Heaney returns to Southampton Town Hall, promises land for affordable housing

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Former Southampton Town Supervisor Patrick Heaney returned to Town Hall on Friday as commissioner of the county's Department of Economic Development & Workforce Housing.

Making his first official visit to Southampton Town Hall since handing over the gavel to Supervisor Linda Kabot in January, former town supervisor Patrick Heaney sat in on a Town Board work session Friday, July 18, in his new capacity as the commissioner for Suffolk County’s Department of Economic Development & Workforce Housing.

He came with good news: The county plans to transfer properties it owns to the town for use as affordable housing.

Twenty-one properties located throughout Southampton Town are available for development into workforce housing, according to John White, the town’s director of housing. The properties are suitable for single-family homes, Mr. White said.

“This provides the town a great opportunity to get the ball rolling on affordable housing,” Mr. Heaney said. Most of the parcels offered to the town under the program are vacant undersized lots and homes needing repair, according to Mr. White.

A total of 46 properties were seized by the county after three and half years of tax delinquency under the “72H Land Transfer Program” enacted by the county in 2000. But, according to Mr. White, only 21 of the seized properties can be developed—the remaining 25 either have site restrictions, are oddly situated on slopes, or are simply too run down. However, those properties can be used to obtain sewage credits for affordable housing purposes through a development rights bank.

Jefferson Murphree, the town’s planning and development administrator, said the Department of Land Management would run the development rights bank. The actual number of sewage credits available has not been determined, Mr. Murphree said.

Properties seized by the county under the 72H program must be used for affordable housing and must be offered to households at or below 80 percent of the area median income established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. According to the HUD standard, the maximum eligible income to qualify for affordable housing for a family of four in Southampton is $77,773 a year.

Friday’s work session was the first step in the town moving toward defining a policy for developing the properties into affordable homes for town residents.

“There is a sense of urgency,” Ms. Kabot said. “We have a housing crisis. The county has given us these parcels, and now the onus is on us to get it done. We need to get the shovels in the ground.”

According to Mr. White, the town currently has in its possession four sites—on Jones Road in East Quogue, 203 Ludlam Avenue in Flanders, 33 Carter Road in Hampton Bays, and 99 Peters Lane in Quiogue—that are ready for development that could potentially yield five to seven units. Mr. White’s office is in the process of determining the feasibility of building on the 15 other parcels. All of the sites require surveys and reviews by the town attorney, Mr. White said.

While the Housing Authority will take the lead on developing the properties, other housing organizations may play a key role in achieving the town’s affordable housing goals if the Housing Authority is unable to develop the properties on its own.

Acting as the clearinghouse for the parcels, the Housing Authority may 
assign parcels to such groups as the Long Island Housing Partnership, 
the Community Development Corporation of Long Island, the Southampton Business Alliance Housing Initiative Corporation, and Habitat for 
Humanity.

“The Housing Authority will lead the way,” Town Councilwoman Anna Throne-Holst said. Though the primary focus now is on creating affordable rental units in the town, Ms. Throne-Holst said she is hopeful the town’s affordable housing program would expand to homeownership and mortgage assistance.

Under the 72H program, the town has three years to develop the properties after they’ve been transferred from the county. Though the bulk of the parcels were received by the town in 2002 and 2003, the town—by filing for extensions—has until as early as March 2009 and as late as November 2009 to develop these properties.

According to Mr. Heaney, the town could ask for additional time if needed, a request he said he would help the town receive. He said grant money from the state for revitalization may be available to the town. The towns of Huntington and Brookhaven received such grants for their particular affordable housing programs, Mr. Heaney said.

“You could get grants to fix up a dilapidated structure,” he said. “Then you could turn it over to the Housing Authority to be rented.”

Renovating rundown structures for the purpose of adding to the affordable rental inventory would not only address the needs of working families, it would also help to eliminate blight, Mr. Heaney noted. “Working families just need a little bit extra help,” he said.