Low and Moderate
Income Housing Development Task Force
Monday, February
27, 2023 - 11:00 am
Jim Monty - Chairman
Chairman Monty called
this task force to order at 11:06 am with the following in attendance: Clayton
Barber, Ken Hughes, Jim Monty, Tom Scozzafava, Matt Stanley, Joe Pete Wilson,
Mark Wright, Mike Mascarenas, Bill Tansey, and Nicole Justice-Green. Mike
Diskin, Krissy Leerkes, and Alan Jones were absent.
Also present: - Megan
Murphy and Dina Garvey.
MONTY: Good morning, all.
Thank you for sticking around for this meeting and for those of you that
traveled in, thank you.
As you know, today, at
Ways and Means we passed our resolution to submit our application for a land bank
to the Department of the State, after the meeting, next Monday at Full Board.
Nicole’s got some information here, she’s handing out that she collected at a
conference that she was at and she’s going to go over a few things she wants to
bring up and then Mr. Tansey wants to discuss our resolution, a bit.
JUSTICE-GREEN: I just
wanted to take an opportunity to, you know, keep you all abreast of some of the
research that’s coming out in the field about affordable housing, affordable
rental housing, as we move into 2023. The Low Income Housing Collation, which
is, the National Low Income Housing Collation just put out all this information
based on New York need’s for low rental housing and as you can see there’s a
huge discrepancy with our wages and what people who can pay fair market for
rental housing can afford throughout New York State and we know that is very
much a timely issue in Essex County, because we have an extreme lack of rental
housing. This is not even just affordable housing. Which I know is the biggest
push in our committee, recently, has been affordable homeownership and housing,
but I wanted to also continue and maybe start the conversation within this
committee about efforts that we can make to support rental housing in Essex
County. I don’t necessarily have any answers or any programmatic details, but I
wanted to put this information in front of you, so that you’re informed and so
that maybe in the coming months we can start to discuss other areas that this
Committee can be effective.
MONTY: Any questions?
HUGHES: Well, this is
great. I like charts and graphs, it helps me and I was just having a
conversation with an audience member, just a few moments ago about senior
housing and about, and I’m seeing here, 36% are seniors, it’s the largest piece
of pie as an individual group is senior housing, are extremely low income
renters and so I don’t know how longer our task force, our task force is not a
committee. Task forces have end dates, but it might and as we move through the
land bank process, kudos to us, pat on the back, we accomplished something
really important, but if we’re starting to think about what’s next for this
task force, if there’s something next for this task force, it might be
worthwhile and sorry that Terri’s not here to talk about our mental health,
senior population. A highly vulnerable population to consider what are the
avenues that we might want to consider, if anything to address those needs of
those citizens in our County.
MONTY: I agree, Ken. I
think it’s a very important aspect, which does go hand and hand with our
affordable housing, but we also need to look at the demographics there, as
well.
HUGHES: Yeah, yeah and
one thought that I have and again, it’s only a thought that I have, because
it’s in my town is, there’s property, there’s property and infrastructure in
Essex at the Old Essex County Home in greater Whallonsburgh and this is a
beautiful old brick building that the square footage is immense and I’ve never
been inside it. I know that there’s a grassroots effort afoot on the part of
some Willsboro residents to work with the property owner who is a non-profit
organization to convince them that some work should be done there and they’re
actually for a local grant to perform a feasibility study. There may be other
“Essex County Homes”, throughout Essex County. I put that in quotes, because it
maybe in your communities that you have a larger multi-family homes that
potentially seniors that are aging in place in their current homes could
potentially find more suitable, smaller footprint, more easier to take care of,
things like that and that may exist in other, I might be talking out my foot, I
just, I’m trying to think what’s next. What is next for us as a group? Do we
sunset, because we’ve solved the problem or do we find a new issue and try and
tackle that, once we have the land bank up and running? Which is going to
happen in the next quarter. So, that’s my thought and I open that up for
comment or consideration.
STANLEY: I think there’s
always going to be housing issues. So, I don’t think the issue’s ever going to
be solved.
HUGHES: Yeah
STANLEY: When I was just
down at the Association of Towns conference, one of the classes I wanted to go
to and I might have this term wrong, but accessory dwelling units.
