FAIR DEAL: Wreckage in Oakwood Beach, SI, where Gov. Cuomo yesterday said the state buyout program will begin. (
)
Gov. Cuomo said yesterday that 169 of 192 residents of Staten Island’s storm devastated Oakwood Beach have taken him up on his offer to buy out their Sandy-ravaged homes.
The people who live in the battered neighborhood have been enticed by a deal that will pay them 100 percent of their damaged home’s prestorm market value — plus 5 percent if the homeowners stay on Staten Island, Cuomo said. The feds will pick up 75 percent of the tab.
“Let’s build back smarter than before, and let’s do it right,” Cuomo said during a visit Monday to the College of Staten Island. “Let’s also recognize that there are some places that Mother Nature owns.”
While most of homeowners in the shorefront community want buyouts, they still have mixed feelings about saying goodbye to their neighborhood.
“It’s with a heavy heart that we do it, but it’s a necessary decision to be made,” said resident Barbara Mercado.
The 55-year-old woman had lived in her home — where she raised her two children — for 36 years before Sandy ravaged it.
She is still paying her mortgage and now renting a new place — a situation she can’t afford much longer.
Joe Tirone, who bought his Oakwood Beach home five years ago, said there’s not enough left of the neighborhood to make it worth staying.
“At least 90 percent of the neighborhood is uninhabited, and most people have no intention of moving back,” Tirone said.
“It’s a pretty scary place to live, especially at night.”
Cuomo said, “This is a decision, more or less, that we want to leave to the individual homeowners in the community.”
He said the state will “repurpose” the devastated neighborhoods as recreation areas. But he won’t force those homeowners who want to stay to abandon their houses.
He plans to make the buyouts available in other neighborhoods soon.