Controversy Over Sale Of Largest Federally Subsidized Rental Project

"Renamed Spring Creek Towers in 2002, Starrett City is the largest federally subsidized rental project in the country and continues to be widely known by its original name."

"Bids are due (February 5), with the longtime owners hoping to fetch more than $1 billion for the 46 brick towers and 5,881 apartments that are scattered across 140 acres (on the south shore of Brooklyn) bounded by Canarsie, East New York and Jamaica Bay. The sale has been cloaked in secrecy and a strict confidentiality agreement that prohibits prospective buyers from talking to tenants, or to state and city officials."

"'Starrett City is ground zero for gentrification,' said Bertha Lewis, executive director of New York Acorn, a community organizing group that has been working with the local tenants' association. The new owner 'could wipe out the most successful and diverse affordable housing complex in the country.'"

"The ownership group...has told tenants that nothing will change immediately. The owners say they have a fiduciary duty to get the highest price, but insisted that the buyer would not suddenly transform the complex and that most tenants would continue to qualify for rent subsidies."

"But tenants and many local politicians fear that a billion-dollar price tag will prompt any new owner to drop out of the state's Mitchell-Lama program for middle-class tenants and raise rents, displacing hundreds of tenants, even if many residents would initially be eligible for federal rent vouchers. Tenants also fear that in a push to make a profit, a new owner would cut services at Starrett City, whose buildings and landscaped grounds are well maintained."

"A spokeswoman for Gov. Spitzer, Christine Anderson, said he had serious concerns that the complex would no longer be affordable."

Thanks to Mark Boshnack