Cranes crisscross the sky in downtown White Plains. The county seat, it is a city of 59,000 that is the commercial hub of Westchester County, a densely populated New York City suburb that has more than 1 million residents. While most of this activity will be for new luxury apartments, one corner of the downtown, occupied by the 450-unit Winbrook public housing complex, is also under construction. In a low building on a side street adjacent to the complex is Mack Carter, executive director of the White Plains Housing Authority (WPHA), who is overseeing the redevelopment of the Winbrook complex that will be called Brookfield Commons.
Since his appointment eighteen years ago, Carter has been on a mission to develop or redevelop affordable housing in White Plains. He says his goal is to support those with incomes ranging from $15,000 a year to $150,000 a year or, as he puts it, people employed at organizations ranging from McDonald’s to Mastercard. Yet finding a development partner and securing funding are challenges. Carter says that although he’s always had the property for redevelopment, “finding the money and being able to be a developer, or to partner with someone else,” have been obstacles.
Funding affordable housing can be complex. Developers rely on tax credits, loans and other sources of money. The main source of funding construction of affordable housing is the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), a federal tax credit administered by state agencies. To receive tax credits, a developer must dedicate at least 20 percent of apartments in a building to those earning less than half the area median income, or 40 percent of apartments in a building to those who earn less than 60 percent of the area median income. Rent must be no more than 30 percent of a unit’s target income level for that unit to be considered affordable.
Developers can also get loans if a development will produce enough revenue to pay back the loans. However, when rents are set at affordable levels, there’s a gap between the amount of money developers need for construction and the money lenders will provide, so developers often rely on multiple financing sources.
For the second phase of the Brookfield Commons construction, financing includes $15.3 million in permanent tax-exempt bonds from New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR), federal and state low-income housing tax credits that will generate $26.3 million in equity and an additional $16.6 million in subsidy, as well as additional funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the City of White Plains and the County of Westchester. Capital One Bank and Chase have provided the letter of credit.
The WPHA partnered with Boston-based developer Trinity Financial for the project, and has a master development agreement with the banks as well as government at the city, county and state level to demolish and rebuild all the buildings jointly. This ensures that the WPHA does not have to repeat the funding process for each building.
“We’ve already given them plans of what this community will look like, a whole master planning design if you will, so they’re aware that we’re going to come back to the well when we’re ready, because we’re demolishing, building; demolishing, building; demolishing, building; in phases,” Carter says.
Carter’s career didn’t begin with housing. After four years in the Air Force as a medical specialist, he went on to earn two graduate degrees, one in business and another in community health and health administration. He then went to work in the healthcare industry, first in clinical practice and then transitioned to administrative roles. “I figured I could make better and greater decisions that help greater numbers of people by working in administration,” he says. His last major appointment was as president and CEO of Westchester Medical Center, the first African American to be appointed by Westchester County. In 2001, Carter was tapped to serve as deputy of the WPHA. Carter accepted the job with hopes of eventually becoming the executive director, a position he was selected for just a year later when the previous executive director retired.
The initial phase of the redevelopment project, which cost $42 million, was completed in 2016. The new building, the Prelude, contains 103 affordable apartment units as well as an education center to support all White Plains residents who are looking for jobs or to better their careers. The current phase of the redevelopment project, construction of the 129-unit building, the Overture, began in 2019. Piles are now being put in place for the Overture’s superstructure. Once completed, Brookfield Commons will more than double the number of affordable apartment units currently at the Winbrook complex.
According to a 2019 report, Westchester County Housing Needs Assessment, more than 11,700 new housing units need to be built to meet demand for affordable housing in the county. According to Alexander Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations, an organization that supports individuals and families transitioning out of homelessness, the report provided valuable information for the county’s 43 municipalities, particularly with regard to demographic information and in “establishing that all of these communities need affordable housing.”
However, Westchester’s track record in addressing its affordable housing needs has been a mixed bag. In 2009, a federal consent decree was issued that required the county to create affordable units and meet fair housing requirements. For years, the county was locked in legal battles with the federal government over the order. In 2017, the Department of Housing and Urban Development declared that Westchester had done enough to fix exclusionary housing practices. “With the demise of the consent decree, there is no longer any cudgel to try to get these communities to change their zoning to allow for more affordable housing. We’re back to where we used to be, which is based on trying to convince local boards to do this when the community at large really doesn’t want it,” Roberts says.
Against this backdrop, Carter has forged ahead. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in and around public housing, and the redevelopment of the Winbrook complex into Brookfield Commons is more than a construction project; it’s a personal mission to break down the walls that divide communities through housing.
“People are still stigmatized because they said that’s where all the black folks live, that’s where all the Hispanics live, that’s where all the Jews live,” he says. “You’re concentrating them; there’s a stigma around that. This is America. We should embrace the fabric of living near and with each other.”
Cooper Square News 