Silo Ridge housing development Pays first 10% fee vs. build affordable units

AMENIA — The Amenia Town Board dealt with a couple of issues pertaining to the luxury housing development, Silo Ridge Field Club, located off Route 22 at its meeting on Thursday, Oct. 21, at Town Hall. It’s also available on YouTube.

Payment in Lieu of Affordable or Workforce Housing

The town of Amenia is desperate for affordable and workforce housing for its residents, which is why its Zoning Code has a provision that allows for developers to either build affordable units or to make what is called a “Payment in Lieu of” Affordable or Workforce Housing.

In Amenia, “the first 10% of a workforce housing payment is due when 25% + 1 market value units have received Certificates of Occupancy [COs],” explained Councilwoman Vicki Doyle.

In the case of Silo Ridge, said Doyle, “The Amenia Housing Board and its chairman, Leo Blackman, have been asking Silo for its initial Payment in Lieu of Workforce Housing for probably a year or more. Then we realized, thanks to an email from Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals Attorney Dave Everett, that in March 2021 the Planning Board approved more condo units for Silo Ridge’s overall project, so the schedule for workforce housing payments had to be updated accordingly.”

The Planning Board had approved 245 new units in total. Based on that, Silo had to make its first payment once it received its 62nd CO, which it did roughly a month ago, said Doyle, who added “the original calculation set the threshold at 56 COs.”

She added Amenia’s building inspector was not going to issue another CO to Silo Ridge until the town received a check from the developer.

Silo Ridge weighs in

Silo Ridge principal Juan Torres said while “the reality is that Silo also needs workforce housing,” it’s difficult to get their plans to align with the town’s.

“When we proposed [our plans for workforce housing], we wanted to build on the southern portion; the town zoning board would only approve workforce housing if it was in the middle of the development,” said Torres, noting Silo has 120 full-time employees and hires in the summer season another 100 or so part-time employees, plus about 200 laborers and sub-contractors, with nowhere to house them.

Torres, who noted “Per town law we pay a fee, determined by Dutchess County Planning, in lieu of workforce housing as our submission to build affordable housing units… it was rejected by the zoning board during the approval process,” adding that doing so is “simpler to deal with than doing all the drawings and dealing with the approvals.”

Silo would have had to build 25 affordable or workforce units in light of the number of residences in its development, according to Amenia’s zoning.

The fee came to $611,000.

“We sent the check this week,” said Torres on Friday, Oct. 22. When asked why it took so long to send the initial payment to the town, he paused for a moment and said it takes time.

Doyle said the town is just happy to have the check in hand.

“Nevertheless, we’re thrilled to receive the town’s first-ever payment of $61,000 in lieu of affordable housing. Although it would have been nice to have them build their own workforce housing somewhere in town — it didn’t seemly likely within their gated community — this payment provides the town flexibility to put these payments toward any number of opportunities that could arise — including making a downtown wastewater system affordable to businesses and workforce housing right where it has historically existed.”

The Town Board member added “wastewater is the single most important goal identified in Amenia’s comprehensive plans going back 60 years [and] the most often cited goal by town leaders today.

BOE President voices concerns about tax certs

North East (Webutuck) Central School District (WCSD) Board of Education (BOE) President Judy Moran also addressed Silo Ridge at the Oct. 21 meeting. She spoke during public comments about tax certioraris and assessments, and said “people need to understand what the consequences of tax certioraris for assessments can mean for the town and the school district.”

She mentioned Silo Ridge’s negotiations with the town to have its 2019 property assessments lowered by nearly $1 million. Moran said she realized there was some negotiating after the tentative assessment roll was accepted, because on Aug. 1, 2019, a total of $98,621,517 in assessments were lowered. Luckily, she said Dutchess County gave Webutuck extra time to reconfigure, since she said the district “doesn’t have the luxury of knowing what the assessments are before we have to set our tax rate.”

The WCSD then had time to reconfigure its tax rate based on the lowered assessments. Otherwise, Moran said the district would have had to pay about $1.1 million in refunds to the community out of that year’s taxes.

“That’s not a small thing — that’s not something we would have been able to do,” Moran said. “We have a tax certiary fund but not a million-and-a-half dollars, and if certioraris are filed that are going to be lost or settled… the impact on the public entities that depend on those taxes is huge because that money needs to be paid back and we have no way to recover it, because once the taxes are collected, that train has left the station.”

Moran said Webutuck has a number of certioraris still against it “and not by any means only from Silo Ridge,” as a number of exemptions are apparently being grieved.

She mentioned WCSD paid $83,000 in March 2020 for exemptions that weren’t allowed and $63,000 on another occasion.

“I’m just trying to inform the public that whether you think someone ought to be paying more or not, putting an assessment out there that then gets changed later can be very damaging to the town, the county and the school district,” Moran said, “and I’d like to ask that this be considered when assessments are being done. Because so far, it doesn’t appear we’re winning a lot of them and there are a lot out there to come still.”

Property taxes can be challenged by property owners come Grievance Day, which is when a town’s Board of Assessment Review (BAR), typically made up of a three-person volunteer board appointed by the Town Board, hears complaints about one’s assessment.

“I think that Judy brought up a very important topic,” said Doyle. “Our government entities base our budget on the total assessed value for the town. We put all of our assessed values into one big hopper and we know that certain properties are worth more and that’s how we come up with a fair taxation system… To me, she’s pointing out that there is a budgeting nightmare looming for local school districts and government entities.”

The public hearing for the 2022 budget will be Thursday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m.