A nonprofit housing group has proposed building a 500-unit affordable housing complex on a vacant lot and former industrial site in the South Bronx.
Phipps Houses, which describes itself as the city’s largest nonprofit housing provider, submitted an application on Monday with the Department of City Planning seeking a rezoning of 893-895 East 167th St. in the Foxhurst neighborhood of the Bronx, at a former brownfield site.
The project, named Rosa del Monte, would include 75 units for formerly homeless New Yorkers and 174 units considered affordable for people at 50% of the average median income for the area, which is $72,900 for a family of three. It would also include 99 units considered affordable for people at 60% of AMI, 99 units for people at 80% of AMI and 50 units for people at 100% of AMI.
Phipps Houses did not immediately respond to questions regarding the proposed housing development, which comes amid a shortage of affordable housing in the city. The project falls within the district of Bronx Councilmember Rafael Salamanca Jr., whose office did not comment on the proposal.
Based on a brownfield cleanup application form filed by Phipps in 2023, the site has a checkered environmental history. The form indicated the presence of petroleum, pesticides and metals in the soil, as well as metals in the groundwater, and noted the site’s prior use for manufacturing purposes, including automotive repair, carpet cleaning, clothing manufacturing and toilet seat refinishing.
“Based upon investigations conducted to date, the primary contaminants of concern for the site are xylenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metals in soil, metals in groundwater, and chlorinated solvent-related and petroleum-related VOCs in soil vapor,” the 2023 filing states.
Kelly Biscuso, a vice president of real estate development at Phipps Houses who applied for the brownfield cleanup, did not immediately respond to questions regarding the status of the cleanup.
The surrounding neighborhood is struggling, according to forms submitted by the developer. Approximately 38% of the residents within the census tract live below the poverty line, more than twice the state’s poverty rate. The unemployment rate was 14.4%, while the city’s overall was 6.1% at the time of submission in 2023, according to the forms.
“The Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx has suffered economically since the 1960s and 1970s, when suburban flight ravaged the community. Additionally, Longwood is notoriously underserved by public transportation,” the submitted documents state.
“In addition, the Longwood neighborhood, like the rest of the South Bronx, is plagued by gang activity, drug use, prostitution, and homelessness,” according to the filing.
The site’s recorded history goes back to the 1890s, when it was partially developed with a number of “unidentified structures and dwellings.”
By 1915, Tiffany’s Storage Warehouse, a space for the storage of furniture, was located on the site, and by 1950, a variety of other businesses had located here, including establishments that assembled toys, refinished toilet seats and manufactured clothes, as well as a tin shop and lens grinding business, according to the documents.
In the late 1970s an auto repair shop began operating at the site, but in the following years a number of buildings were demolished or vacated.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
