Are there any middle-class New Yorkers anymore?

A number of “affordable” middle-income apartments in Hell’s Kitchen sit empty, as developers can’t find residents who fit the ­income criteria.

In a city with an apartment ­vacancy rate of less than 2 percent, and where an average Manhattan one-bedroom is nearly $4,000 a month, the Gotham West complex has vacant one-bedrooms that cost $2,509.

To qualify for that one-bedroom, you have to make between $88,102 and $95,865 a year. There are also openings for studio and two- and three-bedroom units targeted for middle-income renters in the city-sponsored complex on West 45th and West 44th streets.

Gotham West, which opened in 2013, was built with the help of tax-exempt bonds from the state Housing Finance Agency. In exchange, the project’s developers had to provide affordable housing and included 682 such apartments in the 1,238-unit complex, which takes up an entire city block.

Of the affordable units, 250 were for low-income families earning less than $48,150 a year and the rest for middle-income households with a top salary limit of $158,895 for a family of six.

Two-bedrooms rent for $3,020, for instance, with an applicant with a maximum income of $109,000 a year.

Nearly 30,000 applied for the apartments through a lottery that ended in November 2012. But thousands of applicants didn’t make the cut and many units are languishing.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer told The Post the developer is pushing fliers under residents’ doors to spread the word on the affordable-unit vacancies. “It’s an unusual problem to have, but it’s a good problem because we have the apartments ready,” she said.

Peter Muennig, associate professor of health policy and management at Columbia University, said most people with median incomes don’t realize they qualify for ­affordable apartments.

He said the toniest neighborhoods are “in most need of middle-income housing, but the technical definition of middle income has become wealthy.”

“So you can never achieve your goal of achieving truly mixed housing because the people who would qualify [are] quite well off,” Muennig added.

At Gotham West, luxury two-bedroom units at market rent are going for $6,000 a month and up.

There is little transparency in the rental process. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which sponsored the project, said Gotham West’s developer was in charge of renting the apartments and following the city’s guidelines. Eligibility is based on the federally set median income for the area.

Alexis Altschuler, a spokeswoman for the developer, would not comment. One New Yorker who did manage to get an apartment at Gotham West was Danielle DeCerbo, an aide to former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. The Post reported last year that DeCerbo scored a three-bedroom apartment through the lottery, raising eyebrows because she worked on the council’s land-use division when the project was being negotiated with the city.

The city has sponsored 15,300 middle-income apartments since 2003, according to HPD.



Additional reporting by Amber Jamieson