By: Nick Buglione
The Navy is putting its planned sale of the Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field military housing complexes -- home to some 1,200 servicemen and women and their dependents -- on hold for two years.
The Herald first chronicled the Navy's intention to sell the 49-acre Mitchel Manor, in East Meadow, and the 48-acre Mitchel Field, in Garden City, last September, after a highly disputed 2002 study indicated that enough affordable private housing existed on Long Island to sustain local military families.
The Navy planned to turn the properties over to a private company by October 2004. The company would maintain the military houses until 2006 and then sell them.
Although the Navy still plans to privatize Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field, the sale is no longer definite, according to Navy spokesman Lt. Commander Joe Carpenter.
A number of factors made the Navy re-think its position, including an outcry from residents, elected officials and civic leaders, said Carpenter. "There was a combination of factors," he said. "We wanted to slow down and take a look at what our housing needs are."
The Navy has been re-evaluating the accuracy of its housing market study since November. During the initial analysis, officials looked at homes for rent within a one-hour commute of area military installations to determine the availability of adequate, affordable housing.
Since the sale was announced, Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field residents have complained about Long Island's exorbitant real estate market and high cost of living. This has cast doubt over whether a serviceman or woman's salary and housing allowance, to which all would be entitled if the complexes were sold, could support a family here.
There is no specific timeline for when the Navy will finish its re-evaluation, but when it is completed, the results will first be revealed to commanding officers of the local posts, and then to residents and elected officials.
While Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field will continue to provide military housing for at least the next two years, what happens after that is still anyone's guess, Carpenter said. "It'd be too hard to speculate; any of a number of factors may change," he said. "There's nothing to say that anything's certain."
Considering that a substantial portion of the military housing complexes are empty, some believe that at least parts of them will ultimately be sold. Twenty-one percent of the units in Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field, where sevicemen and women from all military branches live, are vacant, according to the Navy.
"I think that's what's going to happen: There's going to be a compromise," said Robert Zafonte, president of the East Meadow Civic Association, who is opposed to the sale. "We don't really have a case to say, 'Keep the whole thing' if there are vacancies."
Meanwhile, 15 Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field residents met privately with Sen. Hillary Clinton and U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy Jan. 19 to discuss what might happen to the housing complexes in the future. "It was part of their ongoing effort to listen to the concerns of the families throughout this process," said Scott Rowson, McCarthy's spokesman. Clinton, Sen. Charles Schumer, McCarthy and other Long Island congressmen have been trying to talk the Navy and the Department of Defense out of selling.
Hope LaMonica, who lives in Mitchel Manor and helped organize the meeting, came away with a renewed sense of optimism. "I think we've made more headway than in the beginning," said LaMonica, who has two children and a husband in the Army. "My feeling is that the sale is not going to happen."
During the meeting, Clinton and McCarthy speculated that only Mitchel Manor might be sold, said Catherine Adams, a Mitchel Manor resident who attended the meeting.
It's a notion that didn't sit well with Adams, who has a son in preschool and a daughter in Barnum Woods Elementary. If forced to move to Mitchel Field, her children would have to attend Uniondale schools, considered a level below East Meadow schools.
Adams, whose husband is in the Army, felt that the meeting showed that elected officials are willing to fight on residents' behalf. "When Sen. Clinton came down, I felt like, 'OK, maybe something will get done,'" Adams said. "She really seemed like she wanted to help."
The Navy plans to hold another informational meeting with Mitchel Manor and Mitchel Field residents Feb. 4.
