Work begins on $65M One Carleton Green affordable housing complex in Central Islip

A former polluted parking lot will soon be home to 96 new apartments in Central Islip, as construction gets underway at the One Carleton Green development.

The mixed-use three-story building will include income-restricted apartments and 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space along Carleton Avenue, where a grassroots arts organization Teatro Yerbabruja plans to take space.

When the apartments are finished in about 16 months, the development will offer housing steps from Central Islip’s Long Island Rail Road station and a Suffolk County Transit bus stop.

A portion of the site had once been home to MacKenzie Chemical Works, a chemical manufacturer that operated there until 1987. It was declared a Superfund site in September 2001, with environmental remediation concluding in 2020. The formerly contaminated area will serve as a parking lot for the building.

The project will transform an underutilized site into well-located housing and a performing arts space, said David Gallo, CEO of Glen Cove affordable housing developer Georgica Green Ventures.

“Three months ago, when we closed, there was a blighted, contaminated, somewhat unsafe parking lot here,” Gallo said last week at a public event marking the start of construction. “Today, we have hundreds of construction workers and plumbers and electricians and contractors that are working today to build a 96-unit affordable, mixed-income [and] supportive housing project.”

The $65 million development will include nine studio apartments, 62 one-bedroom apartments and 25 two-bedroom apartments, including a unit for the building’s superintendent. Fifteen of the units will be set aside for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities, with supportive services provided by the nonprofit Family Residences and Essential Enterprises.

Preliminary rent estimates for One Carleton Green range from $866 for a studio to $2,845 for a two-bedroom unit, with price points in between based on income and household size. Apartments will be available to people earning from 30% to 100% of the area's median income. That would cap incomes at $115,450 for an individual or $148,400 for a family of three at current income guidelines. However, the federal government updates income caps and corresponding rents annually.

All units will be affordable, meaning rents are designed to take up no more than 30% of a person’s gross income in accordance with federal guidelines.

'We need housing'

The development is the latest to add new housing options in Central Islip as part of its downtown revitalization plans, which were funded with $10 million through a state grant in 2018. Islip Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter said the state twice denied Central Islip’s plan before awarding the money on its third application.

“Everybody has to admit that we need housing,” Carpenter said in an interview. “A lot of times there’s pushback, ‘Oh yeah, we need housing but not here.’ I think the key is getting community buy-in and finding a site that’s appropriate and this certainly was.”

Other recently completed housing developments in Central Islip include The Villas on Eastview with 100 apartments, Eastview Knolls with 25 units and The Belmont at Eastview with 139 units.

Still, rents can stretch tenants’ budgets. The average asking rent among all apartments in Central Islip is $2,458, according to data from CoStar, which offers commercial real estate data and analytics. The average asking price for a one-bedroom unit is $1,790. 

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, who lived on nearby Brightside Avenue as a child, celebrated the project for turning a piece of environmentally scarred land into affordable housing. He signaled an interest in working with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul on her goal of increasing housing options statewide.

“This is desperately needed,” said Romaine, a Republican. “We need more affordable [housing] and more housing in Suffolk County without a doubt. On this, the governor and I agree, so we are going to continue to push for housing.”

The project, designed by Beatty Harvey Coco Architects in Melville and co-developed by Hauppauge-based Kulka, received nearly $50 million in state and local tax credits and grants. New York State Homes and Community Renewal provided $40.9 million in tax credit and grant programs designed to support low and middle-income housing.

Empire State Development, the state’s economic development agency, provided $5.5 million through Central Islip’s downtown revitalization grant and a fund dedicated to development on Long Island.

Suffolk County delivered $3.5 million to help the housing developers acquire the property and fund sewers, and the Town of Islip Industrial Development Agency provided tax breaks. They included a 30-year payment in lieu of taxes agreement in which the developers will pay nearly $3.9 million over 30 years, or $129,818 on average annually as well as a $1.6 million sales tax exemption and nearly $541,000 in mortgage recording tax savings.

Islip Town is one of 19 certified pro-housing communities on Long Island that agree to promote new housing development to qualify for $750 million in discretionary state funding.