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes
HUGHES: ADU
STANLEY: That was
something that I really wanted to go to, because I think that maybe another
piece of the puzzle that may help to do and from my understanding it’d just
like a sub-unit off of a main living dwelling? That may help with some of our
senior housing problems if the family lives in the house and make a unit for
our seniors that are within that family. I don’t know much about it. I wanted
to learn more about it.
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yeah and
if you know, I don’t want to speak for Megan, or HAPEC, at large, but you know
we are the experts in the field and if the committee wants more information on
that, then we can provide, I certainly can prepare a presentation to talk about
accessory dwelling units. A lot of funding has recently come out for those and
a lot of that funding is, you know, favors more developed areas, but ADUs are
going to look different in the Adirondack Park, but there might be a good
approach to get that funding into the hands into the hands of people who are
willing to do that on the properties that it would work for and so that’s the
beginning of the conversation; right? Is educating ourselves and then kind of
moving forward and seeing how that may work for you in Jay versus how is going
to work in Ticonderoga for Mark. So, I think you’re right. I think it would be
shortsighted for us, necessary to close our doors of this task force, because I
think we kind of got in this position, because people thought housing was just
going to continue to be affordable and then we hit a crisis point and it’s a
multi-prong approach, rental housing, ADUs, the land bank, just keeping that
conversation alive is important.
STANLEY: And I think,
also, the other side of that, was with the Governor’s push to really increase
housing units in each town, this was a huge topic down there, as well, is and I
brought this up during a supervisor mentor thing through the Association of
Towns, is if we need to increase the amount of units and affordable places that
we have, where does cutting the red tape and fast tracking stuff go to the APA
and start discussing hamlet size? Because, there’s only so much room that we
can, I never really got an answer from the Association of Town lawyers, but if
there’s going to be this fast tracking of Home Rule and going above Home Rule,
is that going to affect the APA? I mean, because Lewis only has so much that it
can expand; right?
MONTY: About the size of
this table.
STANLEY: I think in Jay
we have two and half hamlets, but if they could increase in size a little bit,
that’s going to be where the more affordable housing in my town is going to be
is inside those hamlets.
MURPHY: Well, that’s also
where the infrastructure is, so it can support more development, easier to do
it there, then it is to do it outside when you have to worry about onsite
septic and wells and those things.
SCOZZAFAVA: Yeah, back on
the senior housing, that is a crisis. I mean thank god for Lee House, thank god
for the housing in Ticonderoga that exists, but that needs is definitely there
and that need is only going to continue to grow. Actually, I know many seniors,
if they had an option where they could go, decent affordable housing, you’re
kind of killing two birds with one stone, because then their houses usually end
up on the market and they would just as soon downsize and sell. Unfortunately,
there is no place for them to go. One of these, I’m not even sure who the
developer was that built, years ago, in Elizabethtown, Schroon Lake and Port
Henry, they do an excellent job. I don’t know who. There is always a waiting
list to get into those units, as I am sure there is a waiting list to get into
the Lee House or the apartments in the Ticonderoga. But, there is definitely a
huge need for senior housing.
MURPHYL I was going to
say that I agree, there is a waiting list everywhere, for all housing and I
think that is something that we do need to start thinking about. I think that,
again, the study that’s coming out of the four counties will also help to drive
where those things should be located, because to your point, to stay in their
communities, because that’s where their support systems are. Also, to get to
the idea of what you’ve got from a mental health perspective, it’s the same
idea for supportive housing. Whether that’s for seniors or for non-seniors,
because we do have issues for supportive housing. I have been working with
Mental Health Association on that.
STANLEY: Is there
something that municipalities can do to create senior housing?
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes, it
depends on how you want to tackle the problem. Municipalities, themselves don’t
necessarily want to become landlords and so it’s attracting either private
developers or non-profit developers into municipals and being able in assisting
them in a number of different ways. I know in our work there’s a lot of grant
funding, but there’s also tax credits and other funding that is really more at
the State level. So, you can certainly help them navigate their own zoning
process. You know, helping facilitate, you know, code enforcement and being a
more collaborative effort, then sometimes it can be more of a head butting
effort. So, I don’t necessarily know the answer to that question, because I
don’t know what kind of housing you’re looking at, or what would work well.
