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Rooftop beekeeping, skyline views: Peek inside Hunters Point South affordable units

Bee hive
THE COURIER/Photos by Liam La Guerre

When the lottery opened last year for apartments in the Hunters Point South Living developments, a two-building complex with 925 affordable housing apartments on the waterfront of Long Island City, it was a madhouse.

More than 93,000 people applied to get an apartment in the buildings, which promised astonishingly low rents in the 32-story Hunters Point South Crossing and 37-story Hunters Point South Commons.

It was a fight to get a unit, but some lucky chosen residents were first to move into the smaller building on May 15, and when more come this summer they’ll find luxury amenities and views of the Manhattan skyline at rates hard to beat throughout the city.

The buildings also feature a variety of common spaces, including a 2,300-square-foot rooftop farm on the 13th floor terrace of the 37-floor building, which has a beehive with 13,000 honeybees.

The rooftop farm contains a 13-bed garden that grows a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, beans and herbs, such as tomatoes, eggplant, carrots, basil, blueberries, red peppers and strawberries, which residents will be able to eat.

Related Companies partnered with experts at GrowNYC to start the garden and instruct residents for three years. Residents can expect garden harvest days, beekeeping instruction, cooking demonstrations and planting workshops throughout the year from the experts.

“The honeybees, the garden and the partnership with GrowNYC as a whole are the essence of our vision for Hunters Point South,” said Frank Monterisi, senior vice president of Related Companies, which is co-developing the project with Phipps Houses and Monadnock Development. “We wanted to create a welcoming, friendly living environment that will not only improve residents’ quality of life, but their health and have a positive environmental impact as well.”

Other amenities in the complex include a waterfront park across the street, fitness club, Internet café, party rooms, a children’s playroom and rooftop decks with barbecuing pits.

There are a mix of studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments in the Hunter’s Point South complex. Each unit comes with a dishwasher, and two- and three-bedrooms have washers and dryers.

Rental rates in the building are based on area median income, and there are many units available to people earning less than $30,000 a year.

Monthly rents start at $494 for a studio to $743 for a three-bedroom for low-income earners that make about $19,000 to approximately $49,000 annually. Rents for middle- and moderate-income units range from $1,561 to $4,346 per month for household incomes of $55,200 to $224,020 annually.

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