Amenia Housing Board preps for affordable training session Oct. 28

AMENIA — Assembling at 5:30 p.m., the Amenia Housing Board’s (AHB) discussion gravitated toward the upcoming Housing Ambassador Training Program (HATP) as well as toward housing formulas and concepts at the board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 12.

Meeting remotely, the board initiated its discussion about the HATP with guidance from a special guest, Hudson River Housing Director of Strategic Initiatives Elizabeth Druback-Celaya.

Funded by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (BTCF) through Hudson River Housing, the HATP focuses on advocacy for affordable housing and will include three virtual training sessions divided into one training a month, starting Thursday, Oct. 28. The focus will be on vocabulary or how community members define affordable housing. The training will be conducted by Regional Plan Association (RPA) Vice President Melissa Kaplan-Macey and RPA staff.

Druback-Celaya announced Hudson River Housing is extendimg stipends to people who participate in the workshops as “we want to make sure that we are acknowledging the value of people’s time that they’re giving to participate in the training.”

AHB Chairman Leo Blackman clarified there’s no charge for the training workshops themselves and the stipends are to give people “some payment for attending the three sessions.”

For the training session on Thursday, Oct. 28, Druback-Celaya said they have about 28 people signed up — the majority of whom are from North East and Millerton. She encouraged more Amenia residents to sign up and to encourage their neighbors, friends and colleagues to participate.

Ideally, Blackman said the AHB should ask people connected to a larger community, who are leaders represented or connected to people who would be affordable housing clients. Though they haven’t yet finalized the second and third training dates, Druback-Celaya said they’re looking at Thursday, Nov. 18, and Thursday, Jan. 20, right now.

At the AHB’s previous meeting on Sept. 12, Town Planner Ashley Levy from the environmental, planning and engineering consulting firm AKRF offered to identify changes in Amenia’s zoning code that were the simplest to make in order to encourage workforce housing.

At the AHB’s most recent meeting, Levy generated a discussion among members about what other communities are doing with regard to their zoning codes to encourage more housing.

She also raised possible affordable housing routes and concepts that could be applicable in Amenia — such as updating the zoning code on an annual basis — and how these concepts have been applied in neighboring communities.

Blackman suggested looking at things that would make it easier for not-for-profit developers and for building affordable housing. Emphasizing that they need to be clear about what counts as affordable housing, he also suggested they consider what information is needed by the Amenia Town Board and Planning Board to move forward with developing properties.

Blackman later talked about an algorithm that Hudson River Housing Executive Director Christa Hines created to allow people to plug in information about a property and get a “green” or “red” light that will tell them whether to stop or go forward with a project.