From vacant lots to homes in N. Bellport

On a recent afternoon in North Bellport, Wykenna LeGare peered across MacDonald Avenue at a compact beige house trimmed in white.

Three years ago, the lot was vacant, covered by trees and overgrown weeds.

"It's a nice house," said LeGare, 37, a hospital worker and eight-year resident. "They take good care of the house."

For years, North Bellport has been marked by trash-littered vacant lots and boarded-up homes -- as many as five dozen such houses a couple of years ago, one civic leader says.

But in the decimated housing market, a handful of nonprofit agencies have found a silver lining. With help from Suffolk County and Brookhaven Town, they have turned abandoned homes and vacant lots into new homes for families -- beginning to turn around the community of about 10,500 people.

"You can look at blocks in North Bellport and see the successes where we were able to build and lift up the community," said Les Schienfeld, associate director for the Suffolk County Habitat For Humanity.

Habitat has built 45 homes in the past decade in North Bellport, according to the agency.

Cindy Albinowski-Hunter and her husband live in one of the newest Habitat-built homes on Scherger Avenue. While she said she likes the neighborhood, Albinowski-Hunter, 36, an employee of Cablevision, which owns Newsday, said she feels uneasy at times.

"The block we live on, I feel, is safe," she said. "I still feel like there are places they have to clean up."

The area is ripe for the housing agencies because of the availability of lots from foreclosures and tax liens. The median family income is $74,375, below the median income of $96,206 for the rest of Suffolk.

"North Bellport is one of the poorest areas in Long Island, and it takes a long time to transform," said Brookhaven councilwoman Connie Kepert.

But now might be a turning point, civic leaders say.

Peter Elkowitz, chief executive of the Long Island Housing Partnership, which has built 50 homes in North Bellport in the past 20 years, cited the positive psychological effect of seeing well-kept homes: "It's like a reverse of the broken-windows theory."

There have been no murders in the past five years, but crime is still an issue. Reported violent crimes dropped from 33 to 16 from 2006 to 2009 before climbing back to 25 last year, according to Suffolk County police. The area is due to receive the gunshot-detecting ShotSpotter technology this summer.

The neighborhood's commercial and rental areas are due for revitalization, officials said. John Rogers, chairman of the Central Bellport Coalition, said millions of dollars in capital development are slated for the area in the next few years.

"We're going to increase the housing opportunities across all income ranges, increase employment opportunities, increase the opportunities for people to own their own business," Rogers said.

Kepert said upcoming developments include a new Boys and Girls club and a possible transit-oriented development by the train station, a movie theater and big-box retailer.

"But there's so much more to do," Schienfeld said.

As a percentage of total housing units, North Bellport's 11713 ZIP code had a much higher default rate than the rest of the state and country in 2010.

North Bellport: 1.90 percent

United States: 0.91 percent

New York State: 0.39 percent

Defaulted mortgages:

2007 -- 65 properties

2008 -- 69 properties

2009 -- 58 properties

2010 -- 60 properties

Source: RealtyTrac, which records defaulted mortgages around the country