LI builders eye smaller homes for the future

In the future of Long Island housing, bigger won't be better because smaller will sell, according to some developers and housing experts.

Take developer Jack Campo's Baiting Hollow community, a tale of house size over time. Before the housing market began to unravel in 2006, the nearly three dozen homes he was building there were larger than 3,500 square feet and selling for more than $700,000. After the collapse, he downsized, making some homes as small as 1,850 square feet for $400,000. Now, he said house hunters of all ages inquire about smaller models.

"Mostly what they say is, 'This is the right size,' when they're looking at our most popular house, which is 2,280 square feet," said the Port Jefferson developer, who has been in the business for 45 years. "Just a couple years ago, you couldn't make them big enough fast enough."

Today's real estate crisis will hammer in a new normal for Long Island's housing landscape during the next 10 years, experts said, with demographics, land and foreclosure crisis lessons driving the market.

During the boom's peak in 2005, real estate and home construction drove the Island's economy, with 5,171 building permits filed, U.S. Census data show. That sank 81 percent, to 1,001 last year.

Shifting demographics

As the home sector recovers, the population here is expected to grow from less than 2.9 million to 3 million during the next decade. A good portion of the 800,000 or so baby boomers living here now will reach 65 or become empty nesters in the next 10 years. Some of the 700,000 Gen X and Y residents now on the Island are expected to start renting or buying, planners and builders said.

Both generations want quarters near shops and places to see, and more options, such as condos in buildings with exteriors that resemble mansions, builders said.

"Young people, they don't want to necessarily own homes and . . . certainly not McMansions," said Michael White, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Council. "They want lower maintenance. People are getting married later and they're having less kids.

"The other thing we have is with our aging population and people like me, who are right in the middle of the Baby Boom, we're saying: 'My kids are going to graduate from college. I'm going to look for a place just like the young people.' "

Changes in the workplace

The industry has been juggling what the trends say people want with how it can fulfill demands smarter.

As open land dwindles, as smaller homes get finished quicker and workers need more work, as limits on sewage capacity kill proposed developments, can the home building industry sustain itself?

Some, like Hauppauge-based developer Gary Passavia, are focusing on "infill," a do-over of used properties. He's finishing 60 condos in Amityville on what used to be a waste transfer station amid residential streets. He drives around scouting for places to infill, be it an auto dealer lot or shopping center.

"More and more, as you go across the major roadways on Long Island, you're seeing things like factories turning into brand new apartments," Passavia said. "They add to the vibrance and create a much better streetscape than an old, dilapidated, unused and underserved building. . . . We feel that's the way to go, not to be getting pristine land further out east and trying to develop projects that way."

At The Vistas in East Moriches, the smallest model has the footprint of a 1940s Levitt home. The two floors of 1,666 square feet of livable space tout no extras - no den or media room, no tub in the master bathroom and no kids' bedroom bigger than 10 by 12 feet.

That kind of house, or one a tad bigger, is what the Maire family of four from Sound Beach has picked out for about $400,000. To the parents, smaller means a more affordable mortgage and utilities. "We want to enjoy the house," said James Maire, the father of two young children. "We don't want the house to own us."