New Settlement Apartments Rehabilitation

Organization Name: Settlement Housing Fund

Project Title: New Settlement Apartments Rehabilitation

Project Location: Mt. Eden, Bronx, NY

Project Description:
Settlement Housing Fund recently completed major renovations and upgrades to the original 14 buildings at New Settlement Apartments in the Southwest Bronx. These pre-war buildings, north of Yankee Stadium between the Grand Concourse and Jerome Avenue, were originally gut-rehabilitated and acquired from the City in the late 1980s. Since then, they have served generations of residents with quality housing and programs that created a thriving neighborhood focused on youth development and community engagement. After nearly 30 years, the properties were in need of significant refurbishing, system upgrades, and energy efficiency improvements. We worked with Notias Construction to provide 893 apartments with new kitchens and baths, lighting, and refinished floors and walls. Building-wide work included new elevators, windows, water heaters, security, roofing, insulation, flashing, and the largest solar panel installation on a privately owned affordable housing development in New York City. The 14 New Settlement Apartments buildings have been renovated with tenants in-place, maintaining a valuable housing resource for hundreds of low- to moderate-income households, including 30% who were once homeless.

Community Impact:
The City encouraged us to include an additional tier of units for formerly homeless families (with rents set at 30% AMI), bringing the total share of units for homeless households up to 40% -- a portion of which were filled by renting 38 units vacant at closing to families living in shelters. This fits well in line with Settlement Housing Fund’s long-term commitment to serving homeless families while creating thriving mixed-income developments. We worked closely with the City to allocate funding to support these new households moving in directly from homeless shelters, and a new social service staff member is on-site to help them maintain employment and housing stability going forward. The project ensures the long-term stability, energy and cost efficiency of the buildings, with improvements that benefit the tenants. New tax exemption certification also ensures that the buildings will remain affordable for at least another 60 years and that capital from the refinancing will be available to support ongoing housing development projects and transformational community programs.

Organization Description:
Settlement Housing Fund has worked since 1969 to create more than 8,700 apartments within affordable rental and homeownership development projects throughout New York City, and presently owns and maintains 30 buildings with 1,726 units in the Southwest Bronx, Crown Heights Brooklyn, the Two Bridges section of the Lower East Side and in Upper Manhattan. We have several new construction and preservation projects underway, and provide HDFC and marketing lease-up services to other affordable housing developers, as well as programming in our neighborhoods.

Team Members:

Settlement Housing Fund
Notias Construction
OCV Architects
KOW Building Consultants
Bright Power