Huntington Township Housing Coalition

10/14/2026

Today, Newsday published “It’s more than houses vs. apartments,” a Guest Essay by Pilar Moya-Mancera, Executive Director of Housing Help Inc.
The essay raises an important question: Are we planning communities where Long Islanders can continue to live through every stage of life?
For generations, homeownership has represented stability, opportunity, and the American Dream. Protecting that investment and preserving the character of our neighborhoods remain important priorities.
But housing needs evolve.
What happens when the home we love no longer meets our family's needs?
When our parents want to downsize but cannot find a suitable home nearby? When our adult children cannot afford to establish their own households? When a veteran or a person with a disability needs accessible housing? Or when the workers who serve our communities cannot afford to live in them?
These are not competing interests. They are different chapters of life in the same community.
We recognize that homeowners have legitimate concerns about property values, taxes, traffic, school capacity, infrastructure, and neighborhood character. These concerns deserve serious consideration, transparent planning, and responsible solutions.
Expanding housing choices should not mean disregarding those concerns.
It means exploring practical options, including smaller homes, accessory dwelling units, accessible housing, and thoughtfully planned developments that respond to local needs while respecting existing neighborhoods.
No single housing model will work for every community. Responsible planning requires evaluating infrastructure, fiscal impacts, environmental considerations, and the long-term needs of residents.
Housing affordability and neighborhood preservation should not be treated as opposing goals. With thoughtful planning, they can reinforce one another.
The future of Long Island depends not only on the homes we preserve or build, but also on whether our children, parents, neighbors, and future generations can continue to call this region home.

10/07/2026

Thank you to Huntington Patch for highlighting the Huntington Township Housing Coalition’s advocacy following the approval of Cornerstone Melville.

We’re proud to have helped make the case for more housing opportunities in Huntington — and even prouder to see years of advocacy continue to translate into real progress.

Read more about the Town Board’s approval of the 168-unit Cornerstone Melville development and what it means for housing in our community 👇

The mixed-use Baylis Road project won approval in a 3-2 vote.

10/06/2026

The Huntington Township Housing Coalition applauds the Huntington Town Board for approving the Cornerstone Melville project.

Our Coalition was proud to advocate for this proposal because we believe Huntington must continue creating more housing opportunities for people at different stages of life and income levels. Cornerstone Melville will bring 168 new homes to our community, including more than 30 below-market-rate affordable apartments—providing much-needed options for working families, young people, seniors, and others who want to call Huntington home.

This approval demonstrates what is possible when residents, advocates, community leaders, developers, and local government work together to address our housing needs thoughtfully and responsibly.

We thank the members of the Town Board who listened to the community and everyone who spoke, wrote letters, attended meetings, and made their voices heard throughout this process.

This is an important step forward—but our work is far from finished. The Huntington Township Housing Coalition will continue advocating for responsible housing solutions throughout the Township so that Huntington remains a community where people of different incomes and generations have the opportunity to live, work, raise families, and stay for years to come.

Today, we celebrate progress. Tomorrow, we keep building on it.

09/23/2026

We can protect Long Island’s water AND build the housing our communities desperately need.

There is encouraging news for the Long Island Sound.

Save the Sound’s new 2026 Report Card shows water quality improving or holding steady across nearly every section of the open Sound — progress attributed in large part to decades of investment in reducing nitrogen pollution, including major upgrades to wastewater treatment infrastructure.

That progress should teach us something important about the debate over housing and the environment on Long Island.

New housing and clean water are not mutually exclusive.

When new development is connected to modern wastewater treatment infrastructure, we have an opportunity to accommodate desperately needed homes while managing wastewater far more effectively than the aging cesspools and conventional septic systems that remain throughout Long Island.

The science is clear about the challenge we need to address: nitrogen pollution comes from multiple sources, including wastewater, fertilizer and stormwater runoff. And in Suffolk County, outdated septic systems and cesspools remain a major source of nitrogen entering our groundwater and surrounding waterbodies.

That is why simply opposing new housing in the name of “protecting our water” misses a much larger issue.

We should be investing aggressively in sewer connections, advanced wastewater treatment, replacement of aging cesspools and septic systems, green infrastructure, responsible fertilizer practices and better stormwater management.

And yes — we should continue building housing.

Smart growth gives us an opportunity to do both: create homes near jobs, transit and existing infrastructure while investing in the modern environmental infrastructure Long Island needs for the next generation.

The improving health of the Long Island Sound demonstrates that investment works. Now we need to keep going — particularly in our bays and harbors, where serious challenges remain.

Protecting our environment shouldn’t mean freezing Long Island in place.

It should mean building smarter.

— Huntington Township Housing Coalition

News of interest to the residents of Huntington, NY

09/14/2026

Today, Long Island Business News published an op-ed from Huntington Township Housing Coalition President Hunter Gross making the case for why Cornerstone Melville deserves our support.

The proposal would bring 168 new homes to Melville, with 20% designated as affordable housing — creating new opportunities for young people who want to stay near the communities that raised them, seniors looking to downsize, and working families who deserve the opportunity to live closer to where they work.

We hear it all the time: “My kids could never afford to live here.”

If we want that to change, we have to be willing to build housing.

Tomorrow, September 15 at 6 PM, the Huntington Town Board will hold its public hearing on Cornerstone Melville.

We need supporters of housing to show up and make their voices heard. Public hearings cannot only represent those who oppose change. The people who will someday need these homes deserve a voice, too.

Read the full Long Island Business News op-ed:
https://libn.com/2026/09/14/huntington-cornerstone-melville-housing-proposal/

Huntington Town Hall
Tuesday, September 15
6:00 PM

Come out. Speak up. Stand with us for more housing in Huntington.

