Residents of a flood-prone area battered by Superstorm Sandy are getting a financial lifeline, with state officials announcing a plan to buy all 129 homes in a neighborhood sandwiched between a tidal marsh and the Atlantic Ocean.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday announced the state was extending its Sandy buyout program to homeowners in Staten Island's Ocean Breeze section, a former beach colony.
The community, like others on Staten Island's southeast coast, has flooded repeatedly since people started building small bungalows there in the early days of the automobile age, and the superstorm, spawned when Hurricane Sandy merged with two other weather systems, appears to have finally persuaded them to give the land back to the ocean.
Two residents drowned when the storm struck in October 2012. Rushing floodwaters knocked down 20 houses. Most of the other houses were badly damaged. Some residents have made repairs, but many houses remain boarded up.
Under a program already at work in a neighboring area, Oak Beach, residents will be offered a little above the pre-storm value of their homes to give them to the state. Participation is voluntary, but Frank Moszczynski, an Ocean Breeze resident for 43 years and president of the local civic association, said 117 people have indicated they intend to say yes to the state's offer.
"It's not nice to see your neighborhood go like that," he said, adding that few people were interested in staying to rebuild. "We never want to have to do a memorial to any of our neighbors ever again."
Mr. Cuomo said the storm showed the neighborhood should be returned to nature.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20131119/REAL_ESTATE/131129975
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