Millerton apartments expected to move forward despite parking noncompliance

MILLERTON — A proposed apartment renovation on South Center Street must now undergo a zoning board approval process over a lack of available parking space on the property.

Owner Alex Magalhaes appeared before the Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday, July 7, after board chair Kelly Killmer said she requested the application come before the board, citing a Millerton News report on the proposal’s introduction to the Planning Board in June. Magalhaes plans to renovate an empty basement apartment to rehabilitate a currently-defunct fifth housing unit at 26-32 S. Center St., which sits across the street from the Dutchess County-owned parking lot used for access to the Harlem Valley Rail Trail.

“After I heard about the planning board meeting and read the article in the paper, I came here and requested that they come in front of us,” Killmer said. “Because the planning board doesn’t have the control of parking, the zoning board does.”

Board members voted to set a public hearing for the proposal on Tuesday, July 21.

Killmer opened the meeting by providing board members with a brief summary of the project and the approval process leading up to the Tuesday meeting. She explained the ZBA had to review the application because the property does not include enough space for parking at its current density, and could not support a fifth unit.

Under the Village of Millerton’s zoning laws, residential properties must provide at least 1.5 off-street parking spaces per housing unit. A five-unit property requires space for at least 7.5 cars, Killmer said. The property currently only has space for between three and four cars.

That means Magalhaes must seek a variance from the board, or at the least a determination that the property’s existing non-conforming status should be allowed to continue and expand despite its noncompliance with the village’s parking laws.

Board chair Killmer indicated the board is expected to deny the variance, citing village codes that stipulate variances cannot be granted if no off-street parking can be provided for an applicant. Instead, Killmer said the board’s refusal will likely acknowledge that Maghalaes’s proposal to rehabilitate the defunct fifth unit does not technically expand the existing nonconforming use, and therefore may move forward without a variance from the board because of its historic status.

In support of this idea, Magalhaes recounted the history of the property and his plans to renovate the empty apartment. He said a basement studio apartment was originally utilized and occupied but had been empty since he bought the apartment building in 2022. The apartment still has its original fixtures and cabinetry, he said.

“We’re not turning an old basement into an apartment,” Magalheas said. “It has a bathroom, it has a kitchen. The old cabinets are still in place, but it’s from the ‘50s and ‘60s.”

Killmer explained that the board has the authority to issue an opinion that acknowledges a site’s pre-existing conditions, allowing historic nonconforming properties that existed before the adoption of Millerton’s zoning code in the ‘70s to continue without issue. She and other board members acknowledged that Magalhaes’s property has historically hosted five housing units, and that the village has an express interest in promoting more housing development.

Board members said they didn’t believe the lack of parking onsite for the additional unit would place a significant burden on the village, citing the availability of street parking adjacent to the property and an understanding that many tenants in downtown Millerton do not own cars at all, including at least one of Magalhaes’s current tenants.

Amid the discussion over Magalhaes’s apartment building, board members recalled the effort at the end of 2025 and early 2026 to amend Millerton’s parking rules for properties in the general business district. In January 2026, the Village Board of Trustees adopted a local law that exempted properties along Main Street from having to find more parking if undergoing a change of use.

Magalhaes’s property is in the R10,000 residential district, which was not covered under the January 2026 local law. ZBA members indicated they would like to pursue similar legislation for the high-density residential district, to further ease approval processes that are often marred by debates over available off-street parking that sometimes stall proposals indefinitely.

Parking rules in the village have been hotly contested in recent years, with a growing number of people advocating for relaxing the rules to encourage more housing and business development in the village’s downtown. Killmer said on Tuesday that nearly 90% of the properties within the village are in violation of zoning regulations in some capacity, with most properties failing to provide adequate off-street parking.