HUNTINGTON STATION
Roadwork For Columbia Terrace
By Danny Schrafel/ dschrafel@longislandernews.com

The town board has agreed to tap into its affordable housing trust fund to lay out the money for an infrastructure project designed to facilitate the Columbia Terrace development.

They voted Dec. 13 to transfer up to $250,000 of Affordable House Trust and Agency funds to the Community Development Agency for the purpose of realigning the intersection of Railroad Street and Lowndes Avenue.

The funding will be used to improve infrastructure at the intersection, which is located near the upcoming eight-home, eight-apartment Columbia Terrace development, a project of the town’s Take Back the Blocks affordable housing program.
“We’re going to construct sidewalks and improve the road geometry since it’s a little confusing – at least for me, it is,” Doug Aloise, director of the town’s Community Development Agency, said.

The town’s Affordable Housing Trust and Agency funds is supplied by payments from developers who choose to opt out of minimum affordable housing levels in their developments. Once the town receives the $1.56-million grant from New York State to build Columbia Terrace, the town will repay the Affordable Housing Trust, Aloise said.
“Because we can’t receive [the grant] until we’ve received the last certificate of occupancy for the eight houses, this [funding] is going to have the effect of moving the project ahead more expeditiously,” he said. “It’s a loan, if you will.”

The town will begin the public works improvements in the spring and break ground on Columbia Terrace later in 2012.