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87,000 People Applied For Affordable Apartments At The Domino Sugar Factory
By
David Colon
Published Feb 16, 2017
Modified Feb 16, 2017
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By
David Colon
Published Feb 16, 2017
Modified Feb 16, 2017
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Good morning, hello. Did you wake up this morning thinking something good might happen to you today? Specifically, that you might snag a new, affordable apartment at the Domino Sugar Factory? It's very specific I know, but if that's what you thought, LOL it ain't happening buddy, given that 87,000 people applied for just 104 apartments in the lottery for the development's first building. Also just to be clear, nothing else good will happen to you today either!
DNAinfo reports that in fact the odds are NEVER in your favor, with today's proof coming in the form that if you applied for an apartment ranging from $596/month to $979month, your packet is buried somewhere among 86,999 other affordable apartment hopefuls. This puts your chances of getting picked for an apartment at .11 percent, odds which are actually worse than surviving the final mission of Rouge One. Or more locally, even worse odds somehow than the Knicks have of winning the NBA Finals this year (.14 percent according to one bookie).
The odds for a Domino apartment are also just slightly worse than the .15 percent chance people had when they applied for affordable housing on the lovely banks of the Gowanus last year, which themselves were just slightly worse than the .16 percent chance you had to get a cool art apartment in Harlem back in 2014.
The record for applicants trying to get in on an affordable development is still 93,000 people who applied for just 31 apartments in Hunter's Point South Commons in Long Island City in 2015 (a .03 percent chance). Given that we're just a lottery or two away from breaking the 100,000 applicants barrier, Mayor de Blasio took part of his State of the City speech this year to reiterate his commitment to building (or preserving) 200,000 affordable apartments, a program that was judged to be at least better than nothing, considering Albany holds the power when it comes to strengthening rent control laws.
In addition to de Blasio's building goals, there's also Governor Cuomo's Affordable New York, a tweaked version of the 421-a tax break that he says would spur the creation of 2,500 affordable units per year in the city. However, that plan hasn't passed the state legislature yet, and appears to have some problematic notions regarding the protection of affordable housing baked right into it. In the much more immediate future, there'll be some more opportunities for you to apply for the remaining 596 affordable units being built at Domino (out of the promised total of 700 units) at some point in the near future. In the meantime, I suggest playing Win for Life maybe, which has worse odds but a better prize.
Tagged
affordable housing
affordable housing lottery
domino development
domino sugar factory
the lottery should be called the jack squattery
David Colon
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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