Babylon to consider mobile home relocation plan

The Babylon Town board Tuesday will vote on a relocation plan that would give $20,000 to households in a North Amityville mobile home park that a developer wants to bulldoze to make way for apartment buildings.

R Squared Real Estate Partners of Plainview is looking to build 500 apartments with retail space over five phases on the 20-acre site of Frontier Park. The park has more than 300 homes. Owners said they paid tens of thousands of dollars for their homes and about $600 per month to live in the park. Residents said most in the park are young families starting out, people with disabilities or seniors living on fixed incomes. The town has said that if the park is not developed it will be condemned by the county for health and safety reasons.

The relocation plan offers each household $20,000, to be paid out monthly by R Squared over a maximum of 36 months. The payments are to begin two weeks after the resident has left. Some of the money could be paid out earlier for expenses related to obtaining new housing, such as a house down payment and moving costs. The Glen Cove law firm of former Democratic Nassau Legis. David Mejias will handle any grievances regarding the distribution of the money.

A relocation plan was approved by the town board last July but finalized by the town only recently.

"We think it takes into account a lot of the different scenarios that the people would experience during the multiple phases," town attorney Joe Wilson said.

If approved Tuesday, the relocation plan will go before the board of the Long Island Housing Partnership, which will administer the plan and provide housing assistance.

R Squared partner Mitchell Rechler said in a statement that the company is offering "an unprecedented relocation package, especially since these residents do not own the property. We hope it will make their transition easier."

Residents will not receive the plan for at least several weeks. They were given notice of the redevelopment in 2011, at which time they were offered priority for the new apartments, credit for six months current rent, moving expenses up to $2,000 and three months of storage fees if they moved their mobile homes.

After an outcry from residents who said their homes are too old to move, R Squared offered $20,000 to residents to relocate but talks died after the park's civic association filed three lawsuits to stop the project, all of which remain before Justice Joseph Pastoressa in State Supreme Court. The association's lawyer, William Rapp, of Scarborough in Westchester County, has said he will ask the judge for a stay to stop construction until those cases are decided.

The Babylon Town zoning board has approved variances for the project and the Babylon Town Industrial Development Agency has granted a tax abatement expected to save R Squared $12 million. The developer still needs approval from the town planning board.

The town board will vote on entering into a partnership with the LIHP for the relocation plan during a meeting Tuesday at 10 a.m.