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The school board was offered $1.5 mill originally - without being told about the Transit Oriented District part of the plan. This idea would have the potential of putting together more "packages" of 10 acre parcels for a developer to buy and build huge apartment complexes on - all within the area of the Huntington Station railroad. So, not only would Avalon have added approx 100 students to the district, but other potential complexes would add who knows how many more students on top of that? THIS is what the school board was opposed to! And $1.5 million wasn't going to put a dent in the expense of adding onto any buildings to accomodate those students.
If any of my children could have afforded to rent one of those units, I most certainly wouldn't have allowed them to right now! Crime is rampant just to the west and south of where Avalon was going to be built. And for the proponents of this project to say that people could easily walk to the train station, is so ridiculous it's laughable. Who in their right mind would walk in the dark, or any other time really, straight through the worst part of the area? This is not some developed, nice neighborhood with lights, doesn't have great neighbors for the most part etc. Even if Avalon fenced off the path to the trains and lit it up, you'd still be putting yourself in danger.
If someone can afford to buy one of the units, why wouldn't they buy in another area? The same amount of money could be used elsewhere! Fewer cars? Again, laughable. They might not need a car to get to the station if they were brave enough to walk, but, there is NO supermarket within MILES of where Avalon would have been built. How would these people shop without a car? Over 500 added cars is not what this area needs or could absorb.
First, the station area needs to be cleaned up, big time. Crime, violence, loitering, guns, gangs, drugs... the town and county have ignored it for far too long. No one is going to want to buy there until this problem has been solved first. That is what the school district is waiting for as well. That is why they shut down the school for now - for the safety of the students.
I for one am beyond pleased that this was voted down. When the neighborhood is deemed a lot safer, a project of a much smaller scale might be nice, without the TOD. Don't downzone. As some people say, and I tend to agree, why not put a project like this in Greenlawn or Cold Spring Harbor near their train stations! Well, you can imagine the uproar that would happen if that was suggested!!!
Thank you for your comments - right on!
I'm a lowly Realtor, so my credibility may not be the same as yours
... Meanwhile the young move to the city or out of state.
Again...the city is not some far away land. Huntington is 30 minutes from the Queens border.
As the poster above explained Avalon Bay was attempting to sell a Transit Oriented District. It was supposed to somehow appeal to users of the LIRR - in other words, people who work in the city. This makes absolutely no sense. People don't spend an hour on the train to live in apartments in sketchy neighborhoods. They commute to Huntington because they want open space, yards, and good schools to send their kids to. Why not just rent in a "luxury" building in Gowanus, Williamsburg, or Long Island City where one's commute time will be less than half and you don't need a car? Those neighborhoods are also safer and have more to offer young people.
I could understand if the station and the apartments were going to be in the heart of Huntington Village, but they weren't. I could understand if theere was a trolley or even quarter-hourly bus service, but there isn't. Avaolon Bay was going to be in an area isolated from all other forms of transit besides the LIRR (convienient for one thing - going to Manhattan, Queens, or Brooklyn). It would have had the ghetto on one side and quiet suburbia on the other. Not exactly an ideal situation for a young professional who works in Manhattan.
Avalon Bay makes absolutely no sense in this area. It makes sense in places like Melville, where I would imagine most of the tenants work in office parks on the 110 corridor or off the neighboring LIE.
To the people who are complaining that they can't find housing beyond their parents basements...I was able to find several affordable (under $1,500) rental options in and around Huntington Station. Some of them are much nicer than the places I lived in my early twenties. I also encourage you to check out the Avalon Bay complexes that have been built in communities that want them (like Melville).
Quote:
Originally Posted by 7CatMom
The school board was offered $1.5 mill originally - without being told about the Transit Oriented District part of the plan. This idea would have the potential of putting together more "packages" of 10 acre parcels for a developer to buy and build huge apartment complexes on - all within the area of the Huntington Station railroad. So, not only would Avalon have added approx 100 students to the district, but other potential complexes would add who knows how many more students on top of that? THIS is what the school board was opposed to! And $1.5 million wasn't going to put a dent in the expense of adding onto any buildings to accomodate those students.
If any of my children could have afforded to rent one of those units, I most certainly wouldn't have allowed them to right now! Crime is rampant just to the west and south of where Avalon was going to be built. And for the proponents of this project to say that people could easily walk to the train station, is so ridiculous it's laughable. Who in their right mind would walk in the dark, or any other time really, straight through the worst part of the area? This is not some developed, nice neighborhood with lights, doesn't have great neighbors for the most part etc. Even if Avalon fenced off the path to the trains and lit it up, you'd still be putting yourself in danger.
