The Empire State Growth Company (ESDC) has proposed a $98 million plan to transform the closed Lincoln Correctional Facility into the Seneca, a 22-story mixed-development constructing, together with roughly 110 reasonably priced homeownership items, however the plan has drawn criticism from Harlem leaders and residents for projecting costs above the reasonably priced vary for a majority of neighborhood members.
The plan, which was launched on December 19, 2024, will provide “homeownership items for households incomes 80% and 100% of the Space Median Earnings” (AMI). The U.S. Division of Housing and City Growth (HUD), which releases annual reviews on the AMIs for all cities throughout the nation, outlined $139,800 because the AMI for a three-person family in New York Metropolis in 2024.
An evaluation of 2023 American Neighborhood Survey information by the NYU Furman Heart discovered that in Central Harlem, the place the Lincoln Correctional Facility is situated, the median family earnings is $51,990 — 37% p.c of New York Metropolis’s AMI for a three-person family. The plan’s proposed 80% earnings cap on reasonably priced homeownership items within the Seneca would limit the items to households incomes roughly two occasions the median earnings in Central Harlem, a neighborhood that residents say is already grappling with a housing disaster.
“The truth that they’re so off when it comes to these earnings ranges is a scary thought,” mentioned Kai Cogsville, founding father of Defend Harlem. “It exhibits that they don’t actually, truthfully care an excessive amount of in regards to the precise neighborhood and the those who make this metropolis thrive.”
The Lincoln Correctional Facility constructing has a storied historical past, starting with its opening as a neighborhood heart for younger Jewish girls in 1914, use as a relaxation heart for Black troopers throughout World Battle II, and conversion into a college within the Forties.
In 1976, the constructing was transformed right into a low-security jail, which operated for many years till former Governor Andrew Cuomo closed the ability in 2019 as a part of a state initiative to decommission state prisons. The constructing reopened in summer season 2023 as a brief shelter for asylum seekers.
Governor Kathy Hochul introduced in March 2023 that the ability could be redeveloped, stating that it represented a “prime alternative” to handle “vital wants reminiscent of reasonably priced housing.” In December 2023, Infinite Horizons, L+M Growth Companions, Urbane, and Lemor Growth Group received the bid to redevelop the ability into the Seneca.
Named after Seneca Village, a neighborhood of predominantly Black landowners whose properties have been seized by the state by means of eminent area for the development of Central Park, the proposed web site would come with a mixture of neighborhood areas, so-called reasonably priced homeownership items, and residential amenity areas. The undertaking initially provided Harlem residents the opportunity of proudly owning property overlooking Central Park, a view that has gotten steadily costlier over the previous few many years.
“The transformation of the previous Lincoln Correctional Facility will develop reasonably priced homeownership in Harlem with 105 items for working New Yorkers, creating alternatives for working households to construct intergenerational wealth,” an ESDC spokesperson wrote in a press release to the Amsterdam Information. “ESD, in partnership with its growth accomplice, stays dedicated to working with native leaders and to make sure this undertaking serves the neighborhood and its wants.”
The ESDC plans to accomplice with Harlem Congregations for Neighborhood Enchancment, a coalition of interfaith organizations concerned in supporting applications associated to reasonably priced housing and financial growth, to make neighborhood residents conscious of the long run reasonably priced homeownership items. Nonetheless, a number of elected officers and neighborhood members have alleged that the ESDC has made minimal effort to interact with the neighborhood in its creation of the Lincoln Correctional Facility plan.
On the ESDC’s Jan. 23 digital public listening to about its proposed plan for the Lincoln Correctional Facility, State Sen. Cordell Cleare, Assemblymember Eddie Gibbs, District Chief William Smith, District Chief William Allen, and different neighborhood members testified their opposition to the event. Greater than 80 neighborhood members, together with Cogsville, additionally attended the listening to, the place a number of testified in opposition to the plan as effectively.
On the listening to, Cleare and Smith criticized using AMI’s as a measure of affordability, because of it being considerably greater than the incomes of district residents.
“Many individuals in our neighborhood — our East Harlem neighborhood and decrease Central Harlem neighborhood — are being priced out and coping with [a] vital rise in rents,” Smith mentioned on the listening to. “Hire inflation is a really large concern. The truth that we’re having a undertaking that’s being inbuilt our neighborhood — we wish to be certain that native residents are getting the biggest proportion in entry to the items and in addition that the AMI ranges are life like.”
New York Metropolis’s AMI, which incorporates the median family incomes of New York Metropolis’s 5 boroughs and Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties, has been criticized by housing activists as unrepresentative of the financial realities of many New York residents, but stays a key measurement to find out eligibility for city-financed reasonably priced housing initiatives.
In a Jan. 24 letter to Empire State Growth senior undertaking supervisor Christopher Wasiff that was shared with the Amsterdam Information, Cleare wrote that “costs put ahead to handle housing insecurity in Harlem have to be adjusted to reflect the median earnings of Black residents from Harlem.
“I wish to echo District Chief Smith’s testimony and urge the ESDC to halt any future motion on this undertaking till extra neighborhood enter is taken under consideration, and deeper affordability is lastly promised.”
On the listening to, a number of neighborhood members additionally expressed issues that the undertaking would contribute to Harlem’s ongoing gentrification. In Central Harlem, the inhabitants of Black residents has decreased by greater than 20% since 2000. The same scenario has unfolded in West Harlem, the place the inhabitants of Black residents has declined by 14% and the inhabitants of Hispanic residents has declined by 10% since 2010.
A 2024 report by the Neighborhood Service Society discovered that West Harlem’s demographic modifications accelerated following the start of Columbia College’s Manhattanville campus enlargement, a undertaking licensed by the ESDC in 2008.
“I feel the governor has turned her again on our neighborhood, and so has the ESDC,” mentioned Cogsville, whose group Defend Harlem protested in opposition to Columbia’s Manhattanville enlargement.
A number of Harlem residents echoed Cogsville’s dissatisfaction with the ESDC, noting the group’s lack of significant neighborhood engagement on the Jan. 23 listening to.
“I really feel just like the state ought to have come to the neighborhood board and given us some details about what they have been pondering, what was occurring,” mentioned Donna Gill, a member of Neighborhood Board 10, on the listening to.
She mentioned that conversations in regards to the Lincoln Correctional Facility’s redevelopment was “simply all performed in silos with out neighborhood involvement,” and expressed a priority in regards to the affordability of high-rise constructing initiatives such because the Seneca for Harlem residents.
“I view it as a displacement for the individuals which were on this neighborhood and proceed to wish to keep on this neighborhood, however the costs are pricing us out and we actually have nowhere to go,” Gill mentioned.
