Housing group looks at alternates in housing inventory

MILLERTON — Along with continuing its ongoing exploration of affordable housing ideas for North East, Amenia and Pine Plains, the Millerton-North East working group for the Tri-Town Coalition engaged its members to see where their interests lie in moving their affordable housing projects forward at a meeting on Tuesday, April 13.

The group convened over Zoom for its monthly meeting due to the health crisis. One by one, members introduce themselves and spoke of their interests, from community outreach and gathering data to looking at what other states and local municipalities have done regarding affordable housing.

Architect Karen Jacobson shared her knowledge in regard to assessing costs and suggested it would be best to approach housing in a “very logical way, so it gets built.” 

Millerton resident Meg Winkler shared her thoughts that the concept of affordability is “a bit skewed” because even when talking about Millerton and North East, they have to put into perspective what affordable housing looks like in other parts of the state. 

As supervisor of the town of North East, Chris Kennan said he’s confronted with the challenges involving housing on a daily basis, between the people who need affordable housing and can’t find it and those who are being priced out of housing opportunities. 

He said “very small town government” can be frustrating, as it doesn’t have the resources or capabilities to take on the issue like a larger city, like nearby Poughkeepsie. 

He spoke of the work ahead like gathering data and resources, and reminded those present “this is something we can’t walk away from.”

Once everyone introduced themselves, group member Sam Busselle announced that the project they had planned to look at on South Center Street had been disqualified. The coalition had planned to asses a set of three housing units on South Center Street from an affordability perspective; Busselle said two of the three units had just been gutted in order to be renovated. 

However, he said the engineers who looked at the units didn’t think they were worth renovating. Busselle commented that it was “a big blow” since the group had been making plans for more than a year and had hoped to get significant funding for the project. Then he said if the group can find another three units, it may still be able to get funding.

Busselle stressed its community outreach committee should have different perspectives and narratives prepped and “really point out that [affordable housing] is a vital part of [the community’s] economic development.”

Moving on to accessory apartments, Busselle said there’s another option in the local housing inventory. The group has been looking at large houses with few tenants who might not be struggling to afford the upkeep, yet might have a garage apartment available. He suggested it would be nice to renovate those garage apartments to accommodate other renters. 

Given all the logistics involved, group members mused that they have to be careful in terms of making garage apartments housing options. In addition to considering the ongoing problems with village septic systems, they spoke about green housing alternatives and looking into where properties could be built so that they have a viable septic system and meet the local building codes.

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