The Point: 43 years later, a Huntington affordable housing project looks ready
The site of the proposed Matinecock Court affordable housing project at Pulaski and Elwood roads in East Northport. Credit: Kendall Rodriguez
In 1978, newcomers to Suffolk County could find a home for between $25,000 and $50,000. A gallon of gas cost around 65 to 70 cents. And the year was perhaps best known for a massive blizzard that hit in February, dumping about 26 inches of snow on Long Island MacArthur Airport.
In 1978, developer Peter Florey was a college student, working part time in a submarine factory in Connecticut. Pilar Moya-Mancera was in elementary school in Peru.
And in 1978, an affordable housing project known as Matinecock Court was first proposed.
Forty-three years later, a 4-1 vote of the Huntington town board Tuesday may have paved the way for Matinecock Court to break ground this summer. The vote allows developer Florey and the nonprofit Housing Help, where Moya-Mancera serves as executive director, to move forward with a change to the project so that its 146 units will now be considered limited equity cooperatives, rather than a mix of rental and ownership.
"It’s the end of the beginning," Moya-Mancera told The Point Wednesday.
The board’s vote officially supports an amendment to a court settlement reached by the town and Housing Help in 2000 after a lengthy fair housing legal battle — but the amendment now requires the court’s OK. By Wednesday, Florey already was taking the next steps, beginning to prepare documents to file that amended agreement in federal court. With town, development and nonprofit officials all on board, the hope, Florey said, is the court will sign off on it "quickly."
Simultaneously, Florey said, he will be working on small redesign changes and finalizing funding agreements with the state and county.
The only "no" vote Tuesday came from incoming Huntington Town Supervisor Ed Smyth. But Florey said Smyth’s opposition doesn’t concern him.
"We’re looking forward to working collaboratively, as we have before, with the town to move this forward," Florey said.
While Florey is relatively new to Matinecock Court, his partner, Housing Help Inc. — and its board president Ulysses Spicer — has been involved since the beginning.
Spicer told The Point he moved to Huntington in 1975 and joined Housing Help shortly after Matinecock Court first was proposed.
"It’s been a very, very long time of waiting and working," Spicer said. "We had many opportunities to discuss and seriously consider selling [the property]. But we did not do that."
Instead, after Tuesday’s vote, even Spicer is now at a point where he calls himself "quite optimistic" about the project’s future.
What a difference 43 years can make.
Randi Marshall is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
