The Green at Gardiner’s Point, the name given to 50 rental apartments at 286 and 290 Three Mile Harbor Road, jointly developed by Georgica Green Ventures and the East Hampton Housing Authority, has begun accepting applications for residency. Tenants will be selected in August. Katy Casey, the executive director of the housing authority, told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday that she hopes households are moved in by the beginning of the school year.
“I’m happy to announce that as of today, the applications are available,” she said at a town board meeting on Tuesday. A drawing will be held to determine the order in which the applicants will be considered for tenancy. “It’s often referred to as a ‘lottery,’ but I don’t love the word, because it seems people have won something. It’s really just to order the applications and to ensure fairness.”
Thirty of the units in the complex are two-bedroom apartments, while 10 have one bedroom and 10 have three. Two income levels will be represented within the complex, with 41 apartments for people earning up to 60 percent of the area median income and eight reserved for Section 8 subsidies. Another apartment is for the resident manager.
Ms. Casey gave examples of eligible income levels. A single person earning less than $65,640, a two-person household earning less than $75,000, or a three-person household earning less than $84,360 would all be eligible. A full eligibility chart is available on the East Hampton Housing Authority website.
A one-bedroom apartment at Gardiner’s Point will rent for $1,500, a two-bedroom for $1,784, and a three-bedroom for $2,045. Market-rate rents for apartments of the same general size in East Hampton have been assessed as $2,690, $3,150, and $4,080.
The Town of East Hampton pitched in $25,000 of seed money to get the project started and Suffolk County and New York State contributed about $1.7 million each. The remainder came from a construction loan that transitioned into a FreddieMac mortgage. Financing for such a development is complex, involving tax credits.
The parcel was purchased in 2020; it took only four years to build. Councilman David Lys said at an early Community Housing Fund meeting, “It was stated that it would typically take about six years from a purchased property to ‘keys in the door.’ You did it in two-thirds of that time frame, on a major project on one of the largest affordable housing units that the town has ever seen. Kudos to the East Hampton Housing Authority.”
Ms. Casey in turn commended Georgica Green Ventures, saying that it had great relationships with the state, understood the funding process, and simply had “the juice to get it done. That’s what makes it go quickly: private-public partnerships.”
Long before ground was broken on the project in August 2022, the Town Board had to rezone the parcel, placing it in the Affordable Housing Overlay District. The lot is long and rectangular, touching the northwest corner of the Bistrian Gravel Corporation sand mine and running west to east between Three Mile Harbor Road and Springs-Fireplace Road.
SBJ Group was the architect for Gardiner’s Point and Simplex Homes built “the boxes” and finished the interiors, said Ms. Casey. Two engineering companies, R&M Engineering and Ventrop Engineering Consulting Group, worked on the project, as well. There were some surprises during construction, including a boulder at least 18 feet in circumference, that broke a heavy excavator twice. “We decided to leave it,” said Ms. Casey.
The application period runs through July 20.
“I want to point out, we need to receive the original application in hard copy, with an original signature from an adult,” Ms. Casey told the board. Applications are available at ccasey17.wixsite.com/eh-housing-authority and must be taken to the housing authority’s office at 316 Accabonac Road during office hours, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday to Friday. “A ready, well-prepared application is going to get a decision much more quickly,” said Ms. Casey.
“This is big news,” said Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez. “I’ve had the pleasure to visit the complex. The apartments have big windows, nice appliances, spacious closets. They’re really very well done.”
