Some Staten Islanders Debate Whether Apartments Can be Too Affordable

WNYC is taking a close look at New York City’s affordability crisis one neighborhood at a time.

Right now, we're reporting on Staten Island, where the mayor is also spending the week in the first of five "City Hall In Your Borough" residencies. We're looking specifically at the North Shore, where the city wants to rezone and revitalize a section of Bay Street from Tompkinsville to Stapleton. It's a small area, less than a mile long, dotted with bodegas, hair salons and coffee shops — just blocks from where Eric Garner was killed. 

WNYC's Jessica Gould told All Things Considered host Jami Floyd that preliminary plans call for more apartments — including affordable apartments that are part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's housing plan — as well as retail, improved parks, more school seats and safer streets. Officials say this is part of a broader vision that's been in the works for years and will link the area to new development on the North Shore, where a giant observation wheel and mall are under construction.

Neighbors say they'd like to see more amenities, like new shops and restaurants. But they're worried that the infrastructure, which is already strained, can't support the new development. And there are concerns about how affordable the apartments will be.

Stephen Teiglee, a Liberian immigrant and home health aid, shares a one-bedroom apartment with his four children and his mother-in-law. He makes about $24,000 a year and is calling on the city to build housing that benefits people like him. "I can't rent a private place and feed my children and pay the bills," he said. "I can't make it, I alone."

Other residents, however, worry that the housing coming to the area will be too affordable. Priscilla Marco, president of the Van Duzer Street Civic Association, says she bought a house on the North Shore because it was affordable, and she's anxious about a possible influx of low-income apartments. "The fear people have is if you build it big and you build it all low income, then that’s what it’s going to be known for, and the prosperity and the development that the community had hoped for will not happen," she said.