Low and Moderate Income Housing Development Task Force

Monday, April 28, 2025 - 11:00 am

Jim Monty - Chairman

Chairman Monty called this task force to order at 11:00 am with the following in attendance: Matt Brassard, Ken Hughes, Mike Mascarenes, Jim Monty, Matt Stanley, Meg Wood, Favor Smith, Carol Calabrese, Megan Murphy, Terri Morse, and Angie Allen. Charlie Harrington, Anna Reynolds, Krissy Leerkes, Bill Tansey, Alan Jones and Mike Diskin were absent. Nicole Justice-Green had been previously excused.

Also present: - Dina Garvey, Jim Dougan, Caitlyn Wargo - Adirondack Roots

MONTY: Good morning everyone, it’s our quarterly meeting, call to order. I know we’ve got a lot of things going on everywhere and everybody’s back from break that went on break and stuff and reenergized and ready to go.

A couple of things that I wanted to talk about and bring up when we’re talking about housing and helping people in the County. We have, in my opinion, we have a lot of different groups competing for the same dollars and stuff and I think sometimes we’re dividing and conquering individually when we should be looking at this, in my opinion as one project, as trying to improve housing, because a lot of times one group puts in for a grant and another group puts in for the same grant, maybe a third group puts in for the same grant. We’re all competing for that same dollar and I think that gets looks at in Albany and I know, Carol, you can probably attest more to that, about how those, when they look at these grants in Albany and see, they obviously see the need because we have a great need here, but I think our focus should become and I think it should come out of this group is collaboration for different pots of that money, instead of everybody going to the same money, it’s just a thought.

And I also want us to start to looking at, because we’re accomplishing things one unit at a time and I know it’s hard because the money’s isn’t there and we have no idea what the Federal funding is going to look like or the State funding, come up, going out, however you want to look at it. But, I would like to see us try and start looking at some bigger funding areas. Some areas where we could get someone that’s willing to come in and do something, senior housing, the multi-use housing that you’ve tried to bring us into here and move along with some of those directions, because those are just as critical a need as housing is in Essex County. Again, I know the money is tight from funding sources, but we’ve got to come up with some ideas to approach some of these people. The complex that Mr. Schwartzberg is building in Plattsburgh is just absolutely amazing, down by the hospital. It’s going to be senior housing up there, absolutely amazing.

MURPHY: He bought the DaVilas Home

HUGHES: Right across from the college.

MONTY: It’s just an amazing, amazing project. Again, less confrontations, because you’re not dealing with the Park Agency and you’re within the limits of the City, but we need some of these things coming to Essex County in some way in some area. We have places, I know, Ken, you’ve talked for years about something at the old nursing home.

HUGHES: Yeah, the County Home in Whallonsburgh, absolutely.

MONTY: And that’s something I think we need to point this group in a direction with some ideas looking at trying to find funding to bring someone in or you know, for everything you read with the school being moved up here, there’s going to be a building available in Westport, potentially. I mean what better place to an existing building to do something similar to what Josh did in Willsboro and the success they’ve had there has been phenomenal.

Just some thoughts, random thoughts that I have been having, because we are, I know we have moved forwarded, but it’s one unit at a time, one unit at a time and I know government is slow, but there’s got to be some ways to figure out how to accelerate the process. So, I guess what I’m asking is for everyone to brainstorm this. I know you’re constantly looking for something, which is great, Terri.

MORSE: And I nip at your heels a lot, too.

MONTY: The things we need to do in finding developers that are willing to come into the Adirondack Park, sadly the project in Ti fell through, that was going to be an amazing project. A 60-unit complex.

MURPHY: So, Reagan Development isn’t moving forward with that?

MONTY: Last I knew it wasn’t.

MORSE: They didn’t get it through HCR.

MURPHY: They weren’t approved this time. Are they not going to resubmit? I mean Mackenzie didn’t go through the first time either.

MORSE: The last I heard from Reagan was they were going to find out what was the barrier. I don’t think they’re turning away from it, but the last I heard that is was blip.

