HPD Rezoning Would Swap East Harlem Shelter For 698-Unit Towers On Full Block

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development wants to tear up the zoning map around a longtime East Harlem homeless shelter and replace it with nearly 700 apartments across two towers. The application, filed Friday, covers the full block bordered by East 118th and East 119th Streets between Madison and Fifth Avenues, and would rezone the area from R7-2/C1-4 to the city's highest-density residential classification, R10/C1-4.

The filing, identified as CEQR No. 25HPD071M, seeks an Urban Development Action Area Project designation, a city land disposition, and the zoning map amendment, formally kicking off the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, according to NYC Planning records. The rezoning application was first reported by Pincusco, according to The Real Deal. An R10 designation permits a baseline Floor Area Ratio of 10.0 that can climb to 12.0 with Mandatory Inclusionary Housing or affordable-housing bonuses, according to Vinculum Architecture — the kind of density typically reserved for major commercial corridors and high-rise residential towers.

From a 174-Unit Shelter to Nearly 700 Apartments

The site currently contains a six-story, 174-unit building that Volunteers of America-Greater New York runs as supportive housing for formerly homeless single adults, per the same account. The rezoning proposal on the table now would allow a two-building housing project with 698 units, a scale HPD confirmed after the city's own zoning application portal had briefly referenced a much larger three-building, 762-unit project — a reference the agency said is now outdated, the report notes.

Volunteers of America-Greater New York is sponsoring the proposed project at 22 East 119th Street, but the nonprofit did not respond to a request for comment from The Real Deal. The organization has been shifting from a social-service shelter operator into a more active affordable-housing developer: Volunteers of America-Greater New York President and CEO Jeffrey Ginsburg announced that the nonprofit received a $20 million gift from an anonymous donor earmarked for expanding its affordable-housing pipeline citywide. The group is also involved in a nearly 1,000-unit waterfront development on city-owned land in Hunters Point South, Queens, alongside Slate Property Group and The Hudson Companies, with roughly 70 percent of those units set aside as affordable — a project through which HPD is deploying an Eric Adams-era mixed-income financing push for the first time, according to Commercial Observer.

Mandatory Affordability, and a Rocky Tenant History

Because the rezoning covers the entire block rather than a single lot, the area will be designated a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing area, which requires an affordable-housing component in any future private development within the bounded zone — a mechanism the city has used since the 2017 East Harlem Neighborhood Rezoning reshaped a 96-block swath of Community District 11 to permit greater density while locking in permanent affordability requirements, as Hoodline previously reported. The approach reflects a broader city planning preference for rezoning full blocks rather than isolated parcels, avoiding what's known as spot zoning.

The existing SRO building's track record with tenants has not been smooth. Housing database records maintained by the nonprofit JustFix show the six-story building at 22 East 119th Street has logged 108 eviction case filings and 27 executed evictions since 2017, the highest volume across Volunteers of America-Greater New York's 12-property New York City portfolio, per JustFix data. The city's Department of Social Services/Human Resources Administration had previously awarded the nonprofit a $2.29 million contract covering July 2018 through June 2023 to administer the supportive housing site, according to municipal procurement records published in The City Record Online.

A Cautionary Tale From a Failed Project Nearby

The push to densify East Harlem land comes as a separate, unrelated East Harlem development saga plays out in the courts. In May, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department unanimously reinstated a lawsuit by CSN Realty Corp. against developers Roy Moussaieff and Yousef Althkefati, ruling that a contractual merger clause did not bar fraudulent-inducement claims tied to a defaulted $12 million East Harlem land purchase, according to the New York State Law Reporting Bureau.

Moussaieff and Althkefati had planned a 20-story mixed-use building at 2252 Third Avenue between 122nd and 123rd Streets, with earlier site documentation describing versions of the project that at various points called for 23-story and 25-story buildings, community and commercial space, and funding from HPD and the New York City Housing Development Corporation. CSN Realty Corp. claims the developers used a shell entity with no funds to secure a contract for the project; the company had previously secured a $3 million court judgment in August 2023 against the single-purpose entity, 2252 Third Avenue LLC, over unpaid extension fees, but could not collect because the shell company held $0 in its account, The Real Deal reported. The appellate ruling now allows the case to move into discovery to evaluate piercing the corporate veil and holding the developers personally liable for the debt. Moussaieff and Althkefati have denied the allegations and argued there is no basis to hold them personally responsible. The East Harlem project ultimately collapsed.

The Backdrop: A Neighborhood Under Pressure

The stakes around new housing supply in East Harlem are high. Roughly 48% of households in Manhattan Community District 11 are rent-burdened and nearly 23% of residents live below the federal poverty line, compared with a boroughwide poverty rate of 14% in Manhattan, according to NYC Department of City Planning demographic data cited on Wikipedia. The 22 East 119th Street proposal joins a string of recent East Harlem housing pushes, including the 341-unit Timbale Terrace groundbreaking and a 140-unit tower planned for a former parking lot as part of the city's broader East Harlem housing blitz.