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Brooklyn Luxury Condos Get Tax Breaks, Keep Poors Out Of Pool
By
John Del Signore
Published May 3, 2011
Modified May 3, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 3, 2011
Modified May 3, 2011
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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.
Tagged
condos
housing
Northside Piers
rent
the edge
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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