MURPHY: It’s not unusual, like I said Mackenzie was turned down the first time. So, it’s almost like part of the process to not be approved the first time and then to move to the second. They approved two buildings in Lewis County, last year.

MORSE: I don’t think they’re abandoning, I don’t think Reagan is abandoning the project, but I don’t have an update as to whether they’re going to back out of it.

HUGHES: Do you know why HCR said no?

MORSE: That was, the last heard is that they were going to reach out to HCR and find out what was the barrier.

HUGHES: That should be known. It exists, that should be known and try to find out how to overcome that barrier in the future.

MONTY: If it was a grant submittal, an issue within the grant submittal, I’m not sure. All I know is I got a letter that the project was not moving forward, I guess, not moving forward at this time.

MORSE: I will reach out to Reagan, again.

MURPHY: I can, as well, we gave a letter of support.

MONTY: The gentlemen the presented the project to us, I thought it was just an absolutely amazing project and it was going to add so much, daycare, housing, it was just going to add so much to the Ticonderoga area. I would love to see us try and get one or two of those in other areas of Essex County. At least try and get one.

HUGHES: Well, those are big fish and we want to fish, but big fish can be really elusive.

MONTY: Yeah, absolutely, but you got to put bait out.

HUGHES: I fully agree with the statement, the question is what can this committee do to improve the bait? Is it more on the towns, is it more on the County, is it more on this committee, is it on North Country Rural Development, is it on Adirondack Roots, you know what is the lead agency or lead agencies that need to reel that fish in? How do we continue to make that attractive and who’s responsibility, who’s leadership is it to make that attractive?

MONTY: I think it’s a combination of everything, that’s why I think how critical in my initial statement about working together. We all need to work together for the same outcome and stuff, which in some ways we are, but I think we could do a lot better job at it and stuff and you know and I think the responsibility lies with the communities, come up with an area, but be willing to work and get it to the County and then we can get it to, potentially the funding sources. I am quite sure, I’ll throw Carol under the bus and I mean she’s worked with a lot of these developers in previous areas and stuff, getting someone interested, I think that’s going to take, as it takes many people to, takes a village to raise a child, it’s no different here, it takes many of us to work together to try and develop this.

STANLEY: So, who would be the person or the agency that would be the focal point to get everybody to work together to essentially schedule this stuff out? Like we have Community Resources is great for going to more infrastructure work, so they would have the pulse on a lot of the infrastructure work that’s going on in the County. What would be the agency that is going to sort of let towns or communities know, hey, they are two other towns that are applying for the same grant as you?

MONTY: I think we’ve been having that discussion. It’s the same thing at Community Resources, many towns are competing for the same tax dollars, the same grant dollars and stuff.

MORSE: I guess I feel like somehow a strategic plan would be a way for us to get started, so that we’re more coordinated in our approach, but inlays the question, Mr. Stanley, brought up. Who is going to be the initiator or the holder of the strategic plan? Who’s the one that kind of makes sure that it’s being addressed or followed? But, I don’t think it should be the County, like the employer, the County, or the legislature, but it should be all of us working together, but this is kind of a County sponsored task force, so is it the Task Force that does it or is the assignment of the organization whose priority is housing?

MONTY: My own thought is the idea comes from us and then we get it out to a level that need to, whether it’s the legislatures that are doing this, pushing, moving it forward, some of our housing groups, but the idea I would like to see come from us, the thought process. Just my thinking on that.

ALLEN: So, could we, using some of the brainpower that we have, which is not my brainpower to offer, I am just telling you right now, but what agency that is around the table or do we have in Essex County, where it is a strategic thinker that can help us formulate a plan? So, I think if the plan is going to come from the Housing Task Force, that’s great, but there may not be someone that’s around this room that can help guide us through that process, unless there is someone in this room that can guide us through developing the strategic plan.

MURPHY: I think we have talked about it a little bit in the past is the Lake Champlain, Lake George Regional Planning Board, they have collected up all the data, they have that type of thinking, they’re a regional planning board, they’re about really thinking about it from that strategic level. They already have 10 items, they might not be the right ones exactly for Essex County, because they did that for the four counties.

