Three Mile Harbor Housing Plan Gets $5.6 Million Boost From State

An affordable housing plan for 50 rental apartments off Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton has been awarded $5.6 million in initial funding by New York State — a boost the project planners say will allow the project to proceed.

The award, a mix of tax credits and funding from state and federal grants for workforce housing projects, will go to the East Hampton Housing Authority which has an agreement to purchase the 14 acres of undeveloped land off Three Mile Harbor Road, just south of Harbor View Avenue, for the development plan.

The housing authority’s director, Katy Casey, said on Wednesday that with the initial funding support necessary in place, the project could be constructed and ready to be occupied as early as 2024.

“It will be rental housing, 1- to 3-bedroom apartments, spread among six buildings,” she said. “We have submitted a preliminary site plan, but we’re still putting the full site plan together.”

Preliminary plans for the project presented to the Planning Board in February show five residential buildings and one community building. Each of the residential buildings will contain two 1-bedroom, six 2-bedroom and two 3-bedroom apartments.

Ms. Casey said she does not yet have a total cost estimate for the project because much of the planning and design is contingent on the funding support.

The state’s announcement of the award described the development as being “townhouse style” buildings.

The development will have two tiers of income eligibility, those earning up to just 30 percent of the regional median income, a household income of between $27,000 and $51,000, and those earning up to 60 percent of the median income, or between $54,000 and $103,000.

The housing authority first unveiled their plans for the property a year ago. The East Hampton Town Board approved a special “affordable housing overlay” zoning designation for the property late last year that could allow up to 60 apartment units to be built on the property.

At a public hearing, some neighbors asked that the development be comprised of single-family homes, similar to the Green Hollow subdivision the town developed in the early 2000s.

The housing authority will partner in the project with Georgica Green Ventures, a development company that specializes in publicly subsidized housing projects funded with state and federal tax credits. The company and the housing authority completed construction last year on the 37-unit Gansett Meadow housing complex on Montauk Highway in Amagansett. Georgica Green Ventures has also constructed affordable housing developments in Southampotn Town, including the Sandy Hollow Apartments on Sandy Hollow Road.

The funding awards for the project were among more than two dozen announced by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office on Wednesday and are the latest in the state’s $20 billion Housing & Homelessness Plan. The plan was introduced by Governor Cuomo in 2017, with the goal of creating 100,000 units of affordable housing statewide.