More Affordable Houses Coming To Nehemiah Spring Creek In East New York

YIMBY’s daily • May 16, 2016

The modular homes at Nehemiah Spring Creek. photo via Alexander Gorlin Architects

Last summer, the Daily News reported that the city was dragging its feet on building gas, sewer, and electric lines for the final phases of Nehemiah Spring Creek’s affordable housing development in East New York. Now, wheels are cranking into motion at the city housing agencies. Building applications have been filed for the fourth stage of the project.


On Friday, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development submitted plans for 57 single- and two-family homes. Reps from the agency tell us this phase of construction, 4A, will bring 83 one- and two-family houses to the neighborhood. They’ll rise on a far-flung lot near the southern Brooklyn coast, tucked behind the Gateway Center Mall and semi-wilderness of Spring Creek Park.

Each of the homes will have 1,640 square feet of residential space and one parking spot. So far, plans have been filed for 407-419, 418-450, 474-507 Schroeders Avenue, 1218-1235 Jerome Street, and 714-728 Walker Street.

The city is almost finished installing sewers and water mains, and they’re ready to turn the site over to Con Ed, National Grid and Verizon to add electric lines, gas, and internet, according to HPD.


Ultimately, the final stages of Spring Creek are expected to bring 225 homes and 1,295 apartments to the vast, empty plots next to mall.

The most recent crop of houses went up for sale through a lottery in 2014, when prices for a single-family home started at $225,000 and went up to $300,000. A family of four who wanted to buy needed to earn a minimum of $52,000 a year and no more than $109,070.

Cobble Hill-based Delacour, Ferrara and Church Architects applied for the permits. We’re not sure if they’ll design the homes, but we hope the architects behind this phase are as innovative as designers of the first crop of houses. Alexander Gorlin Architects helped design nearly 300 modular townhouses for the first three phases of Nehemiah Spring Creek. Capsys, a modular manufacturer, assembled them in its factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and then shipped them on trucks to the southeastern corner of the borough. Unfortunately, Capsys couldn’t afford to renew its lease at the Yard, and the company shut its doors there in March.


The firm will relocate its operations to Pennsylvania, Curbed reported in February. But many developers, faced with the complexity and cost of transporting modules from 150 miles outside the city, are deciding to go back to traditional construction methods.

We don’t know what will happen with the next phase of East New York’s sprawling affordable housing complex. East Brooklyn Congregations—through the Nenehmiah Housing Development Fund—is developing the project.


By Monadnock Development 15 Mar, 2023
Developed in partnership with Nehemiah HDFC  (the development arm of East Brooklyn Congregations)
By EAST NEW YORK NEWS 07 Oct, 2021
Brand New Senior Development Opens In East New York’s Spring Creek Section Next To Gateway Mall
By Brownstoner 09 Nov, 2020
An affordable housing lottery has opened for a whopping 241 newly constructed units across a series of buildings as part of the latest phase of the Nehemiah Spring Creek development, with addresses at 389-402, 498-504, and 516 Schroeders Avenue, 127 and 129 Gateway Drive and 1111-1123 Lower Ashford Drive in East New York. Of the affordable apartments, there are three studios, 93 one-bedroom units, 105 two-bedroom units and 13 three-bedroom units. Monthly rents start at $471 and top out at $2,096.  The lottery is set at an area median income range of 30 percent for 60 of the units, 40 percent for 24 of the units, 50 percent for another 24 of the units, 70 percent for 21 of the units, 80 percent for another 21 of the units and 90 percent for the remaining 64 units. Eligible incomes range between $18,618 and $126,900 for households of one to seven people.
By NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 27 Jul, 2012
Spring Creek Nehemiah is East New York is one of the city's great housing success stories. Already, 233 first-time owners have moved into these well-designed townhomes.
By NPR 21 Oct, 2009
Yvonne Ziegler had an apartment in a central Brooklyn housing project and a decent job in an office. But like a lot of New Yorkers, she figured she'd be renting forever. Owning a place seemed beyond the realm of possibility. Thanks to the Nehemiah project, a church-run affordable housing program, Ziegler now owns a trim, neatly maintained three-bedroom house, where she lives with her elderly mother in the Brooklyn neighborhood known as East New York. The program has built more than 4,000 houses in Brooklyn and the Bronx since the 1980s. "When it came to light that these churches were building affordable houses and how low the mortgages were, I thought, 'Well, maybe this is something I can aspire to,' " Ziegler says. The Nehemiah project, named for the biblical prophet who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, has provided a bulwark of stability in neighborhoods once devastated by arson and neglect. That's been especially true during the mortgage crisis. In a part of the city where foreclosures topped 10 percent last year, few of the program's homeowners have defaulted on their loans. Tough Love Breeds Success While exact numbers are difficult to access, Mike Gecan of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, which helped organize the Nehemiah project, says no more than 10 of the properties built by the program have suffered foreclosure. Program officials say they owe their success to their rejection of the worst excesses of the subprime mortgage era. Applicants get mortgages through private lenders and from the city, but Nehemiah adds its own layer of tough income guidelines and credit checks. For instance, mortgages can't exceed about 20 percent of an applicant's income, Gecan says. "At the time [the program began], the conventional wisdom said that people should be asked to spend a third of their income on housing," he says. "That is extraordinarily high, and if someone has a family emergency, has a job loss, or if the economy gets weakened, and if they go from 40 hours a week to 27 hours a week, then if you're spending 35 per
By The Washington Post 12 Jul, 1985
The message from East Brooklyn, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the nation, is that from the ashes -- with no help from Washington, thank you -- housing for working-class families can be built without red tape, corruption or skyrocketing price tags.
Share by: