The following excerpt is from an Newsday article by James Madore. You can read the entire piece here.
Diluting resources?
Richard Murdocco, an adjunct professor in Stony Brook University’s Public Policy Graduate Program, suggested it would be more effective to spend the state money on a single project.
“You spread out the pot of money and it just evaporates … Better to direct the money at one parcel,” such as repurposing the closed Sears department store in Hicksville, he said. “Also, it’s fine to invest in local planning departments but to put money toward public relations campaigns — that’s baloney.”
Peter J. Elkowitz Jr., CEO of the Long Island Housing Partnership, which builds affordable homes and helps renters, hailed the state funding, saying, “not having enough affordable housing has and will continue to impact the Long Island economy.”
He and other council members noted the rate of housing production in Nassau and Suffolk falls short of other suburbs at only seven units built per 1,000 residents in the past 10 years, compared with 13 units per 1,000 residents in the Hudson Valley and 35 in northern New Jersey, based on a study by New York City government.
Kyle Strober, executive director of the developers’ group Association for a Better Long Island, said the council’s plan is “incentivizing municipalities to build housing while incorporating community input.”
In advocating for its plan, the council pointed to a $75,000 state grant that helped the Town of Islip find a developer that built 96 housing units on government land in Central Islip, with all but one of the units having affordable rent.
