Designs for the long-awaited first phase of apartments to be built in the huge River District neighborhood development have been submitted to city and state housing agencies, and they feature a larger-than-expected share of units set aside for low-income renters.
The consortium building the River District said this week that the first residential building, which will be called The Rivana Apartments, will consist of 220 units, of which 165 will be set aside for renters who qualify for “affordable” housing.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development defines the “affordable” band as households earning up to 80% of the annual Area Median Income for the region. For a two-person household in Orleans Parish, that upper income level is $55,600 for the current year, according to HUD. Rents cannot exceed 30% of gross household income.
The River District is a planned neighborhood to be built from scratch on about 47 acres of publicly-owned land, which will include housing, restaurants, offices, entertainment venues and museums. The consortium’s progress on the residential portion of the project has been closely followed by City Hall, Convention Center leaders, and housing advocates, as the development mandate was won four years ago largely on a promise to prioritize hundreds of new low-income housing units…