By Jonathan LaMantia[email protected]@jonlamantia

Long Islanders searching for affordable apartment options can apply for one of 53 units available in Hempstead Village just steps from the Long Island Rail Road.

Estella, a five-story, 96-unit, apartment building, is accepting housing lottery applications through May 29 to select tenants who meet certain income criteria to pay below-market rents, according to nonprofit developer Concern Housing.

Rents at the five-story development start at $1,256 for a one-bedroom, with the majority of one-bedroom units available for $1,549 a month. A smaller number of two-bedroom units are available from $1,490 to $1,842.

Those rents are well below market rate for apartments in central Nassau County, where asking rents for a one-bedroom apartment average $2,814, according to property data and analytics firm CoStar. That data covers only professionally managed buildings with at least five units and excludes senior apartments and all-affordable housing developments such as Estella.

WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND

“You can’t rent anything close to as nice as this for those prices in this area,” said Elizabeth Lunde, Concern’s chief operating officer. “When you look at these incomes this really is workforce housing. This is for people who are largely employed who fall into that band of folks making too much in some cases for deeply affordable housing and too little for market-rate housing.”

Another 42 units in the building, at 150 Bedell St., are set aside for supportive housing for veterans and people with disabilities, with one unit reserved for the building’s superintendent. Concern will identify tenants for those units outside of the lottery process.

Among the lottery units, the cheapest rents are available to individuals earning at least $50,240 but no more than $57,750 for an individual or $66,000 for a couple. The most a four-person household could earn and live in Estella is $98,940, according to income guidelines.

The rents are designed to be affordable to people earning 50% to 60% of Long Island’s area median income because rents do not exceed 30% of a household’s annual income, which meets federal standards for affordability.

Even with that narrow criteria, Lunde said Concern Housing expects to receive far more applications than the 53 units that are available.

“We typically get hundreds of applications, if not more, when we open a new property like this,” Lunde said, noting the criteria are based on state requirements.

Those who do qualify will be able to stay in their apartment even if their income rises. “If people’s incomes go up after they move in, we congratulate them,” she said.

Concern co-developed the $72.4 million property with Georgica Green Ventures, using a combination of state financing, low-income housing tax credits and other public and private sources. The site for Estella was previously used as a parking lot for a school bus company.

Across the street, affordable housing developer Conifer is building a $155 million, 228-unit development that will feature ground-floor retail, including a Compare Fresh supermarket, Newsday previously reported. That building, 159 Main St., is slated to open next year.

Estella can help village residents and other Long Islanders interested in living in Hempstead who have struggled to find an affordable place, said Hempstead Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr. He said his office frequently hears from village residents looking for housing, and he hopes Estella and other new housing in the village will attract young professionals and businesses.

“It presents a great opportunity for some of our young professionals here on Long Island that find it difficult to find a place to stay or to afford to have somewhere to stay,” he said.

In March, New York State awarded the village $10 million through its Downtown Revitalization Initiative, and after an application process, it will choose from proposed projects that include new housing but also streetscape improvements and a new dining and entertainment corridor.

While the village has embraced projects like Estella, Hobbs said he would like to see affordable options built in neighboring communities, such as Garden City and Rockville Centre.

The two developments will help deliver apartments near transit that local residents can afford, said Brandy Watson, president of Hempstead Community Land Trust, a nonprofit focused on creating affordable homeownership.

“These two projects are going to bring housing affordability to so many people who need it,” said Watson, who has lived in Hempstead since 1973.

Applicants can mail applications to Concern Housing C/O Estella Apartments, P.O. BOX 335, Hempstead, NY 11551. More information is available at www.concernhousing.org.

[email protected]@jonlamantia

Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.

The downtown of Hempstead, New York State’s largest village located right on Long Island, is getting a $10 million facelift after years of economic struggles.

The investment was announced Monday by Hempstead village officials and state leaders who promised to breathe new life into the area that was once the center for cultural arts and home to landmark retailers like Abraham & Straus and Gimbels.

“Long Island’s downtowns are more than hubs for business, they’re the infrastructure that inspires people to build a better world around them,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement announcing the funding.

The $10 million revitalization project aimed at restoring Hempstead’s downtown, which for decades was known as “the hub” of culture and business across the island, is set to bring major changes that include infrastructure upgrades and new buildings.

This includes improving water, sewer, and transportation systems as well as building more affordable housing in the neighborhood and moving all of the essential government departments in Hempstead’s village to one location.

Additionally, state and local leaders say their focus on restoring widespread access to the arts, entertainment, and public spaces will restore the vibrancy that made the area a go-to destination for both shoppers and tourists decades ago.

Hochul’s office also announced on Monday that Farmingdale will receive $4.5 million in revitalization funds.

“We’re creating stronger communities that honor their history and possibility — paving a path for generations of Long Islanders to experience all they have to offer,” the governor said.

Hempstead’s downtown used to draw over 10,000 visitors daily and boasted a bustling retail scene that made it a key commercial center on Long Island.

However, the area was hit by the rise of nearby malls, a shrinking manufacturing base, and a series of development projects that displaced local businesses, and by the 1960s, the opening of Roosevelt Field Mall and the loss of Mitchel Field Airbase were the nails in the coffin for Hempstead’s once-booming economy.

Now, state and local leaders say this $10 million revitalization initiative is aimed at reversing those trends.

With the historic downtown area plagued with boarded-up storefronts and struggling businesses, the plan is to attract new opportunities, and create thousands of jobs for the town’s growing and diverse population, which includes Long Island’s largest African American and Latino communities.

