Harbor View Square touted as upstate’s Project of the Year by NYSAFAH

Harbor View Square touted as upstate’s Project of the Year by NYSAFAH

From Onondaga County News Now

  • Updated
  • OSWEGO — A local apartment complex recently completed in the city of Oswego has received some recognition from an affordable housing association.

    Harbor View Square Apartments, located at 68 W. First St. in the Port City, has been named the upstate region’s Project of the Year by the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH), which it announced Wednesday.

    The housing project, which was officially completed in July, boasts 57 apartments in its main five-story building. Forty-eight of those apartments are affordable to households earning 60 percent or less of the area median income (AMI). Eighteen are for households earning up to 90 percent of the AMI.  

    Nine of the apartments are rented at market rate, and 11 of them are fully accessible and adapted apartments for those with a physical disability or traumatic brain injury.

    The project also has 18 two-story townhomes. 

    “We are proud to celebrate the achievements of the affordable industry in 2022 and recognize the dedicated companies and individuals working every day to bring high-quality, safe and affordable homes to the state’s most vulnerable,” said Jolie Milstein, president and CEO of NYSAFAH. “This year’s winners have pushed the boundaries and persevered to bring new affordable housing opportunities across New York and embody the type of outside-the-box thinking required to fix the affordable housing crisis.”

    Habor View Square was developed and built by Housing Visions, in partnership with the city of Oswego after it received from the Downtown Revitalization Initiative in 2016. 

    Other funding for the project came from federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and subsidies from the New York States Home and Community Renewal. 

    Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow congratulated Housing Visions’ president and CEO Ben Lockwood “and all the folks at Housing Visions,” and thanked the organization for partnering with the city to complete the project.

    “The award to Harbor View is well deserved and well earned as the massive project turned out better than I think any of us could’ve imagined,” Barlow told The Palladium-Times. “The project provides excellent, quality housing for Oswego residents in a gorgeous location near other key resources and amenities.”

    Lockwood told The Palladium-Times in a statement that Harbor View Square took a “polluted, non-contributing liability for the city of Oswego put (the area) back into active use.”

    “The development has created a new link between the waterfront of Lake Ontario and the activity rich downtown Oswego. The real impact is the more than 100 individuals and families that now have access to high-quality, energy efficient, and affordable housing,” Lockwood said. “Thank you to the city of Oswego, Mayor Barlow, and New York state for seeing the value in this development and assisting us throughout the development. This was truly a team effort and we are so happy to accept this award on behalf of all those who worked so hard to pull this off.”