Feud over ‘affordable’ apartments could scuttle WTC residential tower

It’s the make-or-break week for long-planned 5 World Trade Center.

The state’s “obscure” but all-powerful Public Authorities Control Board will vote on June 21 to give final approval for 5 WTC, a mostly residential project of Brookfield Properties and Silverstein Properties.

The development team was chosen by the Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to build the tower in February 2021.

Approval should be a no-brainer, but a handful of local activists and elected officials hope to torpedo the plan for not having enough “affordable” apartments – which for them would be no fewer than 100%. In other words, a project that would be un-affordable for anyone to build.

The 900-foot-tall skyscraper designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox is to rise on the site of the demolished old Deutsche Bank tower at the corner of Greenwich and Albany Sts., south of the main World Trade Center complex.

It’s to have 1.2 million square feet of apartments; 190,000 square feet of offices; a 12,000 square-foot community space operated by the nonprofit Educational Alliance; 55,000 square feet of public space; and 7,000 square feet of stores.

Some 30% of the apartments, or 360 of 1,325, would be affordable rentals – up from previously planned 25%, a recent change the developers agreed to in response to local sniping.

The PACB nominally has five members, but only three have voting rights – Elizabeth R. Fine, who represents Gov. Kathy Hochul; state Assembly member Kenneth Zebrowski; and State Senator Leroy Comrie. The latter two represent the Democratic majorities in both bodies.

A spokesman for the developers called the project “an unprecedented opportunity to address the housing crisis facing Lower Manhattan and the entire city.”