A demand for more affordability in a new high-rise apartment tower at the World Trade Center site could put the project at risk

Residents of lower Manhattan say they need new affordable housing instead of more luxury developments — but demands for greater affordability in a new high-rise tower at the last vacant World Trade Center site could put the project at risk, according to development officials linked to the project.

The state’s Public Authorities Control Board is poised to decide Wednesday whether to grant final approval to 5 World Trade Center, a mixed-used project which would include 1,200 rental apartments as well as offices, stores and a community center.

But a group of community members and a number of local politicians have been pushing for the project to have even greater affordability, particularly for 9/11 survivors and first responders.

Last month, the Port Authority and Empire State Development boards green-lit measures that would designate 30% of the tower’s units as permanently affordable. Trying to push to 100% affordability, as some locals have called for, is seen as a nonstarter by those linked to the development.

“The only real options are: We create hundreds of permanently affordable homes through a project that does not demand inordinate public subsidy and can sustain itself in the long run, or we leave one of the last pieces of the Trade Center as an empty lot to be developed as another office building sometime in the future,” Hope Knight, the head of Empire State Development, wrote in an op-ed for Crain’s on Monday.

The 900-foot building is being developed by Brookfield Properties, Silverstein Properties, Omni New York and Dabar Development Partners.

A spokesman for the developers described the development as “an unprecedented opportunity to address the housing crisis facing lower Manhattan and the entire city, complete redevelopment of the WTC site, create jobs and economic growth and provide additional community and public amenity spaces.”

Mariama James, one of the founders of the Coalition for a 100% Affordable 5WTC, says she has lived in the area her entire life and that 5WTC needs to be truly affordable.

“It needs to be done. There’s not going to be another opportunity,” James told the News. “We rebuilt lower Manhattan [after 9/11]. So for us to be pushed out now by luxury market rate housing is ... the worst way you can think of to say thank you to somebody.”

She also pointed out that while the 30% affordability was up from 25%, the new parameters also raised the income requirements to households earning between 60% and 110% of area median income.

James and others in her group know that making 5WTC entirely affordable is ambitious, but see it as a unique opportunity to create badly needed affordable housing on public land in a well-resourced neighborhood with close proximity to schools, jobs and transit. It could also help longtime Battery Park City residents stay in the area.

“Our community has been begging for it,” said Jill Goodkind, another coalition member whose husband, Tom, was a housing advocate who died from 9/11-related cancer. “This is an affordable housing crisis, not a luxury housing crisis.”

The coalition has been pushing for a pause before the final vote so they can find new sources to finance increasing the level of affordability, potentially from the state or federal government.

Community Board 1, Councilman Christopher Marte, state Sen. Brian Kavanagh, Rep. Dan Goldman and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine — all of whom represent 5WTC — jointly criticized the decision to move ahead with the approval process last month “without securing the additional resources necessary to increase affordability at the site.”

But others who support the current level of affordability point out that the 30% level is already high, and trying to make it more affordable would be expensive and could threaten the entire project.

“There’s been considerable debate about making the tower’s residential units 100% affordable, but that approach will only guarantee that housing is never constructed. Subsidizing at that level will require unprecedented levels of capital funding and jeopardize the long-term operations and maintenance of the building,” Knight wrote in Crain’s.

She also pointed out that, if approved, 5WTC will create six times the amount of affordable units produced yearly in lower Manhattan.

As the proposal moves forward there is still a possibility for higher affordability levels, according to an Empire State Development executive, who said the door would remain open “if public subsidy or public source of funding is identified by April 2024.”

“We’re not giving up,” James told the News. “We’re continuing to advocate for the funding.”

The Public Authorities Control Board meeting will be held at 2 p.m. on Wednesday in Albany.