New York, NY —

More than 1,000 people live in the Castleton Park Apartments on Staten Island near the ferry landing.

For the last several months, they've been urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development to prevent their building owner from leaving the affordable housing program called Mitchell Lama.

Yesterday, HUD told the owner that rents in the building must remain low for the next 10 years.

It's the second time this year HUD has scuttled an owner's plans to either leave Mitchell Lama or sell their building. In March, it prevented the sale of Starrett City, a huge affordable-housing complex in Brooklyn.

St. Mark's Housing Company owns Castleton Park, but WNYC could not reach company officials for comment. For WNYC, I'm Cindy Rodriguez.