Community Corner

A Waiting Game in Farmingdale

Plans for a "destination downtown" and affordable housing have slowed the departure of young residents in Farmingdale.

Laura Conte is a 23-year-old public relations professional in Melville. Christopher Patterson is a 24-year-old director of Information Systems and Technology at Kennedy Airport. Nick Gardino is the 22-year-old founder and owner of the recording studio New Royalty Records.

These recent college grads all beat the brutal economy - some before moving out of their childhood homes in Farmingdale.

"Long Island real estate is too expensive, especially when factoring in the cost of living," Patterson said. "For our generation, more affordable options need to come soon."

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"Soon" is the hope of Long Island economists, nonprofits and Village of Farmingdale officials battling the Brain Drain, a term used to describe the departure of 50,000 college educated Long Island residents ages 25-34 over the last decade. Motivated by discouraging statistics, these groups have plans to make housing more affordable, make Farmingdale more attractive and ultimately keep young residents here.

“We’re losing young people because we don’t have the affordable housing they need [and] we don’t have some of the cool downtowns that people like to live in,” said Long Island Association Chief Economist Pearl Kamer.

Find out what's happening in Farmingdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A 2011 Long Island Index survey found that 75 percent of Long Island residents say young people leaving a “serious problem,” compared to only 44 percent of suburban New Jersey and 48 percent of suburban Connecticut residents.

Since 1990, the percentage of Farmingdale residents ages 20-34 has dropped 14 percent, according to an existing conditions report commissioned by the Village of Farmingdale last year.

The report classified only 5.1 percent of Farmingdale’s rental units as affordable, and all 174 of the units are for senior citizens. Affordability is based on fair market rents established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, meaning a one-bedroom must be less than $1,407 per month and a two-bedroom must be less than $1,661 per month.

Rents are high and so are home prices. Farmingdale ranked in the bottom half of affordable markets in a recent Coldwell Banker report, with home prices averaging $473,832, nearly $200,000 higher than the national average.

“It is crazy the price to live here,” Conte said. “I always ask my parents how they did it.”

Addressing the housing situation has been the focus of the , (GF-CLT) a nonprofit that formed in 2009 with ideas for housing and local revitalization, Action Long Island, a nonprofit that promotes economic development to improve the quality of life for Long Island residents and the Farmingdale Village Board of Trustees.

The village board that will change the downtown zoning to allow mixed-use, transit-oriented development. The new zoning will potentially create nearly 400 new housing opportunities in Farmingdale by allowing residential units to be built above stores and offices.

The master plan includes other like additional parking and ways to increase green space, specifically near the LIRR station, with hopes of making Farmingdale “a destination downtown.”

Chuck Gosline is a Farmingdale resident who has led the Farmingdale CLT effort for the past five years.

“A CLT is a non-profit group that acquires and owns real estate in order to provide benefits to the local community,” he said. “By separating the cost of land from the structure, CLTs can maintain affordability in perpetuity.”

This Farmingdale group is Nassau County’s first CLT. Their immediate goals are to see an intergenerational community center be built, support downtown revitalization and to develop mixed- use housing complexes where all units are classified as affordable.

At Action Long Island, Nina Petraro Bastardi is the co-chair of the organization’s Housing and Development Task Force, and is involved in their Young Adult Alliance, a coalition of young professionals and young adult organizations.

“We promote properly situated economic developments throughout Nassau and Suffolk,” she said. The alliance recently supported the Avalon Bay proposal in Huntington and development in Patchogue.

Despite the work of these groups, it’s taken time for the village to complete required studies for the master plan, for the CLT to find partnerships that will help it acquire land for projects and for Action Long Island to build up its membership.

With young people leaving, time is crucial.

"Young people want to be independent," said . "Living at home is a temporary solution to a bigger problem."

Still, the problem remains a regional issue, as all of Long Island and the state faces budget cuts, slow job creation and a high employment rate. Farmingdale resident Maureen Danielo is a 22-year-old recent Hofstra graduate who has been living with her parents and working as a substitute teacher while looking for a permanent job.

“I started to look into relocating,” she said. “As of now, leaving Long Island is going to be inevitable.”


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