'Taking Back the Blocks' in Huntington Station

Revitalization program aims to increase owner-occupied affordable housing

BY DEBORAH S. MORRIS deborah.morris@newsday.com - May 9, 2008

In Huntington Station, town officials and community advocates are working together to spruce things up -- one block at a time.

They're aiming to continue Huntington Station's revitalization and turn the once blighted gateway to Huntington Village back into a destination of its own.

"If we really want to address affordable housing and quality of life issues," said Town Supervisor Frank Petrone, "then the best quality of life is to walk out of your home and feel safe and feel good about your neighborhood."

The centerpiece of the area's business district -- the Big H shopping center, with a Home Depot and Kmart -- is booming. Now town officials, along with members of the Huntington Economic Development Corp., and the town's Community Development Agency, are pushing for more commercial growth and increased homeownership in the area.

"What we are trying to do is marshal several resources to work in partnership," said Doug Aloise, director of Community Development. "Only by working synergistically are we going to make an impact."

Plans for the area include not only more shops and restaurants but also a cultural center on New York Avenue and Northridge Street and a business incubator at 1268 New York Ave., next door to the new Huntington Enrichment Center. But the jewel of the revitalization effort is the Take Back the Blocks affordable housing/neighborhood revitalization program. It's the brainchild of Petrone.

"This initiative provides an opportunity to families that might not have the means by which to own their own home," Petrone said. "It also restores a neighborhood so that people can take pride in the place in which they live."

Through the program, started in 2005, a committee of citizens nominates properties owned by absentee landlords for town acquisition and rehabilitation. Those properties are then converted into owner-occupied residences with legal accessory apartments and sold to families that fall within certain income guidelines.

Petrone said the rental apartment is intended to help boost the family's income.

"We're Taking Back the Blocks from absentee landlords," Petrone said, "and encouraging first-time homeowners to instill pride into the neighborhood and providing much-needed rental units."

The funding for Take Back the Blocks comes from the town, county and state. In February, the town received $1.56 million in Restore New York Communities Initiative grants through the Empire State Development Corp.

Susan Lagville, executive director of Greenlawn-based Housing Help, a nonprofit Housing and Urban Development agency that provides housing counseling services, is coordinating efforts for the first home in the program, 32 E. Sixth St. The land had been foreclosed by the county, transferred to the town and eventually turned over to Housing Help.

"This whole mortgage default disaster points out just how desperate people are to own a home and have a piece of the American dream," Lagville said. "Programs like these are essential everywhere."

On a recent sunny afternoon, East Sixth Street was filled with children playing in yards, riding bicycles or gathered around an idling ice cream truck. The block, a busy thoroughfare with mostly well-kept houses tucked behind locked gates, appears to be a model of suburban life. But just a few years ago, 32 E. Sixth St. was the site of a vacant home with boarded windows, vagrants and drug dealers.

"There was trouble there before," said Dilma Zelaya, who has lived on the block for 10 years. "But it's a good place now. I love it here. It will be good to have new neighbors to keep the street in good hands."

Zelaya's new neighbor will be Monique Agudio, 42, a single mother of two. Already a Huntington Station resident, Agudio will be moving 14 blocks north to her new two-story, three-bedroom home with a one-bedroom rental apartment. She expects to move in next month.

"This is a dream come true," said Agudio, a service coordinator for Nassau Association for the Help of Retarded Children. "I tried before to buy a foreclosure but it fell through. ... I wouldn't be able to buy a home on Long Island without a program like this."

Agudio was one of two finalists in a housing lottery to purchase the house. For years she worked with Housing Help's first-time home buyers program and qualified because she had a family income of less than $69,900 annually for a family of three.

Grants from the county and the state lowered her purchase price to $200,000 from $330,000.

Agudio said even though she is familiar with the neighborhood, she had some initial concerns about its safety. Now those fears subsided after she became more familiar with the block.

"We will be an asset to the block," Agudio said. "There won't be any problems from us. We'll be good neighbors."

Vera Ehlers, a Huntington Station community activist who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years, said she is pleased the town is making the effort to encourage homeownership. But, she said, officials are not doing enough to help all residents -- and what they are doing is not working fast enough.

"I just don't want to see another cycle of absentee landlords," Ehlers said. "If someone is going to be following up making sure that the people living in the home are the owners, it's a good thing. Otherwise, it will be business as usual."

After East Sixth Street, Take Back the Blocks will turn its attention to 1 Tower St., Petrone said. The single-family home needs some cosmetic fixes and the installation of a one-bedroom apartment.

The third project will be at Lowndes Avenue and Columbia Street. The town is acquiring three houses there and will then demolish them to construct seven town houses, with a rental in each town house.

For information about the Take Back the Blocks program, call the Community Development Agency at 631-351-2881.

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