SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Housing In Suffolk County Welcome The YIMBYs

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman 

East End YIMBY—for Yes In My Backyard—continued its work at encouraging affordable housing at a meeting last week. It was refreshing to observe a group of folks—of varied ages and backgrounds including two veteran architects and a long-time former New York State housing specialist—gathered. 

It was a contrast to those who oppose affordable housing under the banner of NIMBY—Not In My Backyard.

Opening the meeting in Sag Harbor—where the median price of a house has reached an unaffordable-for-most-people median price of $1.3 million—Michael Daly, the YIMBY’s founder and leader, spoke of the group being “committed to taking action.”  

“We advocate” for affordable housing, he emphasized. This includes endeavoring to “educate ourselves and others,” he said. An emphasis is on appearances at meetings of government panels and civic associations and countering the NIMBYs who “regurgitate myths” which have discouraged “affordable housing for so long.”

Mr. Daly, a real estate broker, described the myths as including the claim that affordable housing “hurts the environment” when, in fact, “community housing goes through stringent environmental review;” it drives down property values although “repeated research” shows it has “no negative impact on home prices;” looks “cheap” but, in fact, it must comply with “all the same building codes and regulations” as market-rate projects;” hurts the quality of local schools when “the opposite is true.”

The focus at the meeting was indeed on “taking action” and strategies were discussed.

What YIMBY is facing is not new in Suffolk County.

The challenge, however, is more intense as the median price of a house in Suffolk has skyrocketed to now $535,000. 

My first job as a reporter in Suffolk was at the Babylon Town Leader in a town that was hit, along with the rest of western Suffolk, by the first wave of the huge post-World War II population move onto Long Island. An issue when I began at the Leader in 1962 was the resistance in Babylon to housing other than single-family residences. I was assigned to write about the several garden apartments that had been built, the need they met, and whether they did or didn’t conflict with the communities in which they were built. I found no conflict.

Up the road from where I live in Noyac, in 2019 the Sandy Hollow Cove Apartments opened in Tuckahoe. On a 2.6-acre site, three buildings offering 14 studio apartments, 12 one-bedroom apartments and two two-bedroom units, were built. The landscaping is lovely. It’s a joint project of the private company Georgica Green Venues, the Town of Southampton, the Suffolk County Office of Community Development and New York State Homes & Community Renewal. They are for people with low and moderate incomes. The apartments harmonize with housing in the area.

When they opened, Kathy Hochul, the state’s lieutenant governor and now governor, said: “Everyone deserves the dignity of a good home, which is why we are committed to our statewide investment in affordable and supportive housing. The Sandy Hollow Cove Apartments will help to ensure working families in Southampton have affordable, high-quality housing options.”

Mr. Daly comments that “it’s a beautiful community development and we need so many more of these community developments.” 

Earlier this year on Shelter Island, Bob Kohn, who had recently been appointed a member of its Community Housing Board, opposed and decried the town joining in providing affordable housing. At a Community Housing Board meeting in June, he referred it as “socialized housing.” He said those who couldn’t afford to live on Shelter Island should go elsewhere. He was bounced from the board. The median price of a house on Shelter Island has skyrocketed to $1.4 million.

As Shelter Island Supervisor Gerry Siller noted with Mr. Kohn’s termination, Town Code sets the board’s purpose as to “promote community housing” specifically “in order to maintain the local economy, community services and the economic and social diversity that characterize the Town of Shelter Island.” Mr. Siller said of Mr. Kohn’s plan, “the only problem it will solve is to ensure that the wealthy few who can still afford to live here will have accessible labor in the next town. That is simply not the community we want.” 

NIMBYs are still around. Welcome the YIMBYs.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.