City Investigating Affordable Housing Complex in Rockaway Beach: Officials
(DNAINFO) Katie Honan | November 25, 2016 — The city is conducting a probe into Dayton Beach Park after complaints from residents.
An affordable housing complex is being probed by the Department of Investigation after complaints from residents about a stockpile of empty apartments and “lack of oversight” by the city agency overseeing it, officials said.
Investigators from the DOI have been speaking with residents at Dayton Beach Park — a more than 1,100-unit, five-building federally subsidized affordable housing complex next to the Atlantic Ocean in Rockaway Beach — for a few weeks, sources said.
The investigation was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, who said they conducted their own examination after residents complained about issues with the co-op board.
While HPD, which is the agency responsible for overseeing the complex, “found no evidence to support the allegations,” the DOI is moving forward with its own inquiry, HPD spokeswoman Juliet Pierre-Antoine confirmed.
A spokeswoman with DOI declined to comment.
Sources said the investigation is focused on more than two dozen empty apartments at the buildings, despite a long waiting list. The co-op, which was built in 1964, is part of the Mitchell-Lama program, in which applicants are chosen from a wait list in order to be eligible to purchase the units at a lower-than-market rate price as a result of tax exemptions.