Huntington Station DRI begins process of considering projects

BY DANIEL FEBRIZIO DANEIL@TBRNEWSMEDIA.COM

The Downtown Revitalization Initiative is a program run by New York State since 2016.

“The DRI transforms downtown neighborhoods into vibrant centers that offer a high quality of life and are magnets for redevelopment, business, job creation, and economic and housing diversity,” the www. ny.gov website states.

The program invests money in 10 different economic development regions in order to “improve the vitality of urban centers across New York State.” This program has completed five rounds of funding groups of 10 communities, and in January of this year, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) announced the 10 communities set to receive funding for round six.

For the Long Island region, Huntington Station was honored with the selection, receiving $10 million in funding. “The Huntington Station community deserves a safe, walkable, and affordable downtown where residents can thrive,” Hochul said in a press release from January.

A Local Planning Committee consisting of local and regional leaders, stakeholders and community representatives was formed to guide the development of this process and represent the goals of the community as best as possible. The LPC has 19 board members, including cochairs Huntington Supervisor Ed Smyth (R) and Dave Kapell, founder of Kapell Real Estate and the representative from the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council.

The LPC had its first meeting on May 22. Kapell said in a phone interview that the meeting was well-attended with roughly 85 people there. He said this was encouraging and that it “shows the level of interest in what’s going to happen” in downtown Huntington Station.

Kapell, who has co-chaired DRI projects in previous rounds of funding, explained that at this point in the process the meeting was procedural and informative to the public as well as to fellow committee members regarding the steps in this process.

“We haven’t gotten down to any specifics yet about how we may want to see the money used,” he said.

While there was an opportunity for the public to voice some concerns and goals at the end of the May 22 meeting, this meeting was focused on preparing the board members, and the following meeting on June 23 will be focused on input from the board members regarding vision, goals and potential projects. The unscheduled July meeting will be a community meeting in which residents will provide input and suggestions as to how this funding should be used.

Information found at www. Huntingtonstationdri.com specifies the project categories that are legally eligible to benefit from the $10 million. Some of these include public improvement projects, such as recreational trails or transportation infrastructure; new development and/or rehabilitation of existing downtown buildings; or one-time branding and marketing, like developing signage, but not ongoing costs such as maintaining a website.

DRI funding is ineligible to be used for purposes such as future planning activities, paying staff salaries or property upkeep, continuous costs like training programs or supplementing costs of existing programs.

Although it is still early in the development process, Kapell said that he agrees with his co-chair Smyth that a high priority should be “traffic management, pedestrian convenience and walkability.” He added that “how to manage that in a way that facilitates improvement along the way is our challenge.”

Grant Havasy, president of Blue & Gold Holdings (a development agency), is a committee member of the LPC. He said that not a whole lot was discussed regarding ideas, but that certain things like bus stop or lighting improvements or even supplementing people’s business concepts could be on the table.

“It was good to see on a first glance this could wind up being something really to help enhance the area beyond what any revitalization efforts would occur with private development regardless,” Havasy said.

Councilman Salvatore Ferro (R) said in a statement that he’s “happy to see the Huntington Station Revitalization Process moving forward” and that “it’s a step in the right direction in addition to infrastructure upgrades such as the sewer expansion project.”

Over the next several months, the LPC will listen to the community and focus on priority projects as they develop their final plan on how to utilize the funding in ways most beneficial to the community. These projects will then be evaluated by the state and then selected for funding.

The next LPC meeting is set to take place on Friday, June 23, from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. The location is currently to be determined, though the last meeting took place at the Huntington Station Library on 1335 New York Avenue.