TRS Invests To Build Housing For Educators; Preference to School Staff for Affordable Bronx Apts.

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

A lucky 234 middle-income educators could soon be living in rent-regulated apartments in the South Bronx, which will be built using $28 million in bonds funded by the Teachers' Retirement System.

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang EDUCHESTER: City Comptroller Bill Thompson announced a 234-unit rent-regulated housing development for educators last week that will be constructed with $28 million in bonds using funds from the Teachers Retirement System. United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten (right) praised the deal, saying that it could help to retain Teachers who are struggling to find affordable housing.

Teachers, Teacher's Aides, Principals and Assistant Principals who work in public and private schools will be given 100-percent preference for the new rental units at 488 and 514 E. 163rd St. in the Melrose section of The Bronx. Educators must work in a primary or secondary school located in the city and make less than 110 percent of the median income, or about $83,600 for a family of four, to be eligible.

One-Bedrooms for $1G

The apartments will range in size from studios to three-bedrooms, with a one-bedroom renting for $1,015 per month. Construction on the city-owned land is slated to begin in a few months and be completed by 2009.

City officials hope that the new housing will help to retain Teachers who they say are being priced out of the still-booming housing market here.

"This is a way of creating workforce housing for Teachers who want to stay in New York and teach," said United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten at an Oct. 4 press conference.

"They want to live in the communities where they teach. This project is a way of doing this."

Educators who live in the neighborhood will get a 50 percent preference for the apartments and those with disabilities will get an extra 5 percent, as is the case with all Housing Development Corporation projects.

Other Rental Rates

Studios in the two buildings will rent for $806 per month, two-bedroom apartments will go for $1,222, and three-bedrooms will cost $1,412. The units will become rent-stabilized after they are occupied. The development is part of a larger, seven-building, 750-unit development planned for the area.

TRS expects a 6-percent return on the investment. Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. said that other city retirement systems may soon pursue similar projects.

"This is perhaps the first," he said, "and I think we can expect to see other instances in the future of housing for municipal workers being done where a preference like this is established for those who are entering the Police Department, those who are in the Police Department; those in the Fire Department, or in other city agencies."

The Comptroller's Office has brokered deals in the past using a total of $267 million of city pension funds placed in the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust to expand affordable housing, although this is the first building to be constructed with city pension money. About 3,000 municipal workers have received first-time homeowner loans using some of the AFL-CIO funds.

No 'Privates' Problem

Ms. Weingarten said that she did not have a problem with the fact that private-sector educators who are not members of the union or TRS were eligible for the housing. "It creates a pattern of affordable workforce housing," she said. "It's a template so that others can replicate it, and that's wonderful."

The real-estate company Atlantic Development Group bought the land from the city through a bidding process. The Comptroller's Office brokered the deal, purchasing $28,265,000 in bonds from HDC using TRS funds. HDC has had only one default in its 32 years of existence, according to outgoing HDC President Emily A. Youssouf.

Hope to Stem Attrition

Both Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Thompson thanked Mayor Bloomberg for his support of the project. Mr. Thompson also noted that 5,000 Teachers left the city in 2005 and that Teachers are one of the largest groups of workers who leave the city each year. About 30 percent of city residents are using more than half of their incomes to pay for shelter.

Ms. Weingarten said that a joint housing program between the community group ACORN and the UFT with a similar income ceiling was attracting 300 members per month to housing meetings. She asserted that The Bronx project was in the spirit of past middle-income housing projects, such as the Mitchell-Lama program, Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town and Electchester, a Queens housing complex created by the electricians' union.

"In the past you had all sorts of programs and projects to keep working-class and middle-class folks in the city," she said. "This is a way of creating an Electchester for educators."