Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I moved into a one bedroom lottery apartment at Waterside Plaza last summer based on 130% AMI (at which my income sits toward the bottom). My rent was $2,660, and I split it with my partner. Both the apartment and complex are incredible, and I felt secure in the belief that my rent would not increase too much upon renewal. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. I was shocked to receive an automated lease renewal email from the lease office in which my rent was increased $500 (but no request to recertify my salary).
New Waterside affordable lottery apartments are also not rent stabilized. According to HPD and the lease office, since AMI increased so much in 2022, rents did too.
I will have to move after only one year here, as my salary didn't also increase $500, but I'm also wary of ever moving into another lottery apartment.
Are all new Housing Connect apartment lottery lease renewals calculated using AMI, or are some still renewed based on RGB Board % increases?
If the former is the case, there seems to be more volatility moving into an affordable housing apartment than sticking with an apartment owned by a small landlord. While AMI could suddenly shoot up as it did this year, there also seems to be an enormous gap between first year rents in lottery apartments (seemingly to entice renters) and what rent could be increased to upon renewal.
For example, a two bedroom lottery apartment nearby at 524 E. 14th Street is currently being offered at $2,733 at 130% AMI, but the maximum monthly rent at that size and AMI for 2022 is $3,903. One could move there and receive a $1k+ rent increase the following year! While the same or worse could certainly happen in a market rate apartment, winning affordable housing seems to imply that one's rent increases would be reasonable, but it seems like the gap between one's starting rent and the max possible rent, no matter your AMI, is enormous. It might be safer to go back to a small landlord owned apartment, where my experience around lease renewals has mostly been reasonable even if the apartments themselves have never had the amenities of the apartments being offered through the housing lottery.
This doesn't make sense at all. Its rent stabilized which means they can only increase your rent by a certain percentage. I believe this year its at 3% for 1 year lease and 5% for 2 year (could be wrong but its no more than 9% for sure)
Wow, this is incredible. You checked it out with HPD? What does it say in your lease? Are you sure you're not rent stabilized?
I find it hard to believe a lottery apartment could legally go up this much.
Even if you're not rent stabilized and instead, your rent goes up when the AMI goes up (and goes down if it goes down), I think you might be misinterpreting the chart of maximum rents per AMI.
Those figures are the maximum that can be charged for new tenants. It doesn't mean that everyone already in the apartment can face a rent increase up to the max.
Maybe Waterside is misinterpreting it too. Be sure to ask how they arrived at that figure.
Also contact the Waterside tenants association right away. They helped negotiate the deal (which I don't think actually covers you), and they are very savvy and can help you!
Last edited by macnyc2003; 07-26-2022 at 12:48 PM..
Sorry to hear about this but I thought Waterside Plaza has reached an agreement with the City Council in 2019 to preserve affordable housing at the complex for another 75 years & as part of the agreement, any units vacated by tenants are entered into the housing lottery system.
When you signed your initial lease, did you get to sign a rent stabilized rider? The LL also obliged to notify you as a tenant about how long your unit will be affordable/rent stabilized unit through a separate rider & you have to sign it too so altogether in your initial lease packet.
I just signed a two-year lease renewal for my apartment that I got from Housing Connect lottery last year & the rent increase was based on the percentage that was voted by the RGB which mine was 2.5% for two years (my lease renewal still fell under the previous voting period, not the current one) so the increase is not calculated based on the AMI as my LL also never asked for any income recertification.
Sorry to hear about this but I thought Waterside Plaza has reached an agreement with the City Council in 2019 to preserve affordable housing at the complex for another 75 years & as part of the agreement, any units vacated by tenants are entered into the housing lottery system.
When you signed your initial lease, did you get to sign a rent stabilized rider? The LL also obliged to notify you as a tenant about how long your unit will be affordable/rent stabilized unit through a separate rider & you have to sign it too so altogether in your initial lease packet.
I just signed a two-year lease renewal for my apartment that I got from Housing Connect lottery last year & the rent increase was based on the percentage that was voted by the RGB which mine was 2.5% for two years (my lease renewal still fell under the previous voting period, not the current one) so the increase is not calculated based on the AMI as my LL also never asked for any income recertification.
This agreement with the city covers the "settlement tenants," who are those people who were living at Waterside when the development left the Mitchell-Lama system in 2001. Their deal is based on their income, and many of them, recently retired, saw rent rollbacks. When these people vacate, their unit goes into the lottery, but the new lottery people don't get the same rent as the person who vacated.
Well, based on the agreement that I read here, last para, it stated:
Waterside Plaza is a residential and business complex on the East River
in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan. Under the terms of a renegotiated
99-year lease with New York City, this deal extends the ground lease for
Waterside Plaza from 2069 to 2118, in exchange for the creation and
preservation of affordable housing. As units are vacated by current tenants,
they will be entered into a lottery-based affordable housing program.
Quote:
Originally Posted by macnyc2003
This agreement with the city covers the "settlement tenants," who are those people living at Waterside when the development left the Mitchell-Lama system. It doesn't cover new lottery tenants.
I spoke with HPD. Unfortunately the rent is correct. Not all housing lottery apartments are rent stabilized, some rents are tied to HUD's annual AMI calculation. In fact, HPD lists the max rents for "affordable housing" for each AMI on their website, at the bottom of the paged linked to: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/servic...an-income.page
The two major problems are that, unlike rent stabilized apartments, AMI based affordable housing rents can change drastically as they did from 2021 to 2022 depending of HUD's calculations, and many affordable housing lottery apartments offer a rent well below the AMI the first year, but when you renew you are likely in for a big increase, as I described for the current lottery at 524 E. 14th Street.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
