Affordable Cottages to Be Rebuilt on 114

The Sag Harbor Community Housing Trust is moving forward with a plan to rebuild eight cottages on Route 114 just outside Sag Harbor Village for use as affordable housing, representatives told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday.

The 2.5-acre property contains nine separate units that were built just after World War II as unheated, seasonal cottages but were converted to year-round dwellings in the 1960s and have provided affordable year-round housing for decades, Ed Reale, a member of the housing trust board, said at a town board work session in Montauk.

While a certificate of occupancy authorizes nine cottages, one cottage lacks a kitchen. All nine will be torn down, and eight new ones (six one-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units) will be built in their place. The buildings are dilapidated and cannot be renovated, Mr. Reale said.

Tenants will be relocated and given the opportunity to move back to the site if they meet affordable-housing guidelines that will be put in place.

The community housing trust purchased the property in 2014 for $1.2 million, using money contributed by Cape Advisors, the developers of the condos in the former Bulova watchcase factory in Sag Harbor. In lieu of providing on-site affordable housing, the developers were required by the Suffolk County Planning Commission to pay a fee toward future affordable housing.

Plans have been developed in conjunction with East Hampton Town’s Housing and Community Development office, and with the Windmill Housing Development Corporation, the private, nonprofit affordable-housing group that administers the Windmill Village I and II senior-housing complexes in East Hampton and the St. Michael’s senior housing in Amagansett, as well as operating the cottage complex on Route 114.

Two other affordable-housing consultants, James Mitchell and Nina Stewart, a former head of East Hampton’s housing site, are also involved.

The money deposited by Cape Advisors into the housing trust, a total of $2.5 million, will serve as seed money for the project; state and county housing grants are being sought. It is anticipated, Mr. Reale said, that prospective tenants with annual incomes of $65,000 to $85,000 would be eligible, based on federal affordable-housing guidelines.

The property is in the Wainscott School District. Children who have been living there have been attending the Wainscott School, said Mr. Reale, so the redevelopment is not expected to have an impact on the district. At the request of East Hampton Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, he said, he would give a presentation about the project at an upcoming Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee meeting.

The reconstruction plans comply with East Hampton Town zoning, and, although the housing trust is seeking comment from the town’s Planning Department, do not require site-plan review, according to Mr. Reale. An advanced-technology wastewater system that will reduce nitrogen emissions to as low as 10 milligrams per liter will be installed.

Groundbreaking will depend on when funding can be obtained, but a construction timeline of 18 months, with a start date perhaps in October, is anticipated.