STANLEY: Well, it’s just
in my head, it’s sort of, when Jack Mudge was here talking about ARCs and
thinking about senior housing and needing to be close to infrastructure. Like
in AuSable Forks we have a grocery store, the only we don’t have that we need
to get back is a pharmacy, but we have that infrastructure there and we have
that need. So, I mean I don’t know how to and I know there are other places
around the county that this is possible, too. So, it really comes full circle
into your question, are we almost done this? No, because there’s several other
ways we can attack things and the land bank was just one answer to that and I
think there’s so much more that we can bounce ideas off of each other and
different towns and find similarities and needs that each of us have. I have
contacted you about some things for Jay, but maybe if we can talk about them
together, it may spark, have one conversation may spark two or three or four
different things within the County which may help countywide.
JUSTICE-GREEN: And since
the presentation I gave to the Board of Supervisors I have gotten a lot of, you
know, Pride has been around 40 years, we’ve been doing a lot of economic
development, as well and main street programs, not just housing, but those main
street programs, likes we discussed, include subsidizes for rental housing and
improvement and energy efficiency and so many Supervisors didn’t know that this
that is grant funding is available. One of my favorite grants to administer. I
do think this is really the beginning of, even if we aren’t developing in this
community, senior housing or housing for the disabled, we can be kind of a
working group of solutions for each town, so you guys aren’t waiting 40 years
to get information you need to help municipalities.
MASCARENAS: I’ve got a
lot of things, I guess. I want to piggyback a little bit on what you talked
about with the hamlets. That’s been my thing for a long time and actually was
in process when one of your predecessors left office on approaching the APA on
expanding the hamlet due to all the buyouts that we did in the Town of Jay,
back following Hurricane Irene, which further limits your ability to expand
your hamlet, being that now that property is in perpetuity greenspace.
In the short term, I do
think we need to challenge the State in terms that the housing that they’re
trying to accomplish, being that they talk about the local barriers to housing
and cutting our red tape regarding zoning and planning that the local put on
housing development without realizing that they have the larger barrier in New
York to developing housing which is the APA. So, be willing to do which we
expect others to do and give us an avenue to try and expand some of those
housing units, I think is in the short
term. In the long term, I think something we’re really going to have to deal
with and look at in this community is the STRs. The short-term rental is
providing a bigger problem than people realize and I know it’s a problem that
no one wants to tackle and I get it. You know, but, right now it’s estimated
that 30% of our housing is turned into short-term rentals. That’s, without the
ability to expand our housing stock, how are you going to survive with that? I
can tell you that Essex County has employees that work outside the county or
live outside the county. They work here at Essex County. We are not going to
retain those employees. They are looking for housing. They can’t find housing.
If they find housing, it’s unaffordable. They’d like to rent here, they can’t
rent and then 3 months from now they’re working in the neighboring county in
which they are able to establish housing. so, I think like anything, this is a
domino effect. Whether it’s housing, Nicole touched on some other grants that
her office has maintained and we certainly maintain them at the County, too.
Anything we do in your community and keep housing in mind. If you have Complete
Street Policies. If you can do sidewalk projects in your villages and lighting
projects and make your community more attractive to outside business, those
things start to follow. But, it’s really, there’s not one bullet that’s going
to solve this problem. It’s really investment in your community, overall, that
in the long term is going to make it more attractive and have those things in
place where now a senior can live in community and they can walk to a grocery
store, they can walk across to the pharmacy and get those things. There;s
access to transportation. Those types of things, but it take investment on
serval different fronts. We can’t be shortsighted and just think housing,
housing, housing. they’re domino effects that impact everything.
MONTY: one thing I’m
hearing here and whether we’re talking broadband, celluar, housing. There’s a
common denominator for Essex County, the APA and DEC. Even though other areas
face the same regulatory problems, we have an added layer and maybe we should
be considering adding a member from the Park Agency and DEC to come to these
meetings and say, okay, help us fix it, because realistically they’re the
stumbling block for a lot, at least this is my opinion, for a lot of what we’re
trying to do, they are the stumbling block.
SCOZZAFAVA: I agree and
George Canon, god bless him, carried that message loud and clear for 30 years.
Unfortunately, we are so different from the rest of the State of New York,
under the regulations that we have to live by. Ron Stafford when he was our
Senator, he would deliver the message, but never really saw any change. If we
even propose and I think that’s a good start, expanding hamlets in all of our
communities, you watch them take the defensive on that one and they’re going to
come back and give you all the reasons as to why, and I’m not trying to sound
like a doomsdayer, it’s a fact. I mean this is an agency that’s very difficult
to deal with. Even if they take all their, you know, marching orders from the
legislature and once you get out of Albany, we don’t exist anymore. I think
you’re idea of inviting them to a meeting is actually a good idea. Whether we
can get them here or not is the next thing. It’s the truth, anything we want
try to do or will try to do or try to do in the past, you;ve always got them.
