We do not, but many of our supporting organizations do.  Check out the Resources page for HUD-approved Housing Counsellors.

We do not.  We work to create the conditions where affordable housing can be built, primarily through public education efforts.

We are an all-volunteer organization- and we could use your help and support!  Contact us at contact@huntingtonhousingcoalition.org to get more involved!

ADU’s, also known as mother-daughters, granny flats, mother-in-law unit, secondary dwelling unit, or carriage house, is an apartment with its own entrance in an other-wise single-family home.  They can be located in the house, above a garage or, until recently in a basement.  In the Town of Huntington there are rules that ensure there cannot be too many in a given neighborhood, that require parking for the additional unit on the property and not in the street, and that the homeowner must live in the building.  The owner can live in the larger or the smaller part of the house.

The Huntington Housing Authority is an agency of HUD run by Town of Huntington residents.  Its mission is to create affordable housing
opportunities for the people in Huntington.  The HHA oversees Gateway
Gardens and Millenium Hills.  The HHA also manages HUD Section 8 vouchers
and conducts training in Financial Self Sufficiency (FSS).

Created in 2001, the Huntington Town Board established this entity to monitor the use of, and make recommendations on how the funds in the trust fund should be spent in advancing the goal of affordable housing. The Advisory Board is charged with formulating specific program recommendations for the Town Board’s consideration. The Coalition has served in a leadership role on the Advisory Board and has helped to promote affordable housing initiatives.

Currently the waiting list can take upwards of one year.

The CDA is a Town agency manages the Town of Huntington’s inventory of affordable housing, both rental and ownership, and the lotteries that dispense that housing.  In addition, CDA owns and operates the Huntington Opportunity Resource Center (HORC) and Huntington Business Incubator (Biz Inc).

The Home Rehabilitation Program provides income-qualified individuals and families with deferred or low-interest financing to address needed and emergency home improvements. 

Missing middle housing are the types of housing that largely don’t appear on Long Island in general and in Huntington specifically.  In most parts of the country, in addition to single family homes and apartments, there are duplexes, triplexes, quadriplexes, bungalow courts, and townhouses. These other types offer other price points and more affordable options between the either-or of single-family-home/apartment.  There are some duplexes and multiplexes in Huntington, but not many, and few areas where they can be built as-of-right.

There are several reasons. 
Most of the Town of Huntington is zoned for single-family homes, which means someone who wants to build a duplex has to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals and get a variance.  Taken into account when an application is made is where the residents will park- they usually require parking on premises- and what the local sewer situation is- not all areas of the town are sewered.

Cohousing is a form of living where several unrelated adults share a house and all expenses.  Typically each has their own bedroom but other parts of the house are
shared in common.  The Town of Huntington allows up to five unrelated adults to live in the same home, so there is no legal barrier to setting up such an arrangement, but charging rent to the rooms might make the house considered an apartment building and subject the house to different rules.

In addition to any employment income, they can consider retirement benefits, contributions by third parties, and rental income.  The bank does not care if the rental apartment is a legal or illegal apartment, as long as you can show regular
payments by the tenant.  The Town, on the other hand, DOES care about the legality of the apartment.

A limited equity co-op is a form of ownership where most of the potential equity gain (or loss) accrues to the Cooperative corporation that owns the buildings.  Residents need only put a down-payment equal to the first month’s payment, so that it functions not unlike a security deposit for a rental unit, but instead of the buildings being owned by a landlord, they are owned by the residents through the Co-op Corporation.

When affordable housing becomes available, most towns try to reserve the eligibility for getting one of these homes by restricting who can apply, which is called a “preference”.  A common preference is to reserve applications for residents of the town and the children of residents. New York City, for example, tries to reserve units for existing neighbors to forestall gentrification.  However, legal discrimination cases have been brought and won when the residents of a town or neighborhood are ethnically more uniform than the surrounding area.  In effect, in NYC and on Long Island, where we have some of the most segregated towns and neighborhoods in the country, reserving new housing for town residents perpetuates segregation. 

The Town of Huntington’s preference rule is for those living or working in Huntington, which so far has withstood legal challenge because, by including those who work in town, the rule is more inclusive.

Columbia Terrace is an affordable housing building near the Huntington train station that is exclusively for veterans.  It has six 1-BR apartments.

In order to build multi-family homes or apartments, they need to be hooked up to a sewer or have their own waste treatment plant , because a septic tank is not up to the task.  The area north of the Huntington train station has sewers that run to the town waste treatment plant on Creek Road in Halesite.  There are also sewers south of Jericho Turnpike along route 110 that run south to the waste treatment
facility in Babylon.  North of Jericho and south of Huntington train station has no sewers, and so will not support increased density.  Sewers were recently approved and funded for this sewer-missing section of Huntington Station and construction is expected to start in 2024

• The cost of land.  Land on Long Island is very expensive.  Actual building costs are not all that different from other parts of the country, but acquiring the land for an affordable project is prohibitively expensive. Builders often apply for grants to help defray the cost of the land.
• The time it takes from proposal to the beginning of construction.  Every year the preparation of the project takes, the builder has to pay lawyers, architects, taxes, etc., which drives up the costs.  The average project takes about 8 years in Huntington, the fastest is about 5 years, and the longest close to 40 years. Possible solutions include streamlining processes at town hall.
• Restrictive Zoning– Most of Huntington is zoned for commercial space or for single family homes- and that’s it.  If someone wants to build anything else, they have to first go to the Planning Department, then to the Zoning Board of Appeals.  Depending on whether these town boards like what they hear, a builder may have to make many trips to each.  More permissive zoning allows builders to do more as-of-right, saving the many trips before these boards.  To explore the zoning in Huntington, use the Long Island Zoning Atlas https://www.longislandzoningatlas.org/#%26map=8.5/40.84/-72.852
• Neighborhood opposition– Surveys say that 70% of residents favor apartments and affordable housing, but 60% would oppose any such housing in their neighborhood.  If the neighbors oppose a project, it can mean more revisions and more trips before the town boards, increasing the length of time it takes to get built, and driving up the costs.

Until 2017 there was no requirement to include affordable apartments as part of developing apartments above stores.  The HTHC fought to change that, and the new rule requires 20% of the apartments meet affordability guidelines.  However, developers can also make a payment (by formula) to the town’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund in lieu of allocating the apartments as affordable.

While every project can be different, almost all development projects are 100% funded by the developer.  The government can only provide funding in very limited, specific circumstances where there is a public benefit.  Even when developers receive a benefit like a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) to lower their tax rate, they still pay taxes at a higher rate than what was there before the new construction takes place.

While new environmentally friendly technology is most easily incorporated into new construction, the average American home continues to get larger, and this is especially true on Long Island.  If new air conditioners are twice as energy efficient, but there are twice as many of them in a new house, there is no real benefit.  LIPA continues to report a rise in energy usage that exceeds the rise in population despite continued improvements in energy efficiency.   Smaller dwelling units, such as apartments, are more environmentally friendly.

Many sewage plants attached to a particular development are in fact pre-treatment plants, which in turn send the pre-treated sewage either to the SCWA plant in Babylon (the Southwest sewer district) or to the Town-run plant in Halesite (Huntington sewer district).  The destination of the sewage determines who monitors it.  Within town boundaries we also have a Centerport sewer district and a Northport Village sewer district.