The letter begins by introducing the letter's contents as a summary of the past year's work of the Affordable Housing Committee of the Town of Woodstock. It continues: "This report was prepared in an effort to clarify what has been done to date and what, in our opinion, needs to be done in the future if an affordable housing project will be accomplished in the Town of Woodstock."
The letter is a decent one, and I am not here to criticize the committee's work in any way. The letter describes three different types of affordable housing that Woodstock could develop. The first is a set of "revisions to the Zoning Ordinance Local Law to more easily allow the creation of attached and detached accessory apartments on existing residential parcels." Sounds good to me. How's that going, six years later? This is a real question. How's that working out?
Most of the letter reviewed five sites for a large affordable housing project, which is the second type of affordable housing. The letter states that the St. John property, which is where RUPCO is trying to develop its current project, in in the committee's opinion, the site with the most potential. The first stated reason for this opinion, continues the letter, is that its location would allow hook-up to the town sewer system and municipal water supply.
Oops. If the property is in the hamlet sewer district, then why does that property pay taxes to a different sewer district and not to the hamlet sewer district? I don't know about you, but I conclude that the property is not in the hamlet sewer district and therefore does not have the right to connect.
But let us move on.
The third type of affordable housing "would be to identify structures around Town which might be rehabilitated and converted to affordable housing. However, this has not been done to date." Hey, great idea. Well, six years later, has this been done? Have any structures around Town that might be rehabilitated actually been rehabilitated, and made into affordable housing? Anybody?
Well, I haven't heard about it if it happened.
So there you go. The affordable housing committee recommended that older buildings be rehabilitated. Guess what: there is still time. I mentioned this option in my talk about RUPCO in February, at the community center. That aspect of my talk was not covered in the newspaper article about the presentation.
What else can I say? I suppose I can simply take note and wait to share this unacted upon advice to anybody who says that Woodstock Commons is the ONLY and LAST chance for affordable housing in Woodstock.
No problem. I'll file that away with everything else.
More affordable housing committee goodies over the weekend.
Your questions are right on. It's what I have been wondering for the last six years,
ReplyDeleteGo Robin! Keep the light shining under the Rupco rock
ReplyDelete"detached accessory apartments" would
1. help people pay their taxes thus making staying in town more affordable for seniors, local workers and artists
2. Provide work to local workers not large outside firms.
3. Let lower income families by diversified throughout town and not be concentrated and marked as "Project people" which studies have shown is not healthy for them
4. not let 12 million dollars of Free Govt money to be spread around to large developers like Rupco, outside contractors and possibly not have a healthy influence on town officials who could possibly benefit in some way, by helping this project be approved to the determent of the town.
5. The owner of the land, Ulster Savings Bank, would not have an easy time finding a high end developer willing to spend the money to go thru the endless reviews as Rupco is because they are spending free Govt money