Big stumpling block, the Adirondack Park Agency who always throws a curve in
the way.
MONTY: And going back to
what Matt was saying about cellular. They fixed that for the University Games,
just like that they fixed it.
SCOZZAFAVA: While you’re
on that, I noticed, I was on the Adirondack Park Agency and all the mapping
that they have, have you even seen the map of the cell towers? They actually
have a map on their site that shows all the cell towers, supposedly, in the
Adirondack Park and I would hope that one of you two guys would take a look at
that and check it out and see if it’s accurate. But, they do have it, it’s
right on their website, the Adirondack Park Agency.
STANLEY: But, I think
we’re all sort of talking about the same thing, let’s take the hand we’re
dealt. If the Governor wants to increase housing, this is the perfect
opportunity to get the APA in here to talk about our housing issues.
MONTY: And in her report
she said how many homes she expected to be built in each community. I just
recently, I’ll give it to you guys, I have a conversation with a gentlemen from
one of the environmental groups talking about some of this stuff and his quite
to me was, you forget you’re in a National Park and I said, could you please
show me where we’re in a National Park. So, when this was formed by Governor
Rockefeller, it was to be formed as a National Park. Where is the legislation
and law that says this is a National Park and I got no response.
WILSON: So, to follow up
on a lot of these good ideas, I think we should form a little strategy. We
should invite the Governor, Commissioner Steggos and Barb Rice from the APA.
The agenda would be housing, broadband/cellular and the impact of State
regulations on those. Part of how we frame this would be, we’re in support of
the Governor’s proposal to increase housing and to decrease local red tape. We
want Barb Rice and Basil Steggos there to hear what our issues are and to work
with us on solutions, not to get the steady stream of no, but to work with us
on solutions, that’s why we’re inviting you, to get input on how we can solve
these problems and how we can meet the Governor’s goal. But, I think we invite
all three and we have an agenda prepared because these are overlapping issues,
the housing, the broadband, the cellular and within that falls hamlet
expansion, within that falls cell towers, within that falls, you know the factors
that we talk about, but if we can get representatives here, have a stragety and
not just complain, but say, we’re inviting you here to help us meet the
Governor’s goal on housing, to help our County and towns meet their goal on
broadband and we want you to come to this in the spirit of bringing some
solutions, not some reasons why it won’t work.
STANLEY: And I think that
is where everybody kind of is right now. Everybody is so negative and oh my
god, the Governor is saying we need to build this many homes. She’s actually
opening up the conversation for us to be able to get support through the other
state agencies to say, we need, we’re sitting here saying, we need this help.
So, let’s not be negative by saying she’s making this mandated. Let’s talk
about how can we use her making this mandate to actually leverage other state
agencies to help us do the things we’ve been trying to for years. let’s use
this. I think it’s a great, like I almost wanted to speak up and like I was
telling Mr, Hughes, I was frustrated at this conference, because I wasn’t
prepared. I wasn’t prepared to go down there to actually stand up and say, maybe
this is a good thing. Everybody’s complaining about home rule and this, but we
have a housing issue. We have an issue and it’s not an Adirondack thing, it’s
not a western New York thing. We have a problem in New York State where we need
housing and the Gonvernor notices this. So, let’s take what she want to do and
how can we partner with somebody or partner with the other state agencies to say,
how do we make this work in the Adirondack Park and how do we make it work in
Essex County and how to do make it work in the Town of Jay. Because I
definitely know it’s hard to hire people on your highway staff when nobody can
afford to live in your town and work on the highway staff or your point, Mr.
Mascarenas, just here in the County. How do we hire people to work at the
County if they can’t afford to live in the county? Well, if we can expand the
hamlets. If we can expand the ability to have senior housing, to expand the
ability to have somebody, I don’t think somebody establishing themselves as a
starter job here at the County is looking to buy a house, today, but if there’s
somewhere that they can rent for maybe the first five years. I know when I moved
back up here, I rented for my first twelve years and then I was finally able to
build a house. The answer isn’t to be a homeowner at 22 years old, but we need
to make it so that maybe when your family is started and you’re around 30 years
old, now maybe that’s where it opens up for homeownership. But, I think people
and it’s not just housing, I think people hear something different and they’re
like, oh no, we can’t do that, it wrong. I think we need to look at somebody
opening the door, how can we make that work for us.
