Ground Broken for Senior Community

 Town officials joined in last week's groundbreaking forThe Club at Melville, a 261-unit income-restricted senior community. 

Huntington Supervisor Frank P. Petrone and Town Council Members Mark Cuthbertson, Susan A. Berland and Mark Mayoka participated in the ceremony.

 The groundbreaking came two days after Petrone and the council members attended a bricklaying the Hindu organization Bochasanwasi Shree Akshar Purushottam-Northeast conducted for a temple it is building adjacent to The Club.

  The projects were part of an agreement among the town, BAPS and Deshon Partners, owner of the property on Deshon Drive, in which the town purchased the Meyers Farm property from BAPS to create Sweet Hollow Park. The town took possession of the property in April.

The town transferred development rights from the portion of the Meyers Farm property that will become passive parkland to the 18-acre Deshon Drive parcel and approved a rezoning that allowed construction of the housing, clustered on 13 of those acres. The remaining five acres of the site were sold to BAPS to construct the temple.

  “It provided an opportunity for us to become creative, what we should be doing in government,” Petrone said, adding that as the elements of the agreement took shape, “We jumped at this opportunity, because not only does it provide housing, a religious atmosphere and a park, but it provides the opportunity for other developers to start looking at the procedures we followed here.”

 Jane Goll, one of the partners in the company building The Club, thanked the supervisor “for spearheading this amazing effort to create affordable housing for the many active adults age 55 and over who wish to stay in this beautiful community.” She said The Club “will become a new paradigm of quality and affordability in the Town of Huntington. Thank, you, Huntington, for giving us this opportunity.”

 The 261 units in the project will be divided among a group of income levels, all based on Town Code or state regulations. The developer signed a covenant that all of the units will remain income restricted (affordable) in perpetuity. 

  The town is working with community leaders on plans for the three acres of Sweet Hollow Park for active recreational use.