JCAL Plans 13-Story Affordable Housing Project in Bronx

A Bronx-based developer is expanding its affordable housing footprint in NYC with a new tower in its home borough.

JCAL Development has filed plans to build a 195-unit, 13-story affordable housing project in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. The 218K SF mixed-use building will be located at 261 Walton Avenue.

At least two-thirds of the units in the building will be designated as affordable. The tower also will have 19K SF of ground-floor retail space.

The New York City Housing Partnership acquired the site on Walton Avenue in July for an undisclosed amount. The site currently is occupied by a 44K SF self-storage facility; the six-story building, dating back to 1931, will be demolished to make way for the new apartment building.

JCAL has a rapidly expanding portfolio of affordable housing developments in NYC. The company is developing a 15-story, 75-unit affordable housing project at 2395 Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem.

JCAL also has under development a six-story, 58-unit building at 950 Summit Avenue in Highbridge. In June, the developer received approval from the city to build a six-story, 23-unit affordable housing project at 1212-1314 Chisolm Street in the Morrisania neighborhood.

One project proposed by JCAL, a 10-story, 150-unit building at 4541 Furman Avenue, was rejected by the local community board due to parking concerns.

Due to the unprecedented crisis in NYC’s shelter system, Mayor Eric Adams has asked affordable housing developers in the city to voluntarily give up their designated affordable housing lottery units—units that are scheduled to rented in a lottery of income-eligible people—so they can be occupied by homeless people.

Adams said he wanted the lottery units “offered up for homeless placements” so the city can free up more shelter space for migrants.

NYC officials estimate that about 17,000 asylum seekers arrived in New York over the summer. The current shelter population exceeded 61,000 at the beginning of October.

Adolfo Carrión Jr., commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), sent a letter to affordable housing developers asking them to voluntarily give up the lottery units, according to a report in Crain’s.

“We are asking you to remove your affordable units from the housing lottery and offer them up for homeless placements,” Carrión said in the letter. “We ask you to make this new commitment on top of any homeless set-aside requirement, as a voluntary contribution to this humanitarian crisis.”

HPD has not announced a timeframe for the proposed changes to the housing lottery system. An HPD spokesperson told Crain’s that the department is treating the situation as an emergency