MONTY: I agree
SCOZZAFAVA: I agree, but
you have to have an incentive for the developer, first and foremost. You’ve got
to have something that’s going to bring them in, you’ve not to go in there and
build houses and build senior complexes to lose money. That’s a fact. I’ve done
a lot of research on that, you maybe to answer this better, they’re saying the
magic number of senior is 20-25 units, go under that, forget it. It’s not going
to work, you can’t do it, but the incentive has to be there. There was an
incentive that was offered years ago and even at your home base it’s hard to
get some people to realize that this incentive that the State’s throwing our
way makes sense. If you have an empty lot, right now, if I’ve got an empty lot sitting
in the Town of Moriah, this law is still on the books, Bill, I don’t know if
you’re familiar with it or not. So, if a first time homebuyer or builder goes
in there and builds a house on that lot, you get a 5-year tax break. Are you
familiar with this? Starts off the first year, 10%, second year 20%, how ever
the percentage breakdown and then in the 6th year you’re at a 100%.
To me that made 100% sense, because right now, you’ve got an empty lot that
maybe is assessed for $30,000.00 - $40,000.00, you’re going to put a home on
there. You’re going to be bringing in that addirional tax revenue. I tried to
peddel that and was almost crucified over it. Well, we didn’t get that when we
built our house. I mean that’s another major hurdle that you have to go over. I
think that is still out there, that incentive. Your municipality has to adopt a
local law in order to do it.
STANLEY: I think those
incentives are there. I just don’t think we know about them. We need people
like Nicole to actually be able to partner her and her knowledge with a
developer that wants to come in and do it. We need to identify both sides of
the equation and we need to bring them to the same table.
MONTY: I agree, but you
also got to factor in IDA, because there’s a lot of advantages for a developer
to go through IDA to get those breaks, as well.
STANLEY: And I think, I’m
new, so there’s a lot of things that I don’t know about.
MONTY: Right
STANLEY: And I would be
naïve to think I could even learn it all, anyways, but what we need and I have
a business that’s interested in coming into Jay and I’m trying to think of all
the agencies that can actually talk to that potential business to talk to. Like
do we, at the County, have some research that we can send some people, okay,
you want to start a business, these are the people that you talk to at the
County.
MONTY: Essex County IDA.
STANLEY: And that’s the
one person I put, I actually sent the Essex County IDA, the SBDC out of
Plattsburgh and I mean just the different types of agencies that I could think
of and I think, now on the flip side of that. If I have someone wants to come
into my town to increase housing, how do we work with that person and who do we
put them in touch with and how to we, because it’s going to take someone who
wants to change the community. Like I have a guy in my mind, there’s a couple
of gentlemen that are trying to clean-up our town by starting a non-profit to
get rid of blighted properties; which is something the Town Board has tried to
do. But, it costs so much more as the municipality to do that, prevailing wage
and all that stuff. So, how do, I’m already thinking, how do I put them in
touch with Nicole to start to think about maybe they would want to be doing a
senior housing or a renter or something, because they want to make our town
better.
MONTY: Right
STANLEY: How do we really
marry those people, know who they are, and put them with the right groups.
MONTY: We also have
HAPEC, too, to go back and forth. You know that can do similar work, as well.
HUGHES: Absolutely,
absolutely.
MONTY: So, we kind of
want to include both sides of this here.
STANLEY: And so that’s
also a problem with me, is I get talking to one person and I forget about the
other people that are actually and if we have just a whole list, like if you
want to start a business, there’s are the agencies to talk to. If you want to start
some sort of housing projects, these are the agencies you talk to. Because
somebody do get forgot about, because they’re not top marked.
MONTY: Right
JUSTICE-GREEN: And I will
say that Carol and I meet monthly with our Director of Ticonderoga’s Chamber of
Commerce and Carol has sent specifically with the economic development facet
that we do, that HAPEC doesn’t do. The New York Main Street Grants, that is a
wonderful place to start when it comes to economic development. But, yeah,
having a resource list available to the supervisors with all the agencies
working countywide with brief descriptions is not a bad idea. I know it would
be really helpful for everybody involved.
