Hicksville's newest building sits about as close to the train as a building can get. The Lisle, the four-story development at 100 Nelson Avenue that broke ground at the end of 2023, is leasing now, and market-rate listings there start above $3,100 a month. This week a different door opened: 19 of its apartments are being offered at below-market rents through a lottery, and any household that fits the income bands can apply for free until September 28.

What is actually on offer

The Long Island Housing Partnership, working with the building's ownership, is taking applications for 19 new rental units across two affordability tiers. Nine units are set aside at the 80 percent area median income level: one studio at $2,165 a month, four one-bedrooms at $2,309, and four two-bedrooms at $2,755. The other ten sit at the 100 percent level: four one-bedrooms at $2,924, five two-bedrooms at $3,492, and a single three-bedroom at $4,022.

Set those against the open market inside the same building, where advertised rents begin around $3,100 for the smallest units, and the value of the lower tier is plain. A one-bedroom at $2,309 in a brand-new elevator building with underground parking, landscaped courtyards and the LIRR platform a short walk away is not a number Nassau County produces on its own.

Who qualifies

Each tier comes with an income window, a floor as well as a ceiling, scaled to household size. A single applicant needs to earn between $55,224 and $92,050 for the 80 percent units, or between $73,994 and $115,000 for the 100 percent units. The bands rise with household size, topping out at $203,750 for a household of seven. The floor matters as much as the ceiling: these units are aimed at working households that earn too much for deep-subsidy housing and too little for the open market, which describes a very large share of the people who grew up here and are trying to stay.

Applications go through the Long Island Housing Partnership's online lottery system, and there is no fee to apply. The lottery does not hand out apartments directly; it sets the order in which applications are reviewed, after which income and household size are verified against the requirements. The deadline is September 28, 2026.

Why this building is the one to want

The Lisle is the largest piece of Hicksville's long-promised downtown rebuild to actually arrive. The 189-unit project was announced with a governor's press conference when it broke ground in December 2023, pitched as the anchor of a walkable district around the station, and it delivers the things that pitch promised: two levels of parking underground instead of a sea of asphalt, four interior courtyards, amenity space, and ground-floor retail slots along Nelson Avenue and Newbridge Road meant for shops and restaurants rather than blank wall.

Then there is the commute. Hicksville is one of the great junction points of the LIRR, where branches converge and express trains to Penn Station and Grand Central are routine. The whole argument for transit-oriented housing on Long Island, made for two decades in planning documents, is that someone should be able to rent a new apartment, walk to a fast train, and skip the second car payment. This lottery is that argument with a rent attached.

The fine print worth knowing

Nineteen units will draw far more than nineteen applications; lotteries like this on Long Island routinely pull hundreds. That is not a reason to skip it, it is a reason to apply properly: have income documentation ready, count your household accurately, and get the application in before the September 28 cutoff rather than at 11pm that night. The Long Island Housing Partnership runs these programs across Nassau and Suffolk and its staff answer questions by phone during business hours.

For a reader who has watched Hicksville's downtown plans move at the speed of paperwork for years, this is the part that finally touches a household budget. A new building by the tracks is nice. Nineteen chances to live in it for hundreds of dollars a month under market is news you can act on, for another three and a half weeks.