Practical guidance for complex community housing needs

Why Work With TNRA

We’re not policy theorists — we’re the team that passed a referendum, raised tens of millions of dollars for housing, and continues to sit on the zoning boards and task forces that decide what gets built next. Whether you’re a town seeking to stand up a Community Housing Fund Advisory Board, a congregation exploring housing on underused land, or a developer navigating East End zoning, True North Realty Associates brings the relationships, the regulatory fluency, and the track record to get community housing built — sustainably, and with the community on your side.

What We Help You Do

Community engagement. We run the public process — town forums, advisory boards, and coalition-building — that turns local opposition into local buy-in, drawing on the same organizing playbook that passed the Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Fund (East End Beacon (new tab)).

Financing pathways. We help clients understand and access dedicated community housing funding mechanisms, including transfer-tax-funded programs like the Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Fund (AIA Peconic (new tab)).

Sustainable development guidance. Every recommendation is grounded in a sustainability lens — “sustainable, environmentally sound, attractive multifamily properties, from duplexes and fourplexes to 16- and 32-apartment developments” — that protects the East End’s rural, seaside character while expanding housing (Newsday; East End Beacon).

Faith-based and nonprofit partnerships. Faith organizations are often overlooked stakeholders in community housing, despite frequently holding land and community trust that make projects possible. TNRA’s approach draws directly on Michael’s own experience coordinating within a congregation: he served as President of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork (UUCSF) Board of Trustees from 2020 to 2022, spanning the height of the pandemic, and later joined its High Impact Community Outreach (HICO) grant committee in 2024 (UUCSF Press Releases). The HICO fund itself — which Michael helped establish — has awarded more than $211,000 in grants to over 25 East End nonprofits, a track record of coordinating funding decisions across a faith community and its nonprofit partners (East End Beacon).

We advise municipalities and organizations on zoning reforms — accessory apartments, smaller lots, multifamily formats, and as-of-right affordable housing — that unlock new housing supply without sacrificing community character (East End Beacon).

TNRA understands how to structure housing projects that congregations and community organizations can champion (UUCSF Press Releases; East End Beacon).

Community Housing Only Gets Built When Everyone Rows Together

Community housing projects fail for one reason more than any other: the people who need to agree — town boards, community members, faith-based organizations, developers, and funders — never get organized around a shared plan.

True North Realty Associates LLC (TNRA) exists to close that gap. As a Conscious Community Development firm, TNRA provides the technical assistance that helps towns, villages, faith-based organizations, and developers conduct the community engagement that turns a housing idea into a financed, built project (LinkedIn; AIA Peconic).

Why Stakeholder Coordination Is the Hard Part

Housing policy on Long Island’s East End touches an unusually wide set of interests at once: multiple town governments, zoning and planning boards, faith congregations that often hold the land, private developers who need financing certainty, and residents who must be won over from opposition to support.

Our Coordination Framework

1. Convene the right table. Before any plan or referendum, we identify and bring together every stakeholder group with a stake in the outcome — elected officials, planners, congregations, civic groups, nonprofit partners, and prospective developers — so decisions get made, with buy-in, instead of re-litigated at every step.
2. Build durable local structures. Rather than relying on one-time wins, we help stand up standing bodies that keep stakeholders coordinated over time. After the 2022 referendum, East End YIMBY’s roadmap called for forming town-level Community Housing Fund Advisory Boards in each participating town, plus new East End YIMBY chapters in Southampton, East Hampton, and Southold to keep local coalitions active (East End Beacon).
3. Coordinate across town lines. Community housing funding on the East End is inherently multi-jurisdictional. The Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Fund required simultaneous voter approval across four separate towns — East Hampton, Southampton, Southold, and Shelter Island — on the same November 2022 ballot (Suffolk Times). Pulling that off required aligning four town governments, their respective constituencies, and a shared public message at the same time — the kind of cross-jurisdictional coordination TNRA specializes in.
4. Sit inside the governance process, not outside it. Coordination is far more effective when it comes with a seat at the table. Michael sat on the inaugural Town of Southampton Community Housing Advisory Board in 2023-2024, serves as a Member of the North Haven Village Zoning Board of Appeals, was a Board Member of the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals (Jan 2018–Jun 2024), sits on the Peconic Land Trust Public Policy Committee, and is a member of the AIA Peconic Community Housing Task Force (AIA Peconic; LinkedIn). That governance access means TNRA can coordinate stakeholders with direct knowledge of how zoning and variance decisions actually get made.
5. Keep the coalition informed and accountable. Coordination doesn’t end at launch — it requires continuously reporting results back to every stakeholder so trust holds. In a July 2026 update, Michael reported that the Community Housing Fund had raised more than $88 million in its first three years and proposed rebalancing the transfer tax between conservation and housing to keep momentum going — the kind of transparent progress reporting that keeps town boards, funders, and residents aligned over the long run. See the YouTube – Keeping It Real.

Coordinating Faith-Based Stakeholders

Faith organizations are often overlooked stakeholders in community housing, despite frequently holding land and community trust that make projects possible. TNRA’s approach draws directly on Michael’s own experience coordinating within a congregation: he served as President of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork (UUCSF) Board of Trustees from 2020 to 2022, spanning the height of the pandemic, and later joined its High Impact Community Outreach (HICO) grant committee in 2024 (UUCSF Press Releases). The HICO fund itself — which Michael helped establish — has awarded more than $211,000 in grants to over 25 East End nonprofits, a track record of coordinating funding decisions across a faith community and its nonprofit partners (East End Beacon).

Coordinating Around a Shared Public Narrative

Stakeholder coordination also means managing the public conversation so opposition doesn’t fracture consensus. Michael has represented this coordinated message consistently across channels — testifying at a National Low Income Housing Coalition webinar on the referendum’s path from the New York State legislature to the ballot (NLIHC), writing a Newsday guest essay in support of Concern Housing’s Liberty Gardens development in Southampton (Newsday), and appearing as a panelist representing True North at a June 2026 Cutchogue Civic Association forum on the North Fork housing crisis (East End Beacon). Consistently reinforced across town boards, civic associations, and regional media, that single narrative — that restrictive zoning is pricing out the East End’s “human infrastructure” of teachers, firefighters, healthcare workers, farmers, and fishers — is what keeps disparate stakeholders coordinated around the same goal (Dan’s Papers).

Proof It Works

• $650 million+ projected for East End housing initiatives from the Peconic Bay Region Community Housing Fund transfer tax that Michael’s coordinated campaign helped pass across four towns (AIA Peconic).
• $88 million+ raised by the Community Housing Fund in its first three years alone .
• 2022 NYHC Public Service Award — East End YIMBY, the coalition Michael founded and coordinates, was honored by the New York Housing Conference for New York’s YIMBY Movement, alongside Open New York and the Welcome Home Westchester campaign (New York Housing Conference).
• 2026 AIA Peconic Community Award — recognizing Michael’s dedication to community housing and impact on the East End’s built environment, awarded April 30, 2026 (AIA Peconic).

Bring Your Stakeholders to One Table

Whether you’re a town trying to align with neighboring municipalities on a shared housing fund, a congregation weighing whether to put land to community use, or a developer who needs local buy-in before breaking ground, True North Realty Associates coordinates the people who have to agree before anything gets built — and stays at the table, through governance seats and continued reporting, until it does.

Credentials & Civic Standing

TNRA consulting work is backed by direct governance experience and an extensive civic network across the East End: