Hearing set for contentious AvalonBay plan

Round 2 begins Monday.

The revised AvalonBay multifamily housing proposal for Huntington Station receives its first public hearing during the regular meeting of the Huntington Town Board.

Already, the new plan is attracting some of the same controversy that led to the board's rejection last September of the original proposal.

On Thursday, a group opposed to the new proposal rallied outside Town Hall. Members of the Greater Huntington Civic Group clutched signs and shouted slogans about taxes and school density.

Steven Spucces, the group's spokesman, said his organization is gearing up for a fight over concerns about the plan's effect on traffic and schools.

"AvalonBay and high-density housing is a cancer," Spucces told the group. "This cancer will move through our town and grow."

Matt Whalen, vice president of development for AvalonBay, said in a statement last week that facts regarding the revised proposal continue to be distorted.

"Fear mongering, misinformation, and deliberate distortion do not advance the public debate and do not serve the community," the statement said. "In the end, when this development is completed, the Huntington Station neighborhood and the entire Town of Huntington will be the winners."

In March, AvalonBay submitted a proposal for 379 units -- 303 rentals, 76 to be sold -- on a 26.6-acre site a half-mile from the Huntington Long Island Rail Road station. The mix would consist of 94 one-bedroom units, 181 two-bedroom units and 104 three-bedroom homes. The project includes an affordable housing component.

The previous proposal of 490 units was rejected by the town board after hearing community concerns about the project's density and its impact on the area's infrastructure. The Huntington school board also opposed it.

A half-hour before Monday's 7 o'clock meeting, members of the Long Island Federation of Labor plan to protest AvalonBay's labor practices outside Town Hall.

On April 7, AvalonBay filed a request in State Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order that would prevent 14 construction unions from threatening to engage or engaging in mass picketing, disorderly conduct, destruction of property and breach of the peace at AvalonBay locations on Long Island.

The request, which is pending, stemmed from a March protest in front of an AvalonBay development in Rockville Centre.