| DAD'S
A DEVELOPER Tracy Dubb's dream house has little in common with any of the ones in her Jericho neighborhood. It's also nothing like many of the hundreds of Long Island luxury homes built by her developer father, Michael Dubb, a co-founder of the Beechwood Organization, a Jericho-based developer. To the 17-year-old, who just completed her junior year at Jericho High School, a dream house is actually something attainable, "something modest," she said, and something she and her friends ought to be able to afford when they return to Long Island, as many hope to do, after college. Of course, she said, that is the dream part. "I love Long Island, I grew up here, and it is where my family is. That's important to me," she said. Now, like her dad, Tracy Dubb is building, too. Her construction project: the Youth Council of the Long Island Housing Partnership. Contacting school principals and guidance counselors, she has been mobilizing teens around Long Island since March, outfitting them with statistics about affordable housing and support from the industry, including her father, who also developed Southwind Village, an affordable-housing community, for the partnership in Bay Shore. The partnership is relying on the younger Dubb's efforts, too. "We'll ask them [youth council members] to talk at public hearings where we are going for approvals" to build in various towns, said Peter Elkowitz, partnership president. The teens have a vested interest, he said, because "the houses we are planning now, by the time they get to concept and approval, that's five years, the timing is perfect" for them. Meanwhile, with school out, Dubb is taking part of the summer for a trip to the Caribbean. It's time away - in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands - but those 20 days won't really be time off. She'll be part of a teen service team from an organization called Lifeworks. "We may travel around," she said, "but we'll also be fixing things up, whatever the needs are in any particular community," she said. And that includes building the simple houses of other people's dreams. |