Port Jefferson affordable rental building to select tenants through lottery
Port Jefferson Crossing, a 45-unit apartment building on Main Street in Port Jefferson. Credit: Morgan Campbell
A new Port Jefferson apartment building will hold a lottery later this month for 45 apartments with rents designed to be affordable for low- and middle-income tenants.
The building, named Port Jefferson Crossing, is steps from the Long Island Rail Road’s Port Jefferson station and is part of a broader effort to revitalize the surrounding area. It was developed by Community Development Corp. of Long Island and Rochester-based Conifer Realty with support from state and Suffolk County funding. Rents for some of the units are low enough to qualify for federal low-income housing tax credits.
Applications for the apartments, located at 1615 Main St., must be postmarked by Monday, with the lottery drawing slated for Jan. 19, according to the development’s website. Tenants are expected to move in this spring.
The mixed-use development, which will also include 3,100 square feet of ground floor commercial and retail space, will enhance the area’s walkability, said Gwen O’Shea, president and CEO of CDCLI.
The three-story building has central air-conditioning and includes a fitness center and a laundry room.
Those amenities are “coupled with creating a space where individuals aren’t spending 50 percent of their income toward rent,” O’Shea said. “That doesn’t allow for a great quality of life when you have no disposable income to be able to go out and support your local community and to save to potentially become a homebuyer.”
Of the building’s 45 units, five will be restricted to people earning 30% of the area median income or less. That translates to $30,540 for an individual or $34,890 for a two-person family. The four one-bedroom units in that category will rent for $718 a month. The lone two-bedroom apartment with that restriction will rent for $858 a month
The largest number of units, 29, are one-bedroom apartments that allow household income up to 60% of the area median, which is $61,080 for an individual or $69,780 for a couple. Those units will rent for $1,519 a month. A few units will allow incomes up to 95% of the area median, or $97,375 for an individual.
Five units are adapted to suit tenants with mobility impairments and two units are adapted to help people with hearing and visual impairments.
“It’s a drop in the bucket of what we know is needed in terms of new units of development here on Long Island,” O’Shea said. “But we’re really excited about it being transit-oriented development and part of a plan that the village had imagined for that blighted area around the train station.”
Applications can be mailed or brought in person to 56 Railroad Ave., Suite B, Copiague, NY 11726 or sent via email to portjeffersoncrossing@coniferllc.com. More information is available at www.coniferllc.com/properties/port-jefferson-crossing/.
Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.
