A rendering of the Dattner Architects-designed building slated to rise at the site.

Fifty-five units of affordable housing may not do much to stem the tide of gentrification washing over Williamburg, but they will allow a not-insignificant number of low-income families to stay in the increasingly expensive neighborhood.

Today, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced that it has selected MDG Design and Construction and the North Brooklyn Development Corporation to build a mixed-use affordable housing development at 337 Berry Street, the site of a former Landmarks Preservation Commission warehouse. The development team was selected nearly a year after an RFP went out for the project, which will include 55 low-income units, ground-floor commercial space for a grocery store, community space for tenant services and an open space for use by future tenants.

The old LPC architectural salvage warehouse that currently stands at 377 Berry.

The announcement comes in the midst of rising community outrage over the dearth of affordable housing units promised by the city as part of the 2005 Williamsburg rezoning. Earlier this week, DNAinfo reported that eight years after pledging to build 1,345 affordable housing units on city-owned land in North Williamsburg, only 19 units, or two-percent of the promised tally, have been completed.

A rally is even scheduled for today to "commemorate eight years of broken promises," according to DNAinfo; Community Board 1 Chairman Chris Olechowski told the news website that "displacement is the horror of what takes place without thinking through what you're doing to your local people" and urged local residents to attend.

“What a great honor it will be to again work alongside my lifelong neighbors and friends to continue our fight to combat displacement in our community," said Richard Mazur, the executive director of North Brooklyn Development Corporation, in a release about the project. "Through our collaborative work with all the members of Mobilization Against Displacement (MAD) we have again taken another positive step toward lessening displacement in our community while fulfilling the greatest need in Community Board 1 today—the availability of quality affordable housing."

The mixed-use complex will rise on three city-owned lots between South 4th and South 5th streets, the site of an old Landmarks Preservation Commission warehouse, which was used to store old doorknobs, transoms, newel posts and any number of other architectural fixtures and ornaments salvaged from demolition sites; the items were then sold at low-cost to the public, so they could be used to restore buildings that had earlier been stripped of their own historic fixtures. (The program ended in 2000 due to budgetary constraints.)

The affordable housing units will be available to families earning between 50 and 60 percent of the area median income, which is $49,950 to $51,540 for a family of four.

The project displayed "the City's commitment to thoughtfully repurposing its resources to benefit the community,” wrote HPD Commissioner Mathew Wambua in a statement. "I look forward to seeing this once vacant warehouse transformed into safe, quality affordable housing that will expand housing opportunities for working-class families in this community.”

As for the project's other goal of enriching "the character and vibrancy of the neighborhood and act as a catalyst for future growth in both the public and private sectors"—we'd hardly say that Williamsburg is need of any development catalysts.

Is affordable housing too hard for developers to handle?

In a move that should shock no one, the developers of Atlantic Yards and Willets Point are dragging their feet when it comes to building the affordable housing components of their projects, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Atlantic Yards, crying "bad market," has repeatedly delayed breaking ground on the 2,250 low- and middle-income units that were a major part of pushing the project through.

And Willets Point, promising another 1,750 affordable units, may finally have a development deal, but it will be a long time before any housing goes up. Housing is scheduled for the third stage of construction, long after the large retail center and hotel are finished.

Developers complain that unlike the other components of their boom-era projects, which can move forward even in an economy that is just regaining its footing, affordable housing is just not profitable (never mind that the other components of their project are). They'll get around to it someday, of course. Just not anytime soon.

To be fair, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner has had problems with all kinds of delays. But the sports arena is nearly finished and they have yet to break ground on the housing component. If they don't start by May 2013, they'll be slapped on the wrist with a $5 million fine.

Even Bruce Ratner's new plan to use cheap pre-fab construction to build the affordable housing—the potential cost savings being the only part of the affordable housing plan that Mr. Ratner has shown enthusiasm for—do not seem to have sped anything up.

Building affordable housing " is of course what we're committed to doing at Atlantic Yards," MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, told The Journal. "But it turns out not to be so easy."

She pointed to using union labor, the high costs of acquiring the land and high rise construction as things that made the affordable housing construction a Promethean task.

"We're really trying to do something that isn't something that's been done on a large scale in the city before," she said.

Buyer Beware! Neighborhood groups, who are now realizing they'll be putting up with drunk fans for years before they get their housing, are ticked off about the delays. Although in Forest City Ratner's defense, they never even pretended to care about the affordable housing component, leaving the towers as hazy, dream-like shapes in architectural renderings of the projects in which loving care was lavished on the arena.

Assemblyman James Brennan of Brooklyn wisely points out that letting developers do last the piece they want to do least is less than ideal.

"They should do the affordable housing up front, now," he told The Journal. "The only legitimate selling point for the entire project was the affordable housing."

kvelsey@observer.com