Huntington's ADU proposal now DOA

Daily Point

ADUs are dead in Huntington

Nearly two months after a Huntington public hearing devolved into ugly vitriol with racist and homophobic overtones, the effort to legalize accessory dwelling units, including basement apartments, in the town appears to be dead.

Board members Sal Ferro and Dave Bennardo, who initially backed the plan, told The Point they no longer supported the measure.

“I am on an island,” town board member Joan Cergol told The Point. “We started out and we seemed to be okay, and it was a bipartisan measure… and somehow, we lost our way. It’s just unfortunate because so much of the hateful, divisive rhetoric loomed too large and really overtook the conversation,” she said.

Bennardo said that the overwhelmingly negative reaction at the June public hearing led to his shift in thinking.

“The miscalculation was that this would be something that would be either popular or benign in the community and it clearly wasn’t,” he said. “All you can go by is who’s in front of you, and the people who didn’t support it came out in droves.”

And Bennardo said while he found some comments during the meeting “wholly inappropriate,” he thought many residents had legitimate concerns. In the end, he said, he felt he had to side with those who showed up. “There are times as an elected official, that you swim against the current and you have a profile in courage moment but those are reserved for true moments where you have to swim against the public current because your heart and soul tells you it’s the right thing, polls and popularity be damned,” Bennardo added. “That’s not the case here.”

Calling the ADU plan “a nice little drop in the bucket,” Bennardo said it was not transformational enough for him to try to push against what he felt was the collective view of town residents. But he said he understood the negative repercussions of that decision.

“I do feel badly that after carrying this bill, I couldn’t make it a reality, and I do feel badly that we didn’t advance the cause of our children being able to live here and our seniors not being able to stay here,” he said.

Back in January, anonymous mailers targeted Ferro for his support of the ADU measure, which then focused only on basement apartments. At the time, Ferro said the pushback “only makes me more convinced this is the right thing to do.”

But Ferro, who previously headed Alure Home Improvements, told The Point that the June board meeting shifted his position. While Ferro said he was “uncomfortable with some of the comments, tone and tenor” of the meeting, he noted that many residents made “compelling arguments” and raised questions that he and other board members could not answer.

And he said he had become particularly concerned with the expansion of the proposal to include detached garages, cottages and other structures on a single family home’s property. But Ferro said he had no plans to try to change or reexamine the proposal anytime soon.

“I don’t have any appetite to revisit it in the near future,” Ferro said. “I’m disappointed that it’s dead and that we were unable to create a compelling resolution, and I’m disappointed in the process and how it all turned out but the resolution as it was just didn’t work out.”

But Cergol, who has decided not to run again for town board this year, said the shift was indicative of larger problems in the town – particularly when it comes to housing.

Said Cergol: “When a bipartisan proposal dies on the vine because of the white noise of misunderstanding and disinformation, we have a lot of work to do.”

Ferro and Bennardo, who are not up for reelection this year, both said their attention has turned to the potential for new development, including housing, in the Melville corridor.

Whether their thinking on that effort will change once residents start pushing back remains to be seen.

— Randi F. Marshall randi.marshall@newsday.com

Pencil Point

No laughing matter

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Final Point

Darling eyes Thomas' State Senate seat

With Sen. Kevin Thomas focused on a run for Congress next year, Assemb. Taylor Darling is making a move for the state's 6th Senate District seat. Darling recently filed her paperwork to set up an exploratory committee and hired a fundraiser for a State Senate campaign next year.

“We want to see what we can raise before I make an official run,” said Darling, who noted that a sizable war chest could fend off other Democrats in a primary challenge. If she were to win the majority-minority seat, Darling said she would be the first Black state senator from Long Island.

Taylor told The Point that she will not make a formal announcement until Thomas, the first Indian American in the State Senate, actually files petitions this February to run for Congress, a move that would bar him from running for state office in 2024.

The 2022 redistricting of the 6th SD did not include Thomas' home and under state law he would have had to move from his current residence in Levittown or run in the heavily Republican 5th District if he wanted to return to Albany. Thomas does not live in the 4th Congressional District either, which is why he announced his run from his parents’ home in Elmont, which is in the 4th. However, federal law does not require him to move into the district to run for Congress.

Darling, in one of the great Democratic primary upsets in Long Island history, defeated Earlene Hooper in 2018, then the deputy Assembly speaker who had represented the district for 30 years. “I was plucked out of obscurity,” Darling said about her recruitment by the county party which had grown disillusioned with Hooper.

A Thomas House run sets off a musical chairs moment for Democrats in their stronghold. Darling’s 18th Assembly District seat falls completely into the 6th Senate District. Darling said she has worked on recruiting candidates to run for her Assembly seat should she make the Senate run. “We have identified some individuals who would be prepared and ready to run. It’s important to have a close relationship because the Senate and Assembly representatives have to have a partnership,” she said.

The Senate district, which has a heavily Democratic enrollment, is unlikely to change hands in a presidential year. It is the only Senate seat the party controls in Nassau County.

As of now the CD4 primary field is crowded. Besides Thomas, other announced candidates are former Hempstead town Supervisor Laura Gillen, the 2022 nominee, as well as Olympic skater Sarah Hughes, perennial candidate Patricia Maher, and several others. The winner would face Republican freshman incumbent Anthony D’Esposito in what is considered a top seat for Democrats to flip next year.

— Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com