MASCARENAS: I started
working on this years ago, when I was in the County Planning Department and I
failed miserably, because it’s a lot.
STANLEY: Oh absolutely.
MASCARENAS: It’s a huge
undertaking to do. Like when you start looking at, not only resources in
housing, but just countywide. So, Dan Palmer and I started looking at putting
together a resources guide. Here’s what you do for mental health services,
here’s all the agencies. Here’s what you do if you have somebody in your
community that’s homeless and it was just a huge type document, but it sounds
like it may be warranted, whether or not we get it accomplished or not is a
whole other thing.
STANLEY: I think if you
start making a list, at least once you start putting the list out there, the
people who aren’t on the list will complain and what to be on the list.
MONTY: And going back to
your conversation about what Jack Mudge was trying to do. Jack didn’t, when the
dug into it, their grant didn’t meet all the criteria, so he didn’t actually
submit it. That’s why we did the second resolution in support of the grant,
because some of the criteria changed and that was is going to be submitted for
the basically the same project.
Anything else? I know
Bill wants to talk a little bit about by-laws.
TANSEY: Bylaws and
resolution.
MONTY: Yup, because we’re
ready to go.
TANSEY: The draft
resolution was sent out. I got one comment from Mr. Hughes and that particular
line said, the initial number of Board of Directors will be six. I changed that
language to be, the initial number of the Board of Directors will be a mimimual
of five, a maximum of eleven. The initial number and working number to be
determined by the existing Board of Directors.
HUGHES: Nice
TANSEY: So, that language
is there. That resolution is ready to go. I’ll send another draft out, befire I
give it Judy for next week.
The bylaws, the feedback
I’ve gotten from our presentation, the bylaws to Pride was the number of Board
of Directors, just to make sure it’s an odd number. We’ll have two to three
Board of Supervisor members, ex-officio members of their Board of Directors,
the Land Bank’s Board of Directors and whether one, two or three of them
actually vote to keep the odd number present. That would be determined by the
Board of Directors at that meeting. So, that is detailed and finessed when the
application for the land bank is approved. So, from a legal standpoint we’re
moving forward in a positive direction. Standing back for feedback.
MONTY: Okay, any
questions? Thank you, Bill, very much.
Anything else? I will
have a conversation with Shaun when I see him next and Mike and we’ll discuss inviting
the Governor, Basil and Barb Rice to one of our next task force meetings.
Probably after the discussion with Shaun, it would probably be to invite them
to the one in May. Give them a little time, it gives us a little time to
present our views to them and come up with an agenda if that’s something this
Task Force wants me to do. Does that sound like a plan?
HUGHES: Yes, absolutely.
MONTY: And whether we get
any feedback from them. I’m quite sure the Governor will send a
respresentative, I don’t imagine she’ll come to Essex County, but it May, most
of the snow should be gone.
HUGHES: And if they
invite us down there, we’ll send a delegation down there. You know, absultey,
we’ll meet wherever they want to meet to help further the Governor’s goal,
because they’re lofy. Again, I talked earlier about thinking big and if the
Governor, I would have to assume is thinking big for New York State, right, but
they’re probably claw back a couple of things, as well, because you want to put
it all out there and then take it back, instead of wishing you put it out there
in the first. So, Jim, I’m thrilled at what was supposed to be a short, quick
meeting, ended up to be a ½ hour meeting, because we’re in a housing crisis and
I would hate to think that we’re only talking about housing for two minutes
when we’re in a crisis. So, really thoughtful conversations and comments and
I’m really pleased that there’s more to go and more to do.
MONTY: Thank you
MASCARENAS: And Jim, can
I just publicly thank Sun Community News. They ran a really nice editorial on
the broadband issue. I don’t know if any of you got to see it, February, I
think 18th edition of the Sun and whoever did it, I was assuming it
was you, but your name’s not on it, but it sounded awful familiar to our
meeting that day. You did an excellent job and we appreciate you helping to get
the message out on some of these important issues, so thank you.
HUGHES: Just to follow up
on that, there was a survey question at the end of that editorial about do you
have adequate broadband, I think 300+ people responded in which 2/3rds of them
said no. That’s’ good.
MONTY: It is good.
