Affordable Housing Plan Tops Supervisor's List of Goals: 50 New Affordable Apartments Over Next 3 Years

NORTH FORK - The time has come to take concrete steps to address the affordable housing crisis in Southold Town, Supervisor Scott Russell said Thursday night.

The supervisor gave his annual State of the Town address to a crowd at Town Hall, outlining accomplishments in 2015 and initiatives for the year to come.

Topping that list was the critical need to zero in on the dearth of affordable housing in Southold, setting specific goals, Russell said.

“Historically, Southold has set specific goals to provide a benchmark for measuring success, or lack of, in meeting its public policy goals. We’ve established percentages, hard numbers, tonnages, you name it, to use as a metric to measure our performance on a host of issues. In addressing affordable housing, we have no set goals, no targets, and no hard numbers. We know that the need for affordable housing is critical and have only a general understanding of how many units are needed, yet, we have produced nothing more than a wish list.”

Russell wants all that to change.

The supervisor pledged that the town board would make a commitment to the community to create no less than 50 new affordable apartments in the next three years. “This is a modest goal but it is a goal and should be used as a metric to evaluate our success and leadership.”

In order to create the new apartments, Russell said steps must be taken to increase density form the current six units per acre to 12 per acre, establishing a limit of 24 units for any proposal.

“We need to listen to developers,” he said. Developers have had difficulties providing affordable housing because they need critical mass, he said. The current zoning of six units per acre is ”too onerous to overcome. If we go to 12, I think we can generate more interest but we can always put a cap on it so no community has more than 24 units.”

“The septic issue can be addressed and we can provide the opportunity to developers to build more apartments on less property to ensure economic viability,” Russell said.

The supervisor said he’s met with industry professionals who’ve developed projects in towns with no sewers, much like Southold; a community of 20 apartments is a reachable goal, with a recognized and approved sewer system, he said.

Public opposition can be reduced by ensuring the affordable apartments are scattered throughout the hamlets and in scale with the surrounding community, he said. “We’re not looking at projects that will overwhelm the community. If they’re well-placed, they won’t have the negative impacts.”

Another way to reduce public opposition is through a “far-reaching and ambitious effort” to educate the public about the programs — and the people the town is trying to help, he said.

The town’s affordable housing commission has already commenced that effort, he said.

Affordable housing alternatives are meant to help the young, single professional, the firefighter, the EMT who comes to the aid of the community, the nurses at the hospital, he said. Young people, Russell has long said, are the town’s greatest export.

And the need is urgent: “We need to be more innovative in promoting the creation of more housing options,” Russell said. “We need to modify the code . . .allow small scale apartment buildings be constructed, especially by converting our existing inventory. We should amend the code to allow for up to six apartments to be built as a principal use in our commercial zones.”

The approval, he said, would require a special exception by the town’s zoning board of appeals. That approval, he assured, would also require covenants to ensure that the affordable housing units stay part of the affordable housing inventory in perpetuity, eliminating the need for affordable housing district, or AHD, zoning, Russell said.

“The current code, which I helped draft partially to protect commercial space, is simply not enough,” the supervisor said. “There are existing structures in our commercial areas that are probably best suited for residential use, not commercial.”

The bottom line, Russell said, is that the problem simply cannot be solved with large-scale affordable developments of 40 to 50 units, a notion that’s not palatable to the community. “The public would never accept it, and probably shouldn’t,” he said. “Smaller scale projects can be developed that do not impact the surrounding community and that can still be economically viable.”