Long Island Real Estate Briefs: October 17, 2008

Long Island Business News, Oct 17, 2008 by David Winzelberg

Developers pitch housing in Huntington Station

AvalonBay Communities is planning to turn 30 acres of vacant land in Huntington Station into a 530-unit mix of rental apartments and condominiums.

The company's proposed $125 million transit-oriented development is located just west of Park Avenue and about a quarter mile from the Long Island Rail Road station. Avalon is planning to build 424 mostly one- and two-bedroom apartments, and 106 condos. The plan calls for 25 percent of both the rental and for-sale units to be sold below market as workforce housing.

Representatives of AvalonBay unveiled the proposal at a recent meeting with Huntington school officials to try to assuage any fears of an influx of children from the new housing. Currently the property is zoned for 109 single-family homes, which AvalonBay contends would bring in at least 65 more children than its proposal, which would end up being tax-positive for the school district.

The developers said teachers from the Huntington school district will receive preferential treatment in getting the affordable housing in the new community. The plan also calls for building a new walking path to the LIRR station.

The land is currently owned by Louis Bonavita and was last valued at about $2.34 million.

Dowling report: Open space costing more

Open space purchases by government end up costing nearly three times the property's initial price, according to a report released last week from the Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute at Dowling College.

The report claims that lost property tax revenue from open space acquisitions should be added in to give a more accurate assessment of the overall cost. So instead of the $1.2 billion paid for open space acquisitions so far, the report estimates the real price tag is closer to $3.5 billion.

In the conclusion, the report states "... the more open space that is purchased removes from the tax rolls a vital stream of government revenue that will ultimately have to be subsidized by the remaining taxpayers."

The report by LIESP Director Martin Cantor was paid for by the Association for a Better Long Island.

Stopping property pirates

For those in the "get off my lawn" crowd, there is the 12th annual National Conference on Private Property Rights in Albany next weekend.

Organized by the Stony Creek, N.Y.-based Property Rights Foundation of America, the conference will focus on "the other side" of zoning and building codes and how to stop the "government pirates" looking to limit development on private property.

The conference is open to the public - $85 registration includes lunch - and will be held on Saturday at the Holiday Inn on Wolf Road.

State parks honor Breslin

Wilbur Breslin will receive this year's Robert Moses Master Builder award given by the state's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the foundation for Long Island State Parks.

Breslin, the Island's retail developer extraordinaire, joins an elite group of past Master Builder award winners that includes Donald Trump, Billy Joel, Charles Dolan and John Kanas.

The Oct. 30 awards gala at Carlyle on the Green in Bethpage will benefit the foundation which provides support for programs at the parks.

Dougall in Daniel's den

Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty has partnered with Dougall Fraser Real Estate in Garden City.

First established in 1989, Dougall Fraser has been one of the leading real estate brokers in Garden City. The company's 18 sales agents will continue to work out of its office at 102 Seventh St., but will now be under the firm's new banner, Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty, Dougall Fraser Division.

Top flavor not Jerry's favorite

While Ben & Jerry's enjoys sweet success from its five franchised ice cream shops in Suffolk County, a story has surfaced about the rocky origins of the company's best-selling offering.

The scoop is that the former front man for the Grateful Dead wasn't partial to the ice cream flavor named after him.

When the late Jerry Garcia tasted Ben & Jerry's ice cream called Cherry Garcia, he complained that chunks of chocolate had no place in his cherished cherry vanilla, according to former band staffer Jim McDonald.

Garcia, who died in 1995, didn't want his name on a flavor he couldn't stomach, so he sued the ice cream company's owners, Merrick natives Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who wouldn't change the ingredients of their instant hit.

A few months later, McDonald said he saw Garcia, Cohen and Greenfield joking around backstage before a show.

"What happened to the lawsuit?" McDonald asked a smiling Garcia.

Apparently the sizeable donation Ben & Jerry's had just made to the Rex Foundation, the band's philanthropic organization, made the flavor a lot easier to swallow.