AvalonBay Offers New Plan

AvalonBay announced Tuesday evening that it had submitted a new, scaled-down proposal for development in Huntington Station.

The company said that the new plan meets requirements under the town R-3M zoning code and would mean building 379 apartments in a mix of rentals and for-sale units. It said the project would provide a significant amount of workforce housing (54 apartments), and 80% of the units would be rentals. "The new project’s considerably reduced density is identical to those of Avalon Court and Court North in Melville," the company said.

An earlier and much larger plan that included a transit-oriented district met considerable opposition from some in the Huntington Station community and was rejected by the Town Board in September. The company said the new plan is "responsive to many of the community’s legitimate concerns about the previous TOD development."

It would, the company said produce "several significant returns for Huntington, including the creation of needed housing, economic revitalization, and job creation. Its estimated net impact on the school district costs will be at worst neutral and at best moderately beneficial. And a revived community will certainly help to stabilize the neighborhood, add tax ratables and reduce crime."

No one from the town was immediately available for comment.

On the earlier plan,Huntington Board of Education school board president Bill Dwyer said the board had initially agreed to accept a $1.5 million “mitigation fee,” because Avalon’s plan would have brought in fewer children than another plan for single-family homes on the same site.

The school board hadn't taken a position, for or against, the Avalon plan itself. But the Transit-Oriented District that some feared would alter zoning beyond the Avalon development led the school board to oppose a plan that might have a negative impact on the school district by significantly adding to the school population. A few days later, the Town Board .

AvalonBay had tried for more than a year to win approval for its construction on the north side of East Fifth Street near the . Its original proposal called for a 530-unit, 978-bedroom development, later scaled back to 944 bedrooms in a 490-unit plan. Its proposal would have offered a mix of residential housing, including some rentals, with a 25 percent component of workforce, affordable housing, in one-, two- and three-bedroom homes.  The land is owned by the Bonavita family, which planned to build 109 single-family homes on the acreage.