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More than 44 years after it was first proposed, an affordable housing project in East Northport is finally getting started.
Site work on the development called Matinecock Court is slated to begin in the next week or so, as its developers will clear the 14.5-acre wooded property at the northwest corner of Elwood Road and Pulaski Road.
Matinecock Court development site in East Northport.
The site-clearing will prepare the property for construction of 146 limited-equity cooperative homes with monthly maintenance fees ranging from $1,300 to $1,900, depending on the size of the unit. Prospective residents of Matinecock Court will have to meet income requirements that restrict ownership in the gated community to households earning between $47,000 and $95,000 a year.
The development will bring 17 two-story buildings consisting of 18 one-bedroom units, 89 two-bedroom units, 38 three-bedroom units and a two-bedroom unit for the superintendent. Six of the units are slated for residents with developmental disabilities. The project will include a community building and its own sewage treatment plant.
First pitched in 1978, the East Northport development has survived multiple court challenges, one of which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Town of Huntington and local residents have tried in vain to derail it. The project, advanced by Greenlawn-based nonprofit Housing Help, was stalled until a new developer, Levittown-based D&F Development Group, was tapped in Jan. 2021 to see it through.
In 2017, D&F completed Long Island’s first limited-equity housing co-op called Highland Green in Melville. The $34 million project created a two-story, income-restricted, 117-townhouse community on an 8-acre site once occupied by a commercial nursery on Ruland Road. Purchasers bought into the co-ops for low down payments – from $1,880 to $2,600 – and part of their $940 to $1,300 monthly maintenance charges builds equity in the complex while helping to pay down a tax-exempt bond used to finance its construction.
Like Matinecock Court, Highland Green was advanced through a federal lawsuit filed by the NAACP that challenged the town’s original plan to build one-bedroom rental apartments at the site. The affordable apartments were part of the deal that allowed for increased density in the building of age-restricted condominiums at The Greens at Half Hollow.
But the lawsuit maintained said building only one-bedroom apartments discriminates against families and that offering rentals wasn’t the same as offering home ownership. So instead, the Highland Green development offered 72 one-bedroom units, 39 two-bedroom units and six three-bedroom units, as well as the opportunity to own some equity in the co-op.
Completion of the Matinecock Court project is expected in the first quarter of 2025.
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Image and article originally from libn.com. Read the original article here.