New Houses in Bronx Will Extend
Neighborhood to the Waterfront
DECEMBER 24, 1999

By Rachelle Garbarine

Earthmovers are clearing 22.5 acres that hug the East River in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx in preparation for a residential development that will extend the neighborhood to the water's edge and add to an old staple in the area: the two-family house. The $40 million project, called Beechwood at Castle Hill, will have 144 such houses, all two stories. Each will have a three- to five-bedroom apartment for the owner and a studio, one- or two-bedroom rental unit. Each house will also have 1900 square feet and a one-car garage. Most will sit on 23-by-105-foot lots, though some lots will be larger. Construction of the first 70 houses is expected to begin in February, and they are being sold for $229,000 to $279,000, compared with $200,000 to $270,000 for older two-family houses in the neighborhood, said Maria Camporeale, president of Frontier Group Properties, the project's sales agent. Rents for apartments in the area are $600 to $1000 a month.

Since sales began last month, 45 houses have been bought, she said. Mortgages, with down payments as low as 3 percent, are being made available to buyers through seven banks, she added. Ms. Camporeale noted that 75 percent of the rent from the apartment can be counted toward a buyer's total income.
The Houses are also eligible for an eight-year tax abatement from the city, she said. because of the abatement, taxes are expected to be $120 to $150 for the first year, rising to $2000 to $3000 after the exemption expires in the eight year. This is not the first project planned for the site, which is at Castle Hill and Norton Avenues and was once occupied by the Castle Hill Swim Club. The Club was razed during the building boom in the mid-1980's to make way for a planned 511-unit condominium development, but that project was derailed by the recession when an earlier developer defaulted on its loan. In 1994, the mortgage holder, the River Bank of America of New Rochelle, which is now defunct, took back the property, as well as a nearby 55-acre waterfront site, also a former swim club, where the same developer had planned to build 1,100 units.

Over the next few years, the Castle Hill property sat vacant. (At the second project, known as Shorehaven, the first 256 of the 1,100 condominiums have been built, but spokesman for the land declined to say when construction would begin on the rest of the project.) Last year, judging that the housing market in the Bronx had rebounded from its doldrums, the owner of the Castle Hill property, R. B. Asset Inc. of Manhattan, the successor to River Bank, began marketing the site for redevelopment. It joined forces earlier this year with the Beechwood Organization of Jericho, N.Y., a builder of two-family houses in Brooklyn and the Bronx. The developers gave up the higher density that was allowed under a special zoning granted to the first project in 1980's. Instead, they chose to build their project according to the site's original zoning. "The site is in a solid family community, where two-family homes predominate, but new ones haven't been build in 30 years," Leslie A. Lerner, a partner with Michael Dubb at Beechwood, said, explaining why the developers made the switch. "It's also large enough to create a new part of the existing neighborhood, which people like."
One person pleased with the new plans is Francisco Gonzalez, district manager of Community Board 9, which guides growth in the area. "The lower density along with the two-family-home concept complements the area," he said. Having the site redevelopment, he added, "will lift a drain from and upgrade that part of the community board as well as help raise property values." Mr. Lerner said the partners see two-family homes, with their income-producing apartments, "as the basic form of housing for middle-income purchasers to buy because they can own a home, generally for less than the monthly cost of renting an apartment."

For example, he said, a person buying a $229,000 home with a 5 percent down payment would have a monthly mortgage payment of $1,500; including utilities and the abated real estate taxes, the cost would be $1,700. But a monthly rent of $1,000 from a two-bedroom unit reduces the owner's monthly cost to $700, he said. Those advantages are among the reasons Damaso and Irisa Rosa have signed a contract to buy a house there. The Rosas now live with their two children in a rental apartment in Washington Heights, Manhattan. (He is a truck driver, and she is a dietitian at a nursing home.) "We will get a little help with the mortgage, boiled up equity that we will get back when we sell the house, and our kids get a back yard to run around in and play," Mr. Rosa said. He calculates that his monthly cost to own the home will be about $700, which he said is slightly more than what the Rosas now pay for rent. Mr. Lerner said the brick-and-aluminum-sided houses have been designed with three different layouts so buyers can choose the size of both apartments based on "how big their family is or how great their need is for the rental income." The architect is Fakler & Eliason, of Fresh Meadows, Queens. The owners' apartments will range in size from 1,190 to 1,470 square feet and fill the first and part of the second, while the rentals will range from 430 to 710 square feet and occupy the rest of the second floor. In a home with a five-bedroom 1,470-square-foot unit for the owner, for instance, the rental will be a 430-square-foot studio. Buyers will start moving into their new houses by Christmas next year, Mr. Lerner said. He said construction of the remaining 74 houses will be tied to sales.

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