Tax break sought for Grand Ave. senior complex

Developer John Martino is seeking tax abatements from the Town of Hempstead on his 25-unit senior housing complex, Grand Manor Estates, at 2870 Grand Ave. in Baldwin.

The plan calls for a tax break that would see annual property taxes on all of the apartments drop from $153,694 to $64,500, according to documents provided to the Herald. In return for a 25-year tax abatement, the complex’s cooperative corporation would make an annual payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT.

On Oct. 3, the Hempstead Town Board postponed a vote on the matter indefinitely be-cause community members had many questions about the request, said Susan Trenkle-Pokalsky, a spokeswoman for Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney.

“The community voiced concerns about the tax effects of the PILOT in the Baldwin community,” King-Sweeney, a Republican from Wantagh, wrote in an email, “and to that end my office is facilitating a meeting between the applicant’s attorney, the town’s outside counsel on PILOTs, and community and school, fire, and sanitary district representatives.”

Under the plan, the town and the Baldwin School District must agree on a revenue figure that the district would receive annually, which might consist of an intermunicipal fund transfer from the town to the school district. Schools Superintendent Dr. Shari Camhi said that a deal that satisfied all interested parties had not yet been reached. “We are working toward an agreement that will benefit both our community and the school district,” Camhi said in an email.

Martino, who is also the developer of Halandia Shores, next to Grand Manor Estates, could not be reached by deadline for comment.

In 2004, the Town Board rezoned the property from residential to Golden Age, which allowed for the development of affordable senior housing, despite opposition from residents at the time. Under the zoning regulations, developers can request property-tax abatements.

The Grand Manor Estates units will be sold for no more than $258,000, and will be available to people age 62 and over who make no more than $45,000 per year if they live alone, or $60,000 if they live with one or more other people.

Dairen Ward, the Baldwin Civic Association’s Economic Development chairman, said he has concerns over how the PILOT might affect the community’s tax base — which is already lacking in the eyes of many residents. He also said he wanted to know how many other developments had been granted tax abatements.

“The BCA does not know how many other PILOT programs exist in Baldwin,” he said. “We have a shrinking tax base that’s not offering the amenities and services the Town of Hempstead needs, and Baldwin in particular.”

Erik Mahler, the Baldwin Chamber of Commerce president, said the project was done without providing long-term permanent job creation, and said he believes that a large tax break should not be given. “The Baldwin Chamber of Commerce generally is about business and creating revenue,” he said. “So some form of tax break, yes, but a large tax break . . . there’s no reason for that.”

The PILOT process recently came under fire by County Comptroller Jack Schnirman, a Democrat, whose office found that $6 million in revenue owed to Nassau County was lost because the town did not properly restore properties to the tax rolls after the abatement agreements were terminated or ended.

According to the audit, started by former Comptroller George Maragos in 2016, the Town of Hempstead did not notify the county of terminated PILOT agreements and failed to ensure expired ones were billed at their assessed values.

Schnirman did say, however, that the audit found $7 million in missing PILOT payments from 2017 and the first half of 2018 owed to the county by the town. “This is a great example of an audit getting real results for Nassau County,” he said in a statement. “Our investigation is shining a light on these wasteful practices, providing corrective actions and resulting in money being returned to county taxpayers.”

Since the audit, according to Schnirman, the Department of Assessment has taken measures to ensure that PILOT revenues are properly recorded and collected. Schnirman announced in February that he had started an audit of the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency to ensure that tax and other financial incentives granted to businesses foster economic growth.