If someone can afford to buy one of the units, why wouldn't they buy in another area? The same amount of money could be used elsewhere! Fewer cars? Again, laughable. They might not need a car to get to the station if they were brave enough to walk, but, there is NO supermarket within MILES of where Avalon would have been built. How would these people shop without a car? Over 500 added cars is not what this area needs or could absorb.
First, the station area needs to be cleaned up, big time. Crime, violence, loitering, guns, gangs, drugs... the town and county have ignored it for far too long. No one is going to want to buy there until this problem has been solved first. That is what the school district is waiting for as well. That is why they shut down the school for now - for the safety of the students.
I for one am beyond pleased that this was voted down. When the neighborhood is deemed a lot safer, a project of a much smaller scale might be nice, without the TOD. Don't downzone. As some people say, and I tend to agree, why not put a project like this in Greenlawn or Cold Spring Harbor near their train stations! Well, you can imagine the uproar that would happen if that was suggested!!!
Thank you for so eloquently saying everything that needed to be said about this.
First, the station area needs to be cleaned up, big time. Crime, violence, loitering, guns, gangs, drugs... the town and county have ignored it for far too long. No one is going to want to buy there until this problem has been solved first. That is what the school district is waiting for as well. That is why they shut down the school for now - for the safety of the students.
That right there is the heart of the matter. Adding high density housing that might fail to attract any buyers or any financially solvent renters would just be a disaster right now. What anyone who (1) lives in the greater Huntington area and (2) cares about cleaning up Huntington Station should do is CONFRONT their local officials about the way absentee slumlords have been allowed to get away with doing whatever they want (splitting up single-family homes into flophouses, grossly overcrowding homes, etc.) and renting to CRIMINALS, which include illegal aliens and gangbangers. Fines should be much LARGER than a few hundred bucks. Enforcement should be the rule, not the exception with officials looking the other way. If it is not so profitable anymore to be a slumlord in Huntington Station, the flophouses will close and the criminals that mostly inhabit them will have nowhere to live. Then maybe bullets won't be flying all around the schoolyard anymore. All the people who organized and defeated this housing proposal should NOT just sit back on their laurels now, they should use the momentum to harass the local officials into taking a hard line on slumlords.
The author demonstrates another side of how ill conceived this project really was - making most of the apartments handicapped inaccessible (no elevators), while claiming people aged 55+ would make up a large chunk of the population. He also points out that Huntington Station was basically ruined and has never recovered from urban renewal "improvement" plans in the 1960s. I'd read the comments too.
The author demonstrates another side of how ill conceived this project really was - making most of the apartments handicapped inaccessible (no elevators), while claiming people aged 55+ would make up a large chunk of the population. He also points out that Huntington Station was basically ruined and has never recovered from urban renewal "improvement" plans in the 1960s. I'd read the comments too.
I just wanted to share this news with all of you that had ideas about to revitalize Huntington Station. It appears the town is finally starting to come to terms with the idea that they cannot just ignore and contain the problems there:
I just wanted to share this news with all of you that had ideas about to revitalize Huntington Station. It appears the town is finally starting to come to terms with the idea that they cannot just ignore and contain the problems there:
the houses were purchased by Suffolk County and with money from the Town's Affordable Housing Trust Fund for $778,000
So the slumlords (Petrone's friends who he has protected for years) profited handsomely on their flophouse dives onces their flophouses were too dilapidated and would have required some work to be fixed rather than knocked down. Nice job with the tax money! The houses should have been seized with fines levied, not big payments made to the slumlord owners.
When is Huntington going to get rid of Petrone? It's his friends that created the illegal alien/gangbanger problem in the first place by housing them.
So the slumlords (Petrone's friends who he has protected for years) profited handsomely on their flophouse dives onces their flophouses were too dilapidated and would have required some work to be fixed rather than knocked down. Nice job with the tax money! The houses should have been seized with fines levied, not big payments made to the slumlord owners.
When is Huntington going to get rid of Petrone? It's his friends that created the illegal alien/gangbanger problem in the first place by housing them.
You're absolutely right. 260k for each of those houses was an absolute rip-off considering what well kept homes in the area are on the market for (around 150k per MLSLI.com). I'm also not happy about the rezoning and density issues (even if the eligible residents must already be part if the school district), but at least it's something.
Patrone will be kicked out when Huntington residents actually pay attention to local politics. Most don't even vote.
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