was enjoying those services while paying a fraction of my monthly upkeep, I'd be livid. Nothing worse than entitled assholes.

xXxMExXx

Boo-fuckin-hoo. If you don’t like the situation; or feel you can find a better deal someplace else, you should move.

Trustafarian

If they want to use a pool, join the one on Metropolitan/Bedford

Gym? Greenpoint YMCA

These bldgs get tax breaks for building affordable housing, not affordable luxury housing.

(for the record, i think all the tax breaks for developers are dumb and just prop up the housing market)

stoop_pooper

The maintenance is more than their rent. People would kill for 400 bucks a month with gym or no gym. Those SOB's should be grateful

Kevin

Some people's sense of entitlement is disgusting.

NlGGAZ

That area is like the white people projects! I can't believe that a place exists that's worst than stuy town but there it is. I went into one and it's got a beautiful view of east river park. Only problem is that east river park is crappy. If you like looking at polluted factory sludge then it's awesome. I can't believe how much better upper west siders have it on riverside.

stoop_pooper

Stuytown was awesome when I lived there

MsMichelle

The real story at these developments are the people who won apartments in the lottery and then sublet them out for much higher rents. That's a real injustice. Not getting to use amenities in someone else's building isn't.

ANGRYGOD11

In my coop building I have less privileges than some of the rent stabilized tenants. Their right to have pets were grandfathered in by the sponsor a long time ago. They can and have replaced their yapping little dogs with other ones to make a mess in the building. Thats something no shareholder can legally do.

ANGRYGOD11

I have never heard of this tribe you speak of, The Poors.
Are they related to The Got Something But Not That Much?

BrooklynDnB

Seems fair to me. You get what you pay for. I'd rather pay $400 a month. Screw the amenities.

johnnieutah

As much as I feel that people paying these cringe-inducing low rents should chill, it also seems extremely gauche to have separate entrances in this day and age.

Guest

Most of the time, they have separate entrances because the renter's side and the owner's side are on separate sides of the building. Gothamist wants you to believe it's akin to Jim Crow laws, but it's nothing like that whatsoever.

unretrofiedforu

I didn't get that. Not until the class baiting you've so effortlessly produced.

Guest

I don't class bait (you could see this if you paid attention and noticed how I don't care if someone's rich or poor or whatever, I will take them down for any kind of hypocrisy).

If anything, Gothamist is the one who "class baited" with this story and its assumptions that the separate entrances are in place to keep the owners and renters away from each other, like black and white water fountains in the 50's.

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