Petition: Limit Apartments Over Businesses

Halesite resident Bob Suter has organized a petition calling for the strict limitation of the number of apartments allowed over commercial use properties within the Town of Huntington. Suter said he garnered many of the petition’s nearly 1,000 signatures outside the mixed-use building, above, currently under construction at 269 New York Ave. in Huntington village. (Long Islander News photo/Connor Beach)

By Connor Beach
cbeach@longislandergroup.com

Nearly 1,000 Huntington residents have signed a petition calling for the repeal of, or an amendment to, the town’s zoning law that allows apartments to be constructed above commercial buildings.

The signatures were formally submitted to the town board during its meeting Tuesday.

Halesite resident Bob Suter presented the petition and asked the town board to hold a public hearing on the town code’s mixed-use zoning section “with the intent of strictly limiting the number of apartments allowed over commercial use properties.”

The town’s C6 zoning law was enacted in 2006, allowing for the construction of mixed-use buildings “where a permitted commercial use occupies the ground floor and a residential use occupies space on upper floors” as long as the footprint of the upper floors does not exceed that of the ground floor.

The petition writers argue that, in its current form, town code allows for “unlimited apartments above ground floor commercial use.”

Suter said the signatures were gathered in two weeks, adding that many were collected outside of the three-story mixed-use building with 20 apartments that is currently under construction AT 269 New York Ave. in Huntington village, next to Albert’s Mandarin.

“From 1934 until 2006 it was illegal to build apartments over commercial stores,” Suter said, adding that town code currently doesn’t have necessary limitations on developers.

The basis for the petition, Suter said, is that the town board in 2006 did not conduct a state SEQRA environmental assessment to study the impact that increased apartments would have on traffic, parking, wastewater treatment and the nearby harbors and bays.

Councilman Mark Cuthbertson, the only sitting town board member who was on the board in 2006, said he felt that the zoning change has benefitted Huntington village.

He said, “The C6 zoning has helped the vitality of downtown Huntington and continues to do so.”