Dogwood Terrace senior housing lands $19 million from state toward redevelopment

The rebuilding of the Dogwood Terrace senior housing development in Franklin Square took a step forward with the announcement last week that New York State awarded the project $19.2 million in tax breaks and subsidies.

The Town of Hempstead Housing Authority, which owns and operates the 104-unit complex, has partnered with Georgica Green Ventures to demolish the crumbling site and build a new facility. Residents will be relocated during the two-year construction period. 

In 2023, Newsday reported that Georgica Green Ventures president David Gallo estimated the project’s cost would be $65 million.

It's unclear when construction will start. Attempts to reach Gallo for this story were unsuccessful.

The package of subsidies pulls from five programs, including $3 million in federal low-income housing tax credits administered by the state.

The federal tax credits are a tool for developing low-income housing in which the credits are sold to investors seeking to lower their taxes. Newsday reported last year the state had withheld approval of the tax credits after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that the Hempstead Housing Authority had excluded disabled people from its low-income housing programs. The housing authority disputed the findings.

Separately, a 2022 HUD inspection found mold violations at Dogwood Terrace. 

Neither state nor Hempstead officials provided an explanation for what changed to allow the tax credits to be awarded.

“The applicant for Dogwood Terrace provided all necessary information to secure financing approval this year,” Lauren Stanforth, spokeswoman for New York State Homes & Community Renewal, which administered the subsidies awards, said in a statement.

Town of Hempstead Housing Authority Executive Director Ed Cumming said in a statement, “With tax credit approval now secured for Dogwood Terrace, the Housing Authority is proceeding with the facility's modernization, despite New York State dragging its feet with unnecessary administrative hurdles and delays throughout the process.”

In December, the housing authority submitted an application to HUD to designate 12 of its 14 low-income housing developments as "elderly only." The authority had sought the same designation in 2009 but was denied, according to the new application, which laid out the authority's argument for elderly-only housing. 

"The lack of affordable housing for the elderly in and throughout the Town of Hempstead and surrounding Nassau County has reached crisis levels and is coinciding with a period in which poverty among elderly in the region is on a sharp rise," the application stated. 

Dogwood Terrace residents said they are worried about their planned relocation during the two-year construction period at 1178 Martha Place.

“We’re scared,” resident John Heaphy, 82, said. “We want them to guarantee that we’re coming back.”

Heaphy said residents have been told they’ll receive something in writing, but to date they haven’t seen it.

“We have people that are afraid to move; this is their safe haven,” Heaphy said. “People came into this facility with problems and lived in shelters and they felt they finally found a place where they're going to have some comfort in their later years of life.”

Heaphy said the move itself will be a disruption because residents will need to find new doctors, pharmacies and grocery stores. 

But resident Christine Sarner, 80, said the move is overdue. 

"There's a crack in my wall that you wouldn't believe," she said. "We need another building, there's no doubt about that but we also need to be handled with care."