Affordable housing getting a big boost.

Several affordable housing components are coming together to provide both new and rehabilitated housing for the city's low-income residents. A private mortgage banker has announced a $400 million program to meet the needs of inner city residential property owners, while two low-income city and New York City Housing Partnership projects are getting the ribbon and shovel. Another program will permit neighborhood entrepreneurs to acquire city-owned in rem properties.

These properties were acquired when former private owners failed to pay real estate taxes, most often because regulated rents could not keep up with overwhelming expenses.

Not only could the owners often not make repairs, but they were then subjected to reduced service complaints by tenants, who sometimes stopped paying rent altogether and forced the downward spiral of the property.

While many city small owners hang on, hoping for some recognition and city subsidies, they are often fighting a losing battle. Even one or two tenants refusing to pay the rent in a small building can tilt it over the edge to abandonment.

Ninety-seven percent of the city's 2,910 owned buildings, comprising 27,537 units, consist of fewer than 30 units. Seventy percent have ten units or less. Only three percent of the buildings, or 83 buildings altogether, have 31 units or more.

The average rent of $229 paid by these tenants, whose income is an average of $6,420 per year, does not begin to cover building expenses. That rent covers only 57 percent of the $400 monthly maintenance and operating costs for a private owner, and only 49 percent of the city's cost of $469 for operating this same unit. And that doesn't include city real estate taxes.

In recognition of that fact, and hoping to stem the tide of effectively abandoned buildings, Councilmember Archie Spigner of Queens pushed the Rent Guidelines Board to give all buildings with low-rent apartments a boost with a $15 additional rent increase earlier this year.

But in its final form, the supplement went only to buildings of 30 units or less where a tenant's rent is lower than $400, beginning with leases dated Oct. 1, 1994.

Although the actual guidelines rent increase of 2 percent for a one-year lease and 4 percent for a two-year lease are the lowest in 25 years, a vacancy allowance of 10 percent can also be collected for leases beginning that date for those units renting for less than $400, while a 5 percent vacancy allowance can be collected for apartments renting up to $999.99.

The city and the New York City Partnership are working on a package of intervention tools to identify owners at risk of losing their properties and help restructure the economics of the individual properties. They realize this could mean changes in city-wide practices and legislation may be required. Can this be the beginning of the end of rent controls?

Meanwhile, the city is hoping to get rid of some of the apartments it must maintain at great cost.

The new Building Blocks program calls for the rehabilitation and sale of certain clusters of occupied and vacant housing to private owners, including tenants, not--for-profit groups, and local entrepreneurs.

Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which oversees the care of these buildings, expects to de-acquisition 2,500 units in 250 buildings in that manner in fiscal year '95.

Seventy-five percent of the city-owned buildings are concentrated in ten community boards in Central Brooklyn, Harlem and the South Bronx.

To help with the transfer of properties to private ownership, the New York City Housing Partnership of the NYC Partnership and Chamber of Commerce are helping to link existing programs with the real estate, banking and construction resources.

A request for qualifications (RFQ) to invite applicants to purchase the first 1,000 units will be issued by the end of the month.

Although many buildings are expected to go to local building owners and not--for-profits through the Neighborhood Entrepreneur's Program and the Neighborhood Redevelopment Program, tenants will also have some say about the next ownership.

Through the Tenant Interim Lease Program, tenants in buildings where 60 percent approve of becoming a low-income cooperative can complete management training programs, and after rehabilitation of the building, will be able to purchase their apartment for $250.

Vacant Apts. Get Market Rent

Tenants will receive a combination of Federal Section 8 subsidies, low-income housing credits and the benefits of a market rental for vacant apartments, something always denied private owners in the past.

Nevertheless, the program is being denounced by representatives of the Task Force on City Owned Property, who feel it will remove city apartments from the roster available to homeless families and does not do enough to bolster tenants in place who don't qualify for subsidies.

SONYMA Finances 2-Families

Two other Partnership projects are being announced this month, one in the Bronx and the other a Forest City Ratner housing development at Atlantic Center in Brooklyn.

This Monday, a ribbon-cutting was to have taken place in the Bronx for the opening of Claremont Gardens, a 96-unit townhouse project consisting of 48 two--family attached townhouses.

The block-circling complex, bounded by Washington Avenue, Third Avenue, East 171st Street and Claremont Avenue, marks the first time SONYMA has taken part in lending money to build two-family homes. "This is a celebration of the first loan we are originating for newly constructed two-family homes," said Toni Langkau, director of marketing for SONYMA.

As part of last year's Omnibus Reconciliation Act, SONYMA got both a permanent extension for the mortgage revenue bond legislation that enables it to do tax-exempt bond transactions to finance its low-interest rate loans, and an amendment allowing them to provide newly constructed two-family homes in distressed areas. "It enhances the population density and has economic repercussions," she added.

Created with a $6.47 million Chase construction loan, each of the townhomes will sell for $162,967 and is expected to be affordable to people earning between $22,000 and $52,000 who can make a five percent down payment. The second unit can be rented at a market rent and will help boost the owner's ability to pay for the home, which carries a mortgage rate of 7.25 percent.

The Claremont Gardens is an initiative of HPD under its New Homes Program, in cooperation with the New York City Housing Partnership, along with neighborhood sponsor New Directions in Community (NDI) Revitalization.

Chase Community Development is the lender, while the Briarwood Organization is the developer. The State's Affordable Housing Corp. is providing grants of $15,000 towards the purchase price.

According to New York City Housing Partnership's Elaine Iandeoli, director of community development, the houses are attached brick and each has a small front--yard next to the driveway, along with small terraces. Homeowners will maintain an inner courtyard. The rental unit is on the first floor, while the duplex ownership is the second and third floors.

Ratner Builds

Later in the month, at the site of a faked bombing for the next Bruce Willis Die Hard movie being filmed around the city, the Governor will dedicate the nearby Village at Atlantic Center. This 53 townhome, 159-unit project is being developed by Forest City Ratner in conjunction with its Atlantic Center retail complex.

Construction of 76 units began in July for the first phase of the building.

The three-story, three-family attached townhouses will cost $224,984 and are designed to be purchased by moderate income families with incomes between $32,000 and $53,000.

SONYMA's mortgage insurance fund is providing 75 percent of the mortgage insurance on the construction loan. The purchase price has a number of subsidies. City and Federal subsidies can be obtained of up to $10,000 each, depending on income, while the State will subsidize $15,000. The owner's unit will total 1,840 square feet and the other rental units are two-bedrooms.

They are part of the GRAND program that was announced by the Governor in 1991 and renewed in 1993. GRAND stands for Global Reinvestment in Affordable Neighborhood Development. This is effectively a consortium of 25 foreign banks, led by Bankers Trust. The GRAND program relies on the mortgage insurance fund for its guarantee against losses.