HUGHES: It’s fairly
unscientific good data and Tim Rowland is in the room and I hope I’m not
putting my foot in my mouth by doing this, thank you, Tim is here representing
Adirondack Explorer. Tim is doing a multi part on housing and so he’s beginning
that education with this meeting today. I will be speaking with him, tomorrow, in
Essex. I have given him many names in this room to talk to and get information
from. So, he’s going to help continuing raising the profile. So, I do thank,
along with you, Mike, the press for helping to elevate and raise the profile of
this conversation about what we’re doing at the local and at the County and
with the State, at that level, as well. So, thank you both and Federal.
MASCARENAS: Welcome back,
Tim.
MONTY: Thank you
JUSTICE-GREEN: One last
comment, I just wanted to remind everybody Essex County CDBG housing
rehabilitation program for 2023 is open. All that information is on the top of
the County’s website, the application. I highly encourage you, if you know of
constituents that are in need of major housing rehabilitation that are in the
low to moderate income category, send them our way. Not only do we have the
County’s CDBG program, but we have PRIDE’s restore program, which is for folks
over 60, as well as our home program and those programs are available for
Essex, Warren and Washington, but the County CDBG program is exclusive to just
Essex County. So, please send folks our way.
STANLEY: Could you send
us an email with that information so I can put it in my weekly update to put
out to my constituents, please?
JUSTICE-GREEN: Yes
HUGHES: And also, Nicole
is coming to the Town of Essex, town board meeting on March 9th to
do a presentation and we also video tape our meetings, so I’ll take that section
of video of videotaping her brief presentation to the Town Board and I’ll share
that out, so you’ve got a video of what she’s talking about.
JUSTICE-GREEN: And if you
are interested in having me come to your own town board meetings to do a public
hearing within your community, that is part of this grant and I am more than
happy to do that, so please let me know.
BARBER: The question I
have, Nicole, so the Town of Chesterfield, we did get a grant through CDBG
Friends of the North Country, so they’re applying right now, we’ve got one
application in. So, my question to you is, when I have citizens that come to
me, should I send them to you also or should I go to the Friends of the North
Country first?
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Programmatically, I would say, Friends of the North Country grant first,
because that’s exclusively to just your community, like only folks from
Chesterfield are going to be able to get that funding. But, with that being
said, if you have folks who apply with
them and they don’t qualify or you know they’re over 60, they don’t need a full
home rehab, they just need a little bit of help, please still send them to us,
because we have additional grant programs and if that list gets filled, if
you’re grant, you’re CDBG grant, you know is filled and they’re put on a
waitlist, you can send folks from your waitlist, you know over to us and I do
have a working relationship with Friends of the North Country, so I can reach
out to them, as well and let them know that if they have folks that they’re not
able to serve they can give them PRIDE’s number for that program.
BARBER: Okay, thank you
very much.
MONTY: Anything else? I
will ask of the Task Force, for the next meeting, to come back with some
thoughts on how we want to approach that meeting with the Governor and Barb
Rice and Basil. That way we have a consensus of what we want to ask.
SCOZZAFAVA: Years ago,
there was an issue about hamlet expansion, it wasn’t due to housing, but it was
just to increase our tax base. But, I think every community that was interested
in the hamlet expansion, we did a, do you have infrastructure beyond that
hamlet where that hamlet is now, Mike, you may remember?
MASCARENAS: Yeah
SCOZZAFAVA: To see if you
have municipal water and municipal sewer, so just throwing that out there, it
might be something that your community may want to where that brown area ends,
how far does that water and sewer continue.
MASCARENAS: Yeah,
criteria for hamlet expansion at one point was always having sewer.
SCOZZAFAVA: Exactly
MASCARENAS: Which was
always a major barrier for communities to do a hamlet expansion, if you have a
community that doesn’t necessarily need that, it was an easy no. So, yeah,
there’s certainly a lot of barriers but I think we need to list those and maybe
those things can change and spin it in a positive direction to where we can
take advantage of what’s out there.
MONTY: My water district
is 3-5 time bigger than my hamlet.
HUGHES: Do you have a
sewer district?
MONTY: No, nor will we as
long as I’m in office. They’re too many headaches.
Anythign else, well thank
you all, we stand adjourned until next month. Thank you.
AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME
BEFORE THIS TASK FORCE WAS ADJOURNED AT 11:48 AM.
Respectively Submitted,
Dina Garvey, Deputy Clerk
Board of Supervisors