In Mott Haven, Douglaston Development is building Crossroads Plaza, a three-building, 425-unit complex on the site of a popular community garden, and will also create a landscaped 20,000-square-foot public plaza on Union Street, between East 149th Street and Southern Boulevard.

A $157 million project undertaken in phases, Crossroads opened its first 126-unit building at 535 Union Street in 2015. A second building, with 135 units at 501 Southern Boulevard, is to open this month, according to Mr. Levine, Douglaston’s chairman, and a third, at 828 East 149th Street, by the end of the year.

As with much affordable housing, eligibility uses the area’s median income, which was $90,600 for a family of four in 2016. At 828 East 149th Street, for example, apartments are reserved for those who earn between 50 percent and 100 percent of the median, or $45,300 to $90,600. Rents for studios will start at $788 a month, one-bedrooms, $847 a month, and two-bedrooms, $1,025 a month.

Though an income limit of 100 percent of the median was once considered unusually high, it is increasingly common in the South Bronx, which Mr. Levine said is a sign that the area is turning more middle-class. “These are the green shoots of how the Bronx will become more market-rate,” he said.

Of course, what’s good for landlords is not always good for renters, and some in the Bronx say they are already feeling squeezed. They include Janice Lynch, 68, who was evicted in 2015 after missing some rent payments and then essentially became homeless, staying on relatives’ couches.

All the housing she looked at, despite being listed as affordable, was more than her $900-a-month budget, she said.

Last year, though, Ms. Lynch, who is H.I.V. positive, found a studio at 1191 Boston Road, a new building in Morrisania with a checkered red, blue and yellow facade. Its developer is Breaking Ground, a nonprofit connected with the La Central project that specializes in supportive housing, which offers social workers and an on-site nurse.

The apartment costs $550 a month after a city subsidy and offers views as far as the Whitestone Bridge, and also of buildings popping up around Ms. Lynch, for better or worse. “We have an explosion of people who are homeless or just can’t afford the rent where they’re living,” she said. “Buildings like mine are needed.”