The residents of the apartments at 355 Newbridge Road are experiencing a threat to our safety and rights to live in a peaceful environment. We have sent many letters to the Town of Oyster Bay Housing Authority and HUD regarding their placement and screening procedures of the new disabled persons that are now being placed at 355 and throughout most of the Town of Oyster Bay complexes they have jurisdiction over. I know and accept the fact that the new classification for disabled has opened the door to persons with mental, physical, former drug addicts, reformed alcoholics and former prisoners, to be housed in our communities, but not when it poses a safety issue to weak and frail seniors. Tenant selection officers are not screening new tenants properly. There is also a Section 504, in the HUD laws that states after careful screening a housing provider can deny applicants if they have a record of adversely affecting others such as disturbing neighbors, destroying property and failing to pay rent on time. Under Section 504, the housing provider must make sound and reasonable judgement based on evidence of current conduct or a history of overt acts.
The residents just want our safe communities back, we have earned the right to live in peace and harmony. If the TOB and HUD refuse to screen properly, they better have security systems in place, such as cameras, a superintendent on premises 24/7, or security cars patrolling the communities.
After careful review of my lease agreement, there is a paragraph under Tenant Obligations that reads that persons shall not engage in criminal activity, including drug related on or near the Housing Authority premises, that there should be no unlawful activity in the unit or on the property grounds and that tenants shall not engage in business in or on grounds. Tenants shall not act in a manner that will disturb the rights or comforts of neighbors, but this is all going on and the Town of Oyster Bay is doing nothing about it. I have lived here four years and at the time of signing my lease agreement, no one mentioned I was moving into a HUD mandated facility. If they had known, many residents would not have moved here.
Homeowners in the surrounding area need to see that the Town of Oyster Bay tenant placement policies are bringing down their property values.
Leigh Di Pasquale
355 Newbridge Road Tenant
