Long Island housing plan snags $10 million in statewide competition
Carpenters frame a roof on a new home under construction in Nesconset. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Proposals to convert parking lots, blighted land and vacant buildings into apartments and other housing received a boost on Thursday when a Long Island group won up to $10 million in grant funding from New York State, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.
The Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, one of 10 across the state, is among three winners in a statewide competition to develop solutions to big regional challenges. The other winners are the North Country/Adirondacks and Utica/Mohawk Valley, each receiving up to $10 million.
The local council, which consists of 23 business executives, university presidents, union leaders and nonprofit officials appointed by Hochul, wrote a nine-page plan to address the shortage of affordable housing in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
The plan — called the Long Island Forward: Revitalize, Renew, Rebuild Program — aims to help local governments identify and prepare vacant land and buildings for apartments and other types of housing. The objective is to add 50,000 housing units over the next 10 years, according to council co-chairs John Nader, president of Farmingdale State College, and Linda Armyn, CEO of Bethpage Federal Credit Union.
WHAT TO KNOW
- A state panel, the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, has won up to $10 million in state funding for the development of more housing.
- Two-thirds of the money will go to local governments to select building sites, quicken the approval process and select developers.
- The award comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul's ambitious plan to build more apartments was scuttled amid strong opposition from Long Islanders.
“The Long Island Forward program is … encouraging our local municipalities to transform dreams into reality with 'shovel-ready' sites, powered by targeted [state] incentives,” they told Newsday, adding that the lack of affordable housing is causing an exodus of young people and a shortage of workers in some industries.
The council will distribute the state money over three years, with about two-thirds earmarked for local governments, according to the plan, which may be found at http://bit.ly/3NKuJjd.
To be eligible, a proposal must involve a minimum of three acres or create at least 50 housing units. Preference will be given to proposals that offer affordable rents, are near Long Island Rail Road stations or in downtowns and support “populations that have been historically marginalized or disadvantaged,” states the plan.
More than half of the money — $5.5 million — would be used by governments in revamping land-use regulations to encourage more housing and to ease the environmental review process so construction can begin sooner. Governments and developers would share $1.5 million for public relations campaigns to counter not-in-my-backyard protests against building projects, states the plan.
Thursday’s announcement comes less than a year after politicians and others on Long Island torpedoed Hochul’s proposal to boost housing construction, and in some instances override local zoning regulations if an insufficient number of units were built.
Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino, a Republican, was a vocal opponent of Democrat Hochul's scuttled housing initiative.
On Thursday, he welcomed the $10 million in state funding for Long Island but said “public input from residents, local officials and community stakeholders is critical to any development project.”
Saladino pointed to another state program, the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, which he said has been successful in Hicksville because people from all walks of life were involved in developing a construction plan for the land around the LIRR station.
“We hope the [Long Island Regional Economic Development Council] will continue this practice when moving forward with its plan,” he said.
The council's plan received mixed reviews from planning and development experts.
Diluting resources?
Richard Murdocco, an adjunct professor in Stony Brook University's Public Policy Graduate Program, suggested it would be more effective to spend the state money on a single project.
“You spread out the pot of money and it just evaporates … Better to direct the money at one parcel,” such as repurposing the closed Sears department store in Hicksville, he said. “Also, it's fine to invest in local planning departments but to put money toward public relations campaigns — that's baloney.”
Peter J. Elkowitz Jr., CEO of the Long Island Housing Partnership, which builds affordable homes and helps renters, hailed the state funding, saying, “not having enough affordable housing has and will continue to impact the Long Island economy.”
He and other council members noted the rate of housing production in Nassau and Suffolk falls short of other suburbs at only seven units built per 1,000 residents in the past 10 years, compared with 13 units per 1,000 residents in the Hudson Valley and 35 in northern New Jersey, based on a study by New York City government.
Kyle Strober, executive director of the developers' group Association for a Better Long Island, said the council's plan is “incentivizing municipalities to build housing while incorporating community input.”
In advocating for its plan, the council pointed to a $75,000 state grant that helped the Town of Islip find a developer that built 96 housing units on government land in Central Islip, with all but one of the units having affordable rent.
Islip Supervisor Angie Carpenter said on Thursday, “We welcome the commitment of state grant funding to aid Islip Town's consistent efforts [to create affordable housing], as well as all Long Island municipalities.”
James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.
