Crown Heights 'Eco-Yogi' Townhouse Offered Via Affordable Housing Lottery Is Only $678K

It’s an incredible deal, with an even more incredible backstory. An entire townhouse is for sale and available through the city’s affordable housing lottery. It’s the kind of home and unbelievably low price tag Brooklyn real estate dreams are made of: A 19th century Italianate townhouse with a high stoop for a mere $678,000 — perhaps a third of its full market value.

Its appearance in the lottery is singular: Prior owners and well-known Brooklyn entrepreneurs Gennaro Brooks-Church and Loretta Gendville (christened “eco-yogi slumlords” by The Cut in 2020) handed 1214 Dean Street over to the city as part of a settlement over alleged violations of the city’s short-term rental and eviction laws during Covid.

Nonprofit Neighborhood Restore got ahold of it in 2022 under an agreement with the city. They’re rehabbing the property, which when finished will retain eight arched marble mantels, those incredibly high parlor-floor ceilings, and arched doors and windows, as The City was the first to report just as the lottery listing went up earlier this week. The layout will include a garden-floor one-bedroom rental apartment under an owner’s triplex with four bedrooms, says the listing on Housing Connect.

The house is part of a row of five wood clapboard houses with porches, whose delicate features can be clearly seen in an old tax photo. Those floriate details, brackets, and arched openings identify the houses as dating from circa 1869 to 1880.

The lottery is aimed at first-time buyers who make 110 percent of the Area Median Income, or $124,006 to $192,610 for households of three to seven people. A down payment of at least 5 percent ($33,900) from the buyer’s own funds will be required, and assets are capped at $237,216, according to the listing. The new owner must live in the house, and the rental apartment will be rent stabilized.

The lottery listing shows builder-grade new kitchens and bathrooms as well as a rear exterior nicely restored to brick and clapboard. Photos in The City story show other rooms with ornate original details and drywall going up. The house is in the Crown Heights North Historic District, which means the front exterior can stay as it is with its mid-20th century faux stone veneer or be restored back to its original appearance with wood clapboard.

The project is part of Housing Preservation and Development’s Small Homes Rehab – NYCHA Program III. A virtual info session will take place over Zoom on Thursday, March 5. To register, visit Neighborhood Restore’s website.

To apply to the lottery, visit the listing on Housing Connect. Applications are due via Housing Connect by March 20.

[Images via NYC Housing Connect unless noted otherwise]

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