'Very scared' for Latino community

A 150-tenant apartment building that is the heart of

Farmingdale's "Little Latin America" may be sold soon to Fairfield Properties

and turned into upscale apartments, village officials said.

At the same time, a nearby community center called La Casa Comunal, which

provides everything from English-as-a-Second-Language classes to donated

clothing, is hitting hard times.

The apartment building at 150 Secatogue Ave. is home to laborers who work

in construction, housecleaning and other low-paying jobs. The owner, John

Tosini, is negotiating to sell the property to Commack-based Fairfield, which

in August obtained approval from the village board of trustees to renovate it,

said Village Attorney Greg Carman.

He said the sale could happen by the end of the year and be worth at least

a few million dollars. It is the centerpiece of a long-debated plan to upgrade

a six-acre "blighted area" of prime real estate near downtown and the Long

Island Rail Road station.

"It's a plan to renovate dilapidated buildings," Carman said. "It's going

to clean up the area" and increase the tax base.

But a coalition of tenants, local community organizations and Hofstra Law

School's Housing Rights Clinic said the plan will leave the tenants with no

place to live, and that authorities are missing a golden opportunity to create

a model affordable-housing development.

"I'm very scared for the Latino community," said Cristina Ruiz Diaz of

HOLA, a group of local Latino professionals. "They can't just evict these

people and send them on their way. I hope it doesn't become another tent city."

Carman said village officials are meeting with nonprofit groups, including

Catholic Charities, to help with the transition if the building is sold. "We

are trying to take a humane approach to this," he said.

An attorney for Fairfield, Gary Hisiger, declined to comment.

The main obstacle to the sale, Carman and others said, is a lawsuit filed

in March by Hofstra, some tenants and the Hempstead-based Workplace Project. It

asks Nassau County District Court Judge Scott Fairgrieve to appoint an

administrator to use their rent money to improve the building, saying Tosini

has failed to do so. A court conference scheduled for today was postponed.

Tosini's attorney, Andrew Jacobs, said Tosini has largely cleared the way

for resolving the lawsuit by paying $22,000 in fines and fixing 175 violations

for vermin, mold, exposed electrical wires, broken radiators and other

problems. He said Tosini spent more than $100,000 repairing the building.

But some tenants and Hofstra's Yonatan Zamir, a third-year law student

working with the housing rights clinic, called the repairs cosmetic and said

severe structural problems remain, such as sloping floors. Lucia Mejia, 57, a

native of El Salvador, said there is a hole in the floor beneath her stove, and

that rats crawl up through it.

"They want to throw us out of here, but there are no apartments to rent,"

Mejia, whose monthly rent is $1,224, said in Spanish.

Meanwhile, HOLA and Farmingdale Citizens for Viable Solutions are fighting

to keep La Casa Comunal running. Janet Liotta, of Viable Solutions, said the

landlord wanted to hike the monthly rent from $1,175 to $1,875, but settled for

$1,450.

Liotta said the groups need about $5,000 extra to keep the center running

for the next year.

"We're hoping for a miracle," Ruiz Diaz said.