New Push to Legalize Tiana Pines Apartments

The owners of one of Hampton Bay's most targeted housing complexes, Tiana Pines Garden Apartments, is pushing the Town of Southampton for variances that would make its illegal apartments legal, despite objections from many in the community.

John Bennett, lawyer for the Carle Place owners, Domenico and Vincenza Iadevaia, told the town board that years of allowances for the property, from its construction in 1971 to its last granted certificate of occupancy in 1988, should give his clients the right to run the apartments without incurring fines, according to a 27 East article.

The owners were last cited in 2010 for operating illegal apartments at the motel, and are due in court on Feb. 1.

If the town legalizes Tiana Pines, it would go up against locals who say the apartments add to the area's overcrowding problem.

The Concerned Citizens of Hampton Bays, which formed in the summer initially as a grass-roots effort to fight Suffolk County's homeless Shelter at the Hidden Cove Motel, has been both vocal and active in blocking the conversion — In May, the group hired an attorney to fight the proposal. 

Read the 27 East story here.

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