Handy Pantry & Hard Corner Projects Inch Ahead
In what Southold Town Planner Mara Cerezo is calling a “once in a generation planning opportunity,” the Southold Town Board has agreed to ask for help from the state to explore the use of 31.4 acres of town-owned land on Youngs Avenue for community housing.
The town voted to purchase the property in 2023, under former Town Supervisor Scott Russell, and closed the $3.3 million deal in January of 2024. Councilwoman Jill Doherty, who was on the board at the time and has been a longtime advocate for affordable housing in Southold, said April 7 that the town had purchased the property, which is near the hamlet center of Southold, in what’s known as the HALO zone, with the intent of building housing and using it as recreational space.
The property runs from Youngs Avenue to Boisseau Avenue, north of the railroad tracks and Hummel Avenue but south of Route 48. Its street address at the time of purchase was 1645 Boisseau Avenue.
Ms. Cerezo and Southold Community Development Project Supervisor Andrea Sullivan (née Menjivar) presented the proposal to the Town Board at its April 7 work session, spurred on by a January presentation to the Town Board by Brandon Gimpelman of the Empire State Development’s Long Island Forward Housing Program (LIFHP), on its technical assistance grant program.
“With this technical assistance from the state, we can do the due diligence efforts developers like to see when they’re going to land a project,” she said. “A developer can come in and finally land some exciting new community housing right in the HALO in Southold hamlet.”
Ms. Sullivan said she envisions studying building 50 home ownership and rental units at the Youngs Avenue site, with accessory dwelling units included on 12 of those properties. She said the housing would likely be aimed at residents making between 80 and 100 percent of Area Median Income — the income range of the majority of people on the town’s affordable housing registry.
Greenport Village is also working on an application for technical assistance from the LIFHP program, but the program requires that the projects submitted for assistance total at least 50 units. The village had asked the town for assistance in including the village’s Clark’s Beach property, which is outside of the village boundaries, in its application last year, but the town did not agree to sign on to the Clark’s Beach project, leaving the village shy of the number of units it would need to be included in the technical assistance programs. The village is now exploring including other properties within its boundaries.
Ms. Sullivan said the technical assistance support from LIFHP could include preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement, engineering consultation, marketing, traffic impact and environmental site assessments, but that “ultimately the Town Board will have final control” of deciding what to build there.
The Town Board unanimously agreed to two resolutions setting this process in motion at its regular meeting that evening, April 7. The first authorized Ms. Sullivan to submit an application to seek the technical assistance from LIFHP, and the second authorized the preparation of a Request for Proposals for the project, which Ms. Sullivan said is a requirement of the LIFHP grant.
“The town is making a big commitment here to try to develop affordable housing. Everyone has dedicated a lot of time to this,” said Town Supervisor Al Krupski. “The town purchased this at a great time and made a great decision.”
Handy Pantry Apartments Set for Public Hearing
There was also some motion on housing proposals before the Southold Town Planning Board Monday evening, April 6.
The Planning Board agreed to set a public hearing for Monday, July 13 at 5 p.m. on a proposed 10-unit apartment building behind the Handy Pantry in Mattituck.
Five of the apartments would be “workforce units” and five would be market rate, according to the site plan. Here’s More Information.
The board also voted to classify this project as an “unlisted action” under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, meaning it will likely require some environmental review, but not a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement.
Hard Corners
The Planning Board also seemed in agreement at its April 6 work session to grant a second 18-month site plan extension for a proposed mixed-use building, with shops, three affordable apartments and four 1,600-square-foot houses reserved for ages 55+ on the Main Road in Southold, across from Feather Hill on the east corner of Wells Avenue. The houses would behind the mixed-use building, fronting on Wells Avenue.
The project, proposed by Charles Salice’s Hard Corner Partners LLC, received conditional approval from the Planning Board in February of 2023 and had already received an 18-month extension in October of 2024. Hard Corner Partners is also in the midst of redeveloping the former Capital One Bank branch on Love Lane in Mattituck, which is slated to include a restaurant, retail and 12 small affordable rental apartments.
“Mr. Salice has been anxious to get the shovel in the ground. The difficulty has been that he has been spending a huge amount of time trying to get the Love Lane affordable project off the ground, which also a very, very good project,” Mr. Salice’s attorney, Gail Wickham, told the Planning Board at its April 6 work session. “It was not until fairly recently that the town hired a housing director who’s working on the program guidelines.”
Ms. Wickham said the subsidies “turn out at almost the 11th hour to be very different than Mr. Salice thought they were going to be. The priorities of first responders aren’t addressed properly.”
“He needs to know he can build it the way he wants to,” she said.
Planning Board members agreed to consider a resolution granting the extension at the board’s next meeting.
Ms. Sullivan, the town Community Development Project Supervisor, said April 7 that Mr. Salice had filed an application for subsidies from the town’s Community Housing Fund for the Mattituck project prior to when she was hired by the town last year, and prior to the framework she is currently creating for the developer subsidy program.
The framework is designed to fairly and equitably award grant money to developers of affordable housing projects from the town’s Community Housing Fund, established in 2023 through a .5 percent real estate transfer tax.
Ms. Sullivan said the town is working with Mr. Salice on a contract, which will be the subject of a public hearing before the Town Board before the funding is awarded, and that future projects will go through the formal subsidy framework process, including responding to the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA).
Ms. Sullivan said at the April 7 work session that she expects the subsidy framework to be ready within a couple months, after which the town will issue its first formal NOFA request for projects.
She said she plans to bring the latest draft of the NOFA and the subsidy framework to the town Community Housing Advisory Board’s next meeting in late April or early May, with the goal of having a formal application process finalized “as soon as possible.”
“This is something we’re definitely prioritizing. It will have a greater impact,” she said, adding that guidelines the town is developing for awarding subsidies for Accessory Dwelling Units may take more time than the developer subsidies.
With regards to Ms. Wickham’s complaints about changes to the town’s tenant selection, Ms. Sullivan said the town is concerned it may run afoul of the federal Fair Housing Act if it prioritizes first responders, because they are not protected classes of people under that law.
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