You cannot sell the apartment, except back to the housing company that owns the development, at which time you receive a payout calculated on the initial downpayment, the number of shares you “own” (similar to equity in a traditional mortgage, though, as indicated by the term “limited equity,” you don’t accrue value in the same way as a mortgage) and the amortization of the building. As an “owner,” you pay monthly “carrying charges,” akin to maintenance fees. After the initial investment, there is not much difference between living in a co-op versus a rental. Mitchell-Lama buildings are either limited-equity cooperatives or rentals. Buying a coop requires an initial investment that is tiny by New York standards (usually between $5,000 and $20,000 depending on the apartment), and financing may be possible. That $1,063 two-bedroom is only open to a family unit of two to four people (families can be adult siblings, domestic partners, parents and children–the definition is broad) with a total income range of $35,760 – $51,540, and in this case, preference will be given to applicants who are current residents of Brooklyn Community Board 1. There are income limits and other occupancy requirements you have to meet as well. in Williamsburg offered one-bedrooms for $960 and two-bedrooms for $1,063. Monthly rent varies depending on the building, but a recent listing on Orient Ave. My current bedroom is the size of many a Williamsburg studio apartment. Most Mitchell-Lamas include security, laundry, excellent maintenance, parking lots, community centers with activities, and a tenants association. Mitchell-Lamas aren’t the glamourous glassy condos you see erupting rapidly these days in emerging neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Bushwick and Crown Heights, but they’re awfully clean and spacious on the inside. All that translates to more than 400,000 New Yorkers, teachers, postal workers, construction workers, police officers, municipal workers, secretaries, students and homemakers from many ethnic and cultural backgrounds, who are able to afford to live in this crazily expensive city. An additional 19 developments have shared supervision by HPD and the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) supervises waiting lists, management issues, and has other oversight responsibilities for 78 Mitchell-Lama developments. Right now, there are 97 city-sponsored, moderate- and middle-income rental and cooperative developments in New York City, totaling more than 44,600 units. The Mitchell-Lama Program was a law written in 1955 by Senator MacNeill Mitchell and Assemblyman Alfred Lama, under Governor Averell Harriman designed to create and maintain affordable housing in New York State. I’m a Brooklynite, just trying to live on my own in the neighborhood where I went to elementary and junior high school, rode my first bike, had my first kiss and threw my first snowball. I work as hard as the next person, but my industry, book publishing, isn’t so lucrative for the average employee. I personally don’t see another way to stay living in my borough as rents rise and gentrification changes local dynamics. I am also on several waiting lists for my own Mitchell-Lama studio or one-bedroom, which I hope to move into before I’m 30. I moved back home with her a little over a year ago, to a two-bedroom apartment in the same complex (she upgraded when my younger sister was born). Thanks to New York City’s Mitchell-Lama program, which protects moderate- and-middle income families, my mom’s housing costs have gone up minimally over the past two decades. My mom and I were headed back to her one-bedroom apartment in Lindsay Park, a Mitchell-Lama development in Williamsburg where I still live today. The day my mom took me home from the hospital, “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes was the #1 song on the Billboard charts and the Cosbys, who lived in a Brooklyn Heights brownstone, were America’s favorite family. I was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1987. The author, in front of Lindsay Park, the Mitchell-Lama building where she was raised and where she lives today.
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