Expert says LI needs more apartment housing

David Calone wears a few hats on Long Island. He is chairman of Suffolk County's planning commission, a LIPA trustee, and chief executive of Babylon-based fund-manager Jove Equity Partners Llc. He may just qualify as an expert on Long Island.

What Calone's expertise tells him is that Long Island has too few multiple dwellings, and that is hurting the region's future.

"We have about 15 percent to 16 percent of our housing stock in non-single-family homes," Calone said. The Island lags far behind New Jersey and Westchester, where about 33 percent of the housing stock is in non-single-family dwellings.

Dominant development of single-family homes must end, Calone said. The Island can't develop further, he said, unless it makes more room for affordable housing, housing for young people and housing that allows seniors to remain here.

Long Island master-planner Lee Koppelman, director of Stony Brook University's Center for Regional Policy Studies, said Calone's numbers on the housing stock are correct. "All my studies have indicated we need more multifamily housing," Koppelman said.