By Kate E. Salute
There are no apartments ‹ at least not nearly enough in an affordable price range that aren¹t illegal ‹ and it¹s all our fault. At a recent civic association meeting, a concerned resident asked, ³How do we get our young people to afford to stay on the island?²
Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman said very matter-of-factly, ³Stop voting down proposals for affordable housing.² He pointed to a common belief that inter-generational living will devalue homes, leading everyone to say, in one breath, ³We need to build housing for our young people,² and adding with the next breath, ³...but not in our town.²
Weitzman¹s own children now live back in Brooklyn, so he¹s familiar with the decline of a young professional population due to the cost of living in our very affluent, abundantly rich county. Weitzman reported that Nassau County is one of the top ³first suburbs² in the nation (a ³first suburb² is one adjacent to a central cities, and they were identified as standard metropolitan areas by 1950), and that 80 percent of the homes in our fair county are single-family homes. The Brookings Institute, which does studies on first suburbs, reports that while the national population of elderly people has grown by 185 percent since the ¹50s, Nassau County¹s elderly population has grown by 400 percent.
So all we allow this county to expand for is families and the elderly. So I know that if my parents ever sold their house and wanted to stay on the island, but needed assistance, they¹d be fine ‹ they¹d even have plenty of choices. But where would I go? I don¹t want to live with my parents forever, but I¹m not ready to leave Nassau County.
I can¹t even joke that I could rent out some reader¹s basement apartment, because that would be illegal. The Nail and Mail law the county has even makes it easy for municipal workers ‹ they don¹t even have to get out of their chairs to serve illegal landlords with violations. They just have to allege, address the envelope and mail it out. If I¹d gone to college locally instead of in Pennsylvania, a lot of my college friends would have been homeless or would have had to transfer.
Here¹s my proposal for the county to ease into giving young professionals like me a chance:
Give the inter-generational living thing a close re-examination. Find a place to build apartment buildings or duplexes that can house seniors as well as young professionals. I can be more specific: Give us (and seniors, too) options such as studio, one bedroom or two bedrooms, include utilities and Internet. Have a gym, laundry room and maybe even a mini-mart in the building or on the grounds and have rents ranging from $750 to 1,100 per month. No children.
OK, so I didn¹t come up with this plan on my own ‹ it already exists. You just have to move to Pennsylvania to take advantage of it. Want even more specifics on a guaranteed brilliant, masterful plan? Visit www.4wallsinphilly.com/phila/yorknorth/yorknorth.htm.
You might not worry about people my age right now if you have small children, and I might be a senior by the time a plan like this is implemented, but think about it: If we stick to the growth rate of the elderly population, by 2050 Nassau County will basically be a retirement community.
Comments about this? Ksalute@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 205.
