Florescu Viorel freelance NYDN/Florescu Viorel freelance NYDN
Homeless shelters, like this one that opened in 2009 in Westchester Square, are increasingly unpopular in the Bronx.
The Bronx is not a big homeless shelter!
That’s what a Community Board 7 committee told two developers Wednesday night, rejecting a proposed nine-story “supportive housing” facility on Webster Ave. and also sending another developer of an 82-unit building on E. 204th St. back to the drawing board.
“We don’t need any more low-income, affordable housing,” said Charlesetta Rhett, a Community Board 7 member said Wednesday night. “We want to upgrade our community. We want people to come here.”
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Rhett and other board members say Kingsbridge, Bedford Park, Fordham, Norwood, Mosholu and University Heights are already saturated with homes for low-income seniors, the disabled, the mentally ill, homeless and other vulnerable populations — and developers should build more market-rate housing and retail spaces.
The push for regular housing — along with banks, supermarkets, bars and cafes that follow — jibes with the board’s “Vision Plan for Webster Avenue,” which imagines the 1.5 mile thoroughfare as a revitalized “Main Street,” connecting Gun Hill and Fordham Roads.
Housing Committee Chairwoman Jean Hill slammed the developer of the Webster Ave. facility, reminding him that there are five other supportive housing projects already in the works.
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“We’ve been getting a lot of subsidized housing,” Hill said. “And that is not part of the vision plan for Webster Avenue.”
But the developer, Jay Martino, had his own retort.
“We have a vision, too,” said Martino, a vice president of the Stagg Group. “We don’t build garbage.”
There were 148 supportive housing developments in the Bronx as of 2009, according to Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. There were 13 such buildings in Community Board 7 alone.
jcunningham@nydailynews.com
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