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Uhm, renters pay property taxes, just not *directly*.
I have a family member looking for a place and she is getting the run around. They want $1600 for a 2bed + utilities. Then they want 1st month, last month and realtor fee. Oh and she still has to pay rent on the place she is living in while she tries to find another place. How can people survive on this island when a single mother has to pay over 60% of her salary on rent alone.
I get it Long Island. We should put up a sign on the highways that say Welcome to Long Island = Not in my backyard People need places to live. Rents on the island is insane and our young people are not coming back to live because they can pay that same money and live in the city and not have to deal with the LIRR aka The least efficiently ran rail road in the country.
Wake up people if you want to fight for something take away the builder's tax break, look for ways for those apartments to pay into your tax rolls so you're not on here crying about your taxes going up.
Was this 26 ac parcel purchased as part of a larger parcel? eg...land to the north and south which has been developed with sfh? Or.. was it a totally separate purchase?
I have a family member looking for a place and she is getting the run around. They want $1600 for a 2bed + utilities. Then they want 1st month, last month and realtor fee. Oh and she still has to pay rent on the place she is living in while she tries to find another place. How can people survive on this island when a single mother has to pay over 60% of her salary on rent alone.
I get it Long Island. We should put up a sign on the highways that say Welcome to Long Island = Not in my backyard People need places to live. Rents on the island is insane and our young people are not coming back to live because they can pay that same money and live in the city and not have to deal with the LIRR aka The least efficiently ran rail road in the country.
Wake up people if you want to fight for something take away the builder's tax break, look for ways for those apartments to pay into your tax rolls so you're not on here crying about your taxes going up.
1) The property is zoned for single family houses.
2) The builder is trying to make up for his losses by changing the zoning to apartments.
3) If the zoning is changed and the apartments built, do you believe they will be considerably under $1600?
1) The property is zoned for single family houses.
2) The builder is trying to make up for his losses by changing the zoning to apartments.
3) If the zoning is changed and the apartments built, do you believe they will be considerably under $1600?
Ok so here is a novel idea. Put some restrictions in place. See if the builder is really serious and require him/her to make sure half of the apartments are available to low income families. (please please before you all jump on the low income family comment) Low income does not mean section 8. It could be young couples or divorcees or just about any hardworking family or person who just do not make the $120k it takes to live comfortable out here.
So if you really wanted to do some good, you could find ways to make the builder either comply or sell the land dirt cheap to the town or another developer willing to build with the restrictions.
Ok so here is a novel idea. Put some restrictions in place. See if the builder is really serious and require him/her to make sure half of the apartments are available to low income families. (please please before you all jump on the low income family comment) Low income does not mean section 8. It could be young couples or divorcees or just about any hardworking family or person who just do not make the $120k it takes to live comfortable out here.
So if you really wanted to do some good, you could find ways to make the builder either comply or sell the land dirt cheap to the town or another developer willing to build with the restrictions.
We all lived in apartments before buying our homes. We are not apartment haters. This particular parcel of land is zoned for single family residential homes because that is what surrounds it entirely. The developer is also a notoriously bad rental landlord, based on the appearance and upkeep of his current rental properties. We have taken photos of all these: Ill repair, worst house on the block, garbage out front not removed, etc. If he were proposing 300k ranches we would actually believe his "spin" that this is for young married's etc. We have all been there, and would support an effort like that. 300k to get into a solid school district and nice town, no problem.
We are not against apartments in the Town of Smithtown. We do not even have a full rental vacancy rate in this Township. That said there are acres of commercial blight around town that would benefit far more from a rezone into garden apartments, etc, and improve the character of the neighborhood. That is called smart planning/growth. The developer has been approved to build homes on .4 acre lots on the remaining adjacent woods for multiple years now. If you want tax rolls, the Town should be all over him to develop the land! He has also never built this type of large apartment project, and the only thing to note his past rental history are mostly a sea of poorly kept up homes chopped into apartments.
Regarding young people leaving. I have been and am a part of these "brain drain" business forums. While the cost of apartments is a factor, we need to be most focused on getting the right industries and jobs growing in the region. That is problem number one. Then things like building out apartment units surrounding the Ronkonkoma transit hub and adopting loft spaces on abandoned main street areas (like the old Smithtown Lumber yard which is across from the train station) would have a clientele and a need. Just because we need affordable housing does not mean we need to shove it into the wrong part of a neighborhood. If you built it in any of the above noted locations I would whole-heartedly support the efforts. But poor planning ruins neighborhoods and Townships. This is a poor plan.
How about just preserving the land for a park? How about that concept?
A businessman has made an investment and as currently zoned (for homes) he is allowed to realize a return on that investment. We are not impractical residents in wanting to preserve the area because a few owls live there. That said, it is zoned in its current state for a good reason: that is the proper zoning. This is all very simple. But greed clouds proper judgement.
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