The state Department of Environmental Conservation is accepting comments on its plans to test two Dunkirk sites set to host new apartment housing.

The sites are a section of the Save-a-Lot Plaza on Fourth Street and the block bordered by Second Street, Washington and Park avenues, and the railroad tracks. The DEC opened the comment period Wednesday and it lasts until March 22.

According to DEC fact sheets, the Save-a-Lot site will get tested for soil and water contamination. “Previous investigations have detected semi-volatile organic compounds and metals in soil on site.”

The proposed development at the Save-a-Lot Plaza would include an apartment building with attached day care center, parking, and green space. It would remove two storefronts at the west end of the plaza, unoccupied since 2020. The plaza was originally built around a Bells Supermarket in 1985, with Save-a-Lot now occupying the former Bells space.

A similar soil and water investigation is slated for the Washington Avenue parcels. That site had PCBs found on it, in addition to semi-volatile organics and metals.

The apartments there would go on a site that has “an occupied two- and three-story brick and wood building, an occupied shed/machine shop, and a playground,” the DEC fact sheet states.

Regan Development received $500,000 from Dunkirk’s $10 million state-funded Downtown Revitalization Initiative for the two housing projects. The developers will start work after approval of applications for housing tax credit financing, Dunkirk Planning and Development Director Vince DeJoy said in mid-January.

The apartments will be designated “workforce affordable housing” by the government, with acceptance of applicants based on income. DeJoy emphasized that it is “not Section 8.”