Neighbors Fight Affordable Housing, but Need Libraries. Can’t We Make a Deal?

Why can’t we do more of this more easily?

A handsome new library branch in Inwood, at the northern tip of Manhattan, had its soft opening Thursday. It’s the second library in town during the past year or so to try something clever and innovative: partnering with a 100 percent affordable housing development. New subsidized apartments occupy a 12-floor tower above the library.

These days, NIMBYs are always fighting affordable housing projects. Communities are increasingly desperate for libraries. One obvious solution is the twofer — building housing and a library together — because there’s strength in numbers.

A few years ago I wrote about several of these library/housing combos in Chicago (“co-location” is the lingo developers use), some of them designed by top-flight architects there like John Ronan and Brian Lee. Boston is trying this out. New York is just the latest to road-test what seems like a no-brainer.

The financial logic is simple. Libraries pairing with housing developers can trim construction costs. Developers can leverage city-owned property to finesse both the not-in-my-backyard types and the byzantine economics of affordable development.

But getting these projects built is a slog.

That earlier branch I mentioned belongs to the Brooklyn Public Library. With a fine, sunny, three-story design by Carol Loewenson, a partner at Mitchell Giurgola Architects, it opened late last year in Sunset Park beneath 49 affordable units on six upper floors. Inwood is bigger: 174 new subsidized apartments.