Fetner proposes 171-unit UWS development that includes micro units

Developer working with HPD to create affordable housing on West 96th St. even as elected officials battle firm’s NYCHA project on UES

By Adam Pincus

UPDATED JUNE 17, 11:25 a.m.: Residential development firm Fetner Properties is seeking to build a 150,890-square-foot residential tower with 171 apartments including 68 affordable units at 266-270 West 96th Street between Broadway and West End Avenue on the Upper West Side.

The project has 80 micro units and 91 traditionally sized apartments, according to information submitted to the city as part of its environmental review process. There would be 35 micro units and 33 traditional units. The building is expected to open in 2022.

Fetner is looking to build on three lots that would be combined, now owned by the city’s Housing Preservation and Development, the Salvation Army and the NAACP Roy Wilkins Center, Inc.

The project is advancing even as Borough President Gale Brewer is actively battling Fetner’s effort to construct a partially affordable apartment tower on New York City Housing Authority land, complaining that the project at 401 East 92nd Street at Holmes Towers has not followed the city’s public land use review procedures.

As elected officials and local residents decry the high cost of housing but often battle affordable housing projects on a local level, each individual project becomes a road map for what to do or not to do to advance such projects in the city.

Fetner, led by Harold Fetner, is a residential developer of both market rate and affordable housing.

The project involves HPD selling it’s vacant parcel at 264-266 West 96th Street to Fetner, and removing restrictions the city placed on that property in 1990, as well as providing funding for the project through its Mixed-Middle Income program.

The 23-story building would have a total of 150,890 gross square feet, composed of 140,036 gross square feet of residential space and 10,854 gross square feet of community facility space.

The 68 affordable units would be affordable to those with incomes averaging at 50 percent, 70 percent and 130 percent of the area median income.

Once completed, the Salvation Army and the Mid-Manhattan branch of the NAACP would occupy the community facility space.

UPDATE: Story updated with the breakdown of micro and traditionally sized affordable units.

Correction: a prior version of this article identified the owner of 270 West 96th Street as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In fact, the owner is an independent nonprofit, the NAACP Roy Wilkins Center, Inc., which rents the space to nonprofit tenants including the Mid-Manhattan branch of the NAACP.