The Huntington Township Housing Coalition supports the Cornerstone Melville proposal for 168 homes, including 20% affordable units, addressing local housing needs.

09/10/2026

Huntington needs more affordable housing and on Tuesday, September 15, it’s time to show up for it. 🏠

The proposed Cornerstone Melville project would bring 168 new homes to Melville, including more than 30 below-market-rate homes, while helping create a more vibrant, walkable town center.

But projects like this need more than quiet support. The Town Board needs to hear directly from residents who believe Huntington should create more housing opportunities.

📣 Public Hearing
📅 Tuesday, September 15
⏰ 6:00 PM
📍 Huntington Town Hall, 100 Main Street

Come out. Speak up. Make your voice heard.

More homes. More opportunity. A stronger Huntington. 🏡

08/26/2026

Long Island has always been an expensive place to live but when the people who keep our communities running can no longer afford to live here, high housing costs become more than a housing problem, they become an economic problem.

Across Long Island, employers are struggling to recruit and retain workers because the people they need simply cannot find housing they can afford nearby. From farms and restaurants to hospitals, schools, small businesses and municipal services, our housing shortage is increasingly shaping who can afford to work here and whether businesses can continue to grow here at all.

Recent reporting from Newsday highlights just how far employers are being forced to go to address the problem themselves. At Wickham Farm in Cutchogue, for example, Thomas Wickham has spent years working to expand and renovate housing for farm employees. Despite investing hundreds of thousands of dollars, the approval process remains ongoing.

His experience illustrates a larger problem: even employers willing to invest their own money to house workers face the same lengthy approval processes and regulatory obstacles that have made it so difficult to build housing across Long Island.

We cannot solve a housing shortage if building housing remains exceptionally difficult.

Here in Huntington, we have an opportunity to take a different approach.

The creation of the Melville Town Center Overlay District recognized that our housing and economic futures are connected. Transforming portions of an aging, automobile-oriented office corridor into a walkable, mixed-use community can create new homes while supporting local businesses and strengthening one of Long Island’s most important employment centers.

Projects proposed within the district can provide homes for teachers, nurses, first responders, young professionals, service workers, seniors looking to downsize and the next generation of Long Islanders who increasingly wonder whether they can afford to remain in the communities where they grew up.

That matters to employers, too.

A company deciding whether to expand on Long Island needs more than office space. It needs employees who can reasonably commute to work and afford to build their lives here. A restaurant needs servers and cooks. A hospital needs nurses and technicians. A school needs teachers. A small business needs workers.

When those employees are priced out, every part of our economy feels the consequences.

The answer is not to abandon thoughtful planning or community input. New development should include appropriate infrastructure, environmental protections, affordability requirements and responsible design. But thoughtful review cannot become an excuse for paralysis.

For decades, Long Island has built far less housing than its economy and population demand. We are now experiencing the consequences: record housing costs, young people leaving, workers commuting increasingly long distances and employers struggling to fill positions.

Huntington can help demonstrate another path.

By thoughtfully creating housing in places like Melville, close to jobs, major roads, transit connections and existing commercial development, we can preserve the character of established residential neighborhoods while creating the homes our economy desperately needs.

Housing policy is economic policy.

If we want Long Island businesses to thrive, if we want our children to have the option of staying here, and if we want the people who work in our communities to also have the opportunity to live in them, we need to make it possible to build again.

The Huntington Township Housing Coalition believes Huntington should continue moving forward with responsible housing opportunities that address this crisis.

The cost of doing nothing is becoming far greater than the cost of change.

Long Island businesses are turning to worker housing as high costs strain hiring. East Hampton is considering rules that could expand employer-sponsored housing.

08/12/2026

07/13/2026

As Huntington begins discussing next year’s budget, it’s important to remember that fiscal policy and housing policy are connected.

If we want to protect taxpayers and preserve the services our community relies on, we also need to think about how we grow Huntington’s tax base over the long term.

Smart, well-planned housing—especially mixed-use and transit-oriented development in appropriate locations, can attract investment, support local businesses, bring new customers to our downtowns, and strengthen the Town’s financial future.

Housing isn’t just about affordability. It’s also about economic development.

The conversation shouldn’t be limited to higher taxes versus service cuts. We should also be asking how Huntington can responsibly grow, redevelop underutilized properties, and create opportunities that benefit current and future residents alike.

A stronger tax base is one of the best ways to reduce long-term pressure on homeowners while keeping Huntington a vibrant place to live, work, and raise a family.

The town is facing potential service cuts if the cap is not pierced, Supervisor Ed Smyth said.

06/12/2026

A model worth exploring here in the Town of Huntington.

In South Dakota, a local hospital is investing millions of dollars into workforce housing to help attract and retain nurses, doctors, teachers, and other essential workers. By helping create new homes near the hospital, they’re addressing one of the biggest barriers to hiring and retaining talent: housing affordability.

Imagine what a similar partnership could mean for Huntington.
Major institutions such as Northwell Health or NYU Langone could partner with local government, housing organizations, and private developers to help create workforce housing opportunities for healthcare professionals and other essential workers.

These investments don’t just benefit employees—they strengthen the local economy, support businesses, reduce commuting burdens, and help ensure residents have access to the services they rely on every day.

As housing costs continue to rise across Long Island, innovative employer-assisted housing programs should be part of the conversation. Communities that want to attract and retain talent must also provide places for that talent to live.

The Huntington Township Housing Coalition welcomes creative solutions that expand housing opportunities and strengthen our community for the long term.

Fall River Health Services in Hot Springs, South Dakota, is investing in a subdivision project to provide housing for its employees.