Nassau IDA mulls PILOT plan for Honda service center in Valley Stream

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About 30 people attended a public hearing at Village Hall on Feb. 15 to learn about a Honda dealership’s application for tax incentives, which were requested in tandem with the construction of a new service center on West Merrick Road.

The Nassau County Industrial Development Agency collected testimony from attendees to inform their decision whether or not to grant the application.

Honda of Valley Stream, a 30-year-old, family-owned car dealership applied for IDA assistance that would enable them to build a $7.5 million state-of-the-art service and repair facility at 364-370 W. Merrick Road.

If approved, the application would phase in a $104,000 property tax increase — from about $263,000 to $367,000 — over 12 years. IDA officials said a vote for the project has not been set.

An attorney for Honda of Valley Stream claimed the proposal would see an expansion of union employment, an improvement to the local commercial district and the means for the car dealership to meet Honda’s mandated national requirements for 21st Century facilities.

“This project, if approved by the Nassau County IDA, will not reduce taxes for my client,” said Daniel Baker, an attorney at Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, LLP in East Meadow. “Again, we will not reduce taxes for my client.”

For the first three years of the plan, however, taxes would not increase on the property. The tax rate at the time of approval would be frozen for three years, and the new ultimate rate would be phased in gradually each year over the following nine years.

“To me it’s a win-win, because we get a business, we don’t get vacant lots, we don’t have the Honda dealership on Sunrise leaving eventually, and they patronize our businesses,” said resident Christine O’Toole.

Phillip Insardi, a resident and customer of Honda of Valley Stream, thought it would be foolish to decline the application.

“I think that if we lose a business like this, which gives good union jobs and good paying jobs — people in Nassau County have been complaining for years that their kids can’t afford to live here anymore, their kids can’t afford to buy houses here anymore, because of the cost here and because there’s not good jobs for them,” he said. “These are good jobs.”

Representatives from the Valley Stream school districts — who have spent the past several months dealing with the tax controversy caused in part by a payment in lieu of taxes program, or PILOT, granted to the Green Acres Mall by the Hempstead Town IDA — were not in favor of the application.

The Green Acres Mall PILOT shrunk the mall’s tax payments by about $6.5 million beginning in October.

“The question has been raised today of, ‘Is there any impact on the taxpayers?’ and I think all you have to do is look at the notice,” said Christopher Shishko, an attorney for school districts 13, 30 and the high schools. “It’s requesting financial assistance. Money is financial assistance. Plain and simple, telling a property owner that they’re not going to pay as much as they would otherwise pay is less money — that’s money from the taxpayers, and the boards are opposed to it.”

District 24 Superintendent Ed Fale echoed Shishko’s opposition, and explained that there is an “unintended consequence” of PILOT programs in Valley Stream, caused by the schools’ high school district.

Parcels under PILOT agreements aren’t considered taxable property, and thus, school districts lose taxable property when businesses switch to the payment plan. This is particularly of note in Valley Stream, because a state education law that dictates how centralized high school districts are funded requires that it collect from each of its component elementary school districts based on their taxable property.

Fale said that he would oppose any PILOT until it becomes clear that it cannot disproportionately affect taxpayers in his district.

“Until those changes occur we have to really act firmly against any PILOT,” he said.