Housing Summit Sparks Legislative Proposals

In addition to advocating for more affordable developments like Avalon Bay, above, Huntington Housing Coalition will make recommendations to the town board based on issues raised at its housing summit held in November.

Housing Summit Sparks Ideas For Change

By Sophia Ricco
sricco@longislandergroup.com

An engaging summit on affordable housing hosted Huntington Township Housing Coalition gave residents an opportunity to give input on legislative actions and proposals. One proposal on accessory apartments is being submitted to the town this month.

A Community Conversation On Housing For All was held on Nov. 17 and covered a wide variety topics, from accessory apartments to housing choice impacts. The coalition was delighted to have the largest turnout for its annual summit yet with around 170 people registered.

Attendees were eager to share their opinions and present questions to panels that discussed elements of economical housing. A large number of questions were submitted and many could not be addressed in the allotted time; they have been answered on the coalition’s website.

The coalition found many people inquired about the accessory apartment process, a discussion they recorded and have also added to their website.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people, both older people who want to stay in their house but don’t have a fixed income and want to cover their bills, as well as younger people who want to buy a house but would be cash strapped to pay a mortgage but if they lived in an accessory apartment that would help them to pay their bills,” President of Huntington Township Housing Coalition, Roger Weaving Jr. said. “There seems to be a lot of interest in it.”

The coalition plans to bring their proposed accessory apartment legislation to the Huntington Town Board in January. A proposal has been in the works for some time, according to Weaving, but the coalition brought it to summit attendees to gain their insights.

“I don’t think we actually made any changes, people were reasonably confident with what we are proposing,” Weaving said. “People always want you to do a little more, but I think what we have in the bill, is fairly simple, straightforward changes that seem to make a lot of sense to most people.”

They have been working with town board members and hope to have a bipartisan representation among board members proposing the legislation. The goal is to get the legislation changes passed, before trying to “push the envelope” with additional proposals.

“People have all kinds of ideas of what would be great, but if you can’t get it passed then it doesn’t matter,” Weaving said.

The bill addresses issues within the current legislation that prevent many homeowners from getting legal accessory apartment permits. For instance, many elderly and single people are prevented from living in an accessory apartment while renting out their home.

Another proposed change would roll back the frontage requirement from 75 to 50 feet, which would make many more properties eligible, especially in pthe parts of town with the greatest number of illegal apartments.

“A lot of the time, the older parts of town is where the illegal apartments are,” Weaving said. “Changing the law didn’t change the fact of apartments, it changed the fact that there are illegal apartments.”

The Huntington Township Housing Coalition hopes that if their legislation is passed it will be reduce the amount of illegal apartments. These apartments are the ones that put residents most at risk, since they’re not inspected.