Amenia Housing Board plans for future listening session

AMENIA — Though they had plenty of time to prepare, members of the Amenia Housing Board outlined what they’d like to accomplish when hosting an upcoming listening session for the community during a meeting held on Tuesday, April 13.

Starting at 5:30 p.m., members convened for their monthly meeting via Zoom due to the pandemic. Member Leo Blackman suggested they host the listening session either at the end of May or in June. He volunteered Amenia town Councilwoman Vicki Doyle’s daughter, Erica, to take the list of people from the board’s housing survey who shared their email addresses and make a new list the board could use for outreach for the planned listening session. 

Deciding another postcard announcing the session might be over the top, Blackman said posters could be used to publicize the session and the board could advertise the event through The Millerton News and Robin Hood Radio. Other suggestions included using the Tri-Town Coalition’s list of community members and reaching out through the Millerton Farmers Market.

Wanting to talk about some of the specifics of the listening session, Blackman said “it’s going to be important that we’re prepared to get voices from the people of Amenia and prepared to receive negative responses” as well as concerns about taxes going up, keeping government out of housing and other related concerns for which the board has to be prepared.”

He gave an outline of what to include in the session, and said the board should figure out whether to hold it in-person or over Zoom, particularly with COVID-19 restrictions in mind, and asked if it should be just one session long. 

Additionally, Blackman said the Housing Board should figure out the best time for people to participate as well as consider inviting a Spanish translator. 

It was suggested town Supervisor Victoria Perotti do the welcoming remarks as a way of showing the town’s support of the Housing Board. Blackman advised they talk briefly about the Housing Board, Amenia’s Comprehensive Plan and what the group would like to get out of the session. 

He discussed talking about the region’s housing needs, the gap between what housing options are available and the different needs among Amenia residents. 

Through a PowerPoint presentation, Blackman said the board could have 10 minutes to talk about its housing survey results, what was learned through those results and how many people responded.

Blackman said the board should talk about its goals for the listening session as well as its long-term goals, and suggested getting a moderator. Some board members suggested having multiple moderators and perhaps planning for an activity that would break participants into smaller groups for discussion. Each group could then have a moderator with five or six people tackling two or three questions in effort to have participants share their responses.

“It’s a really great thing if people feel heard and if they can see that their ideas are being responded to,” Blackman said.

As far as the takeaway the board wants to get from the listening session, Councilwoman Doyle said it seemed to her that the process started organically with the housing survey as a way of listening to the Amenia community’s thoughts. However, she said the survey “was just step one,” and the next step would be to tell the community what the Housing Board learned from the survey, to ask the community what resonates with them and the to collect and compile that information.