Eighty percent of the 183 homeowners in a six-block section of Oakwood Beach have banded together to ask Gov. Cuomo to buy them out — all of them at once.
DEBBIE EGAN-CHIN/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Residents of Fox Beach ask the government to buy them out of their houses at pre-storm rates and use the land as a barrier to protect the rest of Staten Island from future storm damage.
They’ve had enough.
On the far end of Staten Island, on a vulnerable patch of marshland, a collection of modest bungalows was hit so hard by Hurricane Sandy that the entire neighborhood is getting ready to pack up and leave.
Eighty percent of the 183 homeowners in a six-block section of Oakwood Beach have banded together to ask Gov. Cuomo to buy them out — all of them at once.
“I’m done,” declared a heartbroken Joe Monte, a city worker who has lived for 22 years on Fox Beach Ave. “I can’t handle it no more. I can’t go near this home. I can’t see this home. It’s affected my family. Just get us out of there. I want to feel normal again.”
Monte and most of his neighbors are banking on Cuomo’s promise to buy out homeowners in extremely vulnerable Sandy-affected areas. Cuomo wants to build buffer zones to absorb the high water of future storms.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/s-neighborhood-abandons-hope-article-1.1266045