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88,000 Applicants and Counting for 55 Units in ‘Poor Door’ Building

A glassy new tower in New York City attracted an outcry for featuring one entrance for condominium owners and another for low-income tenants.

But having to walk through a so-called poor door has not deterred those seeking an affordable place to live. As of Monday, the deadline for applying, more than 88,000 people had put their name in for the 55 low-priced units, the developer said.

“I guess people like it,” said Gary Barnett, founder and president of Extell Development Company, the tower’s developer. “It shows that there’s a tremendous demand for high-quality affordable housing in beautiful neighborhoods.”

The separate entrances at the building, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, drew heavy criticism last year from some officials and affordable-housing advocates who saw the configuration as representing unequal treatment. The arrangement puts the affordable apartments in a segment attached to the condo building and is allowed under zoning rules that the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio says it is now working to change.

Despite the controversy, it is not surprising that people are knocking down the poor door to get in. Housing lotteries, which the city uses to distribute subsidized apartments in new buildings, have been drawing record numbers after the system began allowing online applications in 2013 and as the rental market has gotten tighter. The lotteries are expected to multiply after Mr. de Blasio’s pledge to produce 80,000 new affordable units over 10 years. Already this year, 10 lotteries have been held for 698 units that received about 486,000 applications, officials with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development said.

Mr. Barnett said 88,200 applications had been received by early Monday. Officials with the NYC Housing Partnership, the nonprofit that will screen applicants for the developer, said that applications could reach 90,000 by the time all submissions, including those mailed and postmarked by Monday, are counted.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/ny...er=rss&emc=rss