An empty lot at 351 Powers Avenue in the South Bronx is on its way to becoming an eight-story building with 83 income-restricted apartments, all of them affordable. On May 19, the Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Sitings, Resiliency and Dispositions held a single vote, and it went 5 to 0 with no abstentions. The two applications, LU 64 and LU 65, were filed by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development to dispose of the city-owned site so the project can be built.
This was not a contested hearing. No one testified against it, and the only extended remarks came from a council member urging colleagues to vote yes. The pitch leaned hard on what the project does beyond the unit count. The building is designed to passive house standards, a point the speaker tied directly to the borough's asthma and air-quality problems: in the Bronx, the argument went, healthy housing is not a luxury. The plan also folds in more than 4,000 square feet of community facility space, a theater space for young people and local residents, larger apartments meant for families, and replacement parking for the Department of Education to make up for what the site loses.
Chair Christopher Marte ran the meeting, joined by three colleagues on the subcommittee. The framing throughout was that this is the kind of project the council should say yes to quickly: affordable, sustainable, and built around people already living in the neighborhood. The speaker pushed back on the idea that moving fast on housing means cutting the community out, calling those goals not in conflict.
With the subcommittee's approval, LU 64 and LU 65 now head to the full Land Use Committee. The disposition vote clears one of the last procedural steps before HPD can hand the development site to a builder and turn a vacant parcel into 83 homes. That was the entirety of the day's business; the chair thanked the public and staff and closed the meeting.