“Hempstead is a proud, hardworking community, and this $10 million investment will go a long way in making our downtown a place where families, businesses, and visitors can thrive,” Hempstead Mayor Waylyn Hobbs told reporters.

State and local leaders say they are optimistic these efforts will attract new private investments and create economic opportunities for residents, who many feel have been left behind in a town that’s seen better days.

Facing a $34 million budget shortfall, the leaders of the Hempstead school district are blaming … those eeeeeeeevil charter schools and the diabolical parents who (gasp!) want a decent education for their kids.

Seriously: Charters have attracted nearly half the district’s families, so of course that leaves it needing to shrink its regular public school spending.

Indeed, the real scandal here is that it’s only now feeling the squeeze — yet another telltale that New York insanely overfunds its regular public school systems.

Let’s get one thing straight: When families flee traditional public schools for charters and take state dollars with them, they’re not the ones guilty of anything.

It’s the schools’ fault — the administrators and educrats and, in many cases, teachers share the blame.

Look at Hempstead: Within the past decade, its schools were failing kids utterly, with a wretched high school graduation rate below 60%.

That’s what drove families out (4,000 out of about 10,000 district kids attend charters there), and is plainly a huge reason why Hempstead has the most charters in the Empire State (outside NYC).

If bad schools then face closure, that’s good.

Yet the state’s been keeping Hempstead’s failure factories afloat: The district expects almost $250 million in state funds next year, up $83 million from four years ago, and has a $60 million reserve fund.

And still these jokers whine, “It’s not enoouuuuuugh!”

The initial legislative response to this problem shows the same perverse set of priorities: State Sen. Siela Bynoe wants to ban new charters within five miles of the Hempstead, Roosevelt and Uniondale school districts.

That’s right: Protect teachers and schools from the consequences of failing the students and families depending on them, by denying the parents and kids more choice.

Thing is, New York’s public schools don’t exist to furnish teachers and staff with plum salaries and great benefits and ironclad pensions.

They’re for educating kids, period.

If they fail to educate, then they should vanish off the face of the Earth.

As should the educrats and politicos striving to protect the special interests at the kids’ expense.

Long Island’s Hempstead School District says it plans to close an elementary school and cut jobs over a $34 million budget shortfall it blames on parents preferring charter to public schools.

District officials in the country’s largest township are pleading with Gov. Kathy Hochul to step in to close the financial gap to help alleviate such crises.

“Without financial relief, our students will suffer,” said Victor Pratt, Hempstead’s school board president, at a press conference at Hempstead Senior High last week.

In New York, students can opt to go to a charter school in their town over their local public school, with the local public school district footing the bill.

For Hempstead, this means the district will be responsible for the $106 million tuition bill for the nearly 4,000 local students attending charter schools next year — or more than $28,000 per student, the district said.

By comparison, Hempstead had around 5,700 students enrolled in its own public schools in 2023-24. It was not immediately unclear what it cost to educate each of its public-school students.

The overall $106 million figure for Hempstead charter students is $20 million more than this past year and nearly double what the district shelled out the year before, according to school officials — adding they expect it to only continue to balloon with each passing year.

Hochul’s Long Island spokesman, Gordon Tepper, told the Post that Hempstead is already set to receive $247 million in state funds next year — over $83 million than four years ago, calling the amount “a massive increase.”

Ron Edelson, a spokesman for the Hempstead School District, said the increase is being consumed by charter-school tuition, so the district isn’t close to breaking even — receiving about $12 million more in state aid than the previous year.

“They’re right, the state did give us an increase in aid,” Edelson said of Hochul administration officials. “But it is all eaten up by charter payments, so what are we really getting?

“If the increase in state funding has to go toward an increase in charter payments, there is no increase in funding,” Edelson said — pointing out that a third of the district’s budget is set to go toward charter tuition next year.

He noted that Hempstead has five charter schools within its borders, with one more opening next year. Excluding New York City, it is home to the most charters in the state.

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District officials added that Hempstead pays a disproportionate amount of tuition fees compared to other districts around the state, or about $8,000 more per student than the surrounding towns. Edelson said the state sets those amounts and that the district has asked the state why it costs more to educate charter students in Hempstead but has yet to get an answer.

Evolution of education

Edelson said the elementary school that the district plans to close could end up being the David Paterson Elementary School, named after the former governor.

It could be repurposed for special-ed kids or used for night classes, he said.

About 15 teachers and an undetermined number of administrators could lose their jobs if the school shutters, although at least some may be moved into other positions and others given incentives to retire, the rep said.

Hempstead school officials said that if there is no more state help soon, the district also will have to dip into its $60 million reserve fund, which Edelson claimed could be depleted by 2028 at this rate and lead to massive cuts — a major step back from recent years.

Hempstead was once a struggling district with a graduation rate of under 60% fewer than 10 years ago, leading to the boom of charter-school options in the area.

But the district has since had a major rejuvenation — increasing its public-school graduation rates to nearly 90% in 2024 and hoping to keep the momentum going, although it says it can’t without extra funding.

Charter schools in the area argue students shouldn’t have to wait for the district to fix its problems in order to have an adequate education if there is another tax-payer funded option up the street.

“The money belongs to all the taxpayers and individuals in the community,” said Sarah Brewster, co-founder of Evergreen Charter School in Hempstead.

“The money follows the child where that child goes to school. It does a disservice to pit charter schools against traditional public schools,” she said.

State Sen. Siela Bynoe, who previously represented the area as a Nassau County legislator, introduced a bill last week prohibiting any new charter schools within a five-mile radius of the Hempstead, Roosevelt, and Uniondale school districts.

Bynoe told Newsday that she is committed to helping Hempstead’s district and advocating state leaders to allocate additional funding for it.