NEW YORK CITY-The first deal has closed in a $20-million pilot program to turn vacant and stalled apartment projects into affordable housing. Coming up behind the first deal in the Bloomberg administration’s Housing Asset Renewal Program are more would-be projects than the program’s current funds can handle, according to a release from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

In the initial HARP-subsidized project, developer Tali Realty LLC’s stalled 26-unit condo project at 382 Lefferts Ave. in Brooklyn will go forward as 46 affordable rental units. Original lender Community Preservation Corp., which had moved to foreclose after the project stalled in late 2008, is providing $6.1 million of the total $9.1 million worth of construction and permanent financing, with the remainder coming through HARP.

Introduced to HARP by Amie Gross Architects, Tali applied to the program in 2010, according to a release. CPC then agreed to modify its loan to make the project work as an affordable rental.

“The fact that we not only have this agreement—which will provide 46 affordable housing units—but a full pipeline that is expected to benefit from this program is a tremendous victory in providing affordable housing options to New Yorkers across the five boroughs,” Quinn says in a release. The council speaker first proposed the program in her 2009 State of the City address.

HPD currently has four projects totaling more than 200 units in negotiations, and is reviewing applications for projects that have the potential to provide another 450 units. The subsidy requirements for these additional projects exceed the remaining HARP funds, so a waitlist has been formed, according to HPD.

To be eligible for funding consideration through HARP, a proposed project must be a completed or partially constructed, unoccupied, residential building where market or construction conditions have prevented the owner from either completing work or selling or renting a sufficient number of units to meet private lending requirements. Applicants must agree to restrict rents or sales prices for a minimum of 50% of the dwelling units in return for HARP subsidy and/or permanent financing, HPD says.