Developments spring up near Long Island train stations

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - For Sean Trent who recently moved to Long Island from Virginia...logistically it makes more sense to live near Farmingdale's downtown. 

“Being able to walk to the train, my wife commutes so it worked out for us,” Trent said. 

According to Eric Alexander with Vision Long Island, a downtown planning nonprofit organization, 13,000 transit oriented development units have been approved over the past 13 years. He says the most active areas are in Nassau and Western Suffolk. 

“Great Neck Plaza, Mineola, Westbury, Valley Stream. Suffolk, there’s Lindenhurst, Huntington, Bay Shore, Port Jeff and others,” Alexander said. 

...Others include Patchogue, Copaigue and Babylon. 

“A lot of people want the accessibility to the train station, city, they're not driving as much and they want that downtown feel,” said Nancy Jarvis, an Associate Broker for Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. 

Experts say the trend comes at the right time when many millennials and other generations are seeking alternative housing options for a variety of reasons. 

“Some want to be on a Main Street. Some for economic reasons find it beneficial for various tax law changes to live in a rental situations and others want to downsize,” said Alexander. 

Developer Steven Dubb has built two of these communities in the past two years. 

“Over half of our buyers are millennials moving out of New York City or from New Jersey who still want to be in the city a lot.” 

A trend that's become a multibillion dollar industry.