MONTY: Right

MURPHY: But, I think there’s already that kernel there that has priorities. They talked to communities, they talked to legislatures, they have talked to everyone before they put that out and I think it would be a great place to start, as far as looking through it and looking at what they already have and then maybe inviting them here to do a bit of a presentation and help us figure out how do we either prioritize the ten that are there or even come up with a couple of new ones that may or may not be there because they are specific to Essex County.

STANLEY: I think what you’ve got, also to weight into this is there are certain communities that are much more aggressive in trying to take care of issues. There are agencies that are working extremely hard and I want to make sure that we, one of the things that we don’t do is, and I don’t know the exact word, exactly, but we don’t want to step on each other toes.

MONTY: Exactly

STANLEY: We don’t want to I think make each other unhappy with other groups or other towns. I mean I’m just going to say it, I want everything to happen in my town.

MURPHY: That’s your job though.

STANLEY: And I will take anybody that will help me do that. Now are there other communities that are that, but yet, as a countywide, if we’re putting a county organization in charge of that, technically, they should be fair to all the taxpayers within the County. So, as much as I want to say what can you do for me and my town? I’ve also got and Ken and I talk about this a lot, when we come out here, we have to sometimes take off the town hat and put on the county hat and say, how do we make it right for everybody?

MORSE: Right, because if one town wins, we all win, when it comes to housing.

STANLEY: Yeah, right

MONTY: And the thing is, I would perfectly support your thinking, Matt, but I think about sometimes sitting around the room, we have more people that are more active within their communities, I’ll just put it that way and stuff. We can bring this to the communities, if they don’t want to move it forward than you know what, step off the train, because that train’s still coming through. So, I think finding a town willing to step up and work is huge, I think that’s important, but to me, we can’t let the individual wanting to do it for 18 derail our progress moving forward. Like for me, I’ve got nothing I can put in my hamlet, I’ve got zip, my hamlet is 3/4^th of a mile long, that’s it. There’s a couple of things that are in the works that possibly, maybe happening, but it’s more on the State Police are going to rebuild in Lewis, again. we got the initial plan, but don’t know if it will come to fruition, because they want me to pay to put the water to the property and I said, I’m not doing it.

MORSE: When you think about what the Sheehan Family did. They had that property and put out, what was is 12 mobile homes in it and I spoke with her, not too long ago and she said, it is so cool to see all the kids from those dwellings, get on a bus together and she said it’s created this beautiful little community and if we could find more individuals like that, because it doesn’t have to be, I mean that’s a creative solution. What I feel like is going to be a biggest challenge in Essex County is that each town needs about 12-20 units, rather than one big 60, I mean it’s great, but we looked at that 60-unit in Ticonderoga.

MONTY: But that would fit Ticonderoga. A 60-unit would not fit Lewis.

WOOD: We’re having that discussion now and we’re talking about, first it was 20-30 and then it was 32, and now we’re talking 35.

BRASSARD: These developers don’t want to come in and do small.

MORSE: Exactly

BRASSARD: The juice isn’t worth the squeeze for them.

WOOD: The site was chosen and it would be great for say 15 units, you could get 20 and nobody would have a problem with that, but it’s only one acre and parking is an issue and I think the project should be self-contained, I don’t think anybody should rely on the supermarket parking lot next door to take the overflow, because that’s not fair to the private owners of the property, even though it is a municipal lot, in everybody’s head, until the town takes care of it. but, the big problem is the number that’s required for it, it’s just not culturally, I leave a bad taste in people’s mouths. Granted, in five years it may be way different, but right now, people want houses or they want apartments that are, I don’t know the difference between condos and co-ops, or whatever, but something that they can own. Renting is considered transient.

MONTY: There are projects out there, Newcomb, we’re working with a cross mod program; where we’re building a home and if that home is successful, there’s 6 more lots on the piece of property that Newcomb has given. If they project is successful, which we are hoping it’s going to be, there’s going to 6 more homes built and again, that’s 7 homes in Newcomb. It doesn’t help Lewis, it doesn’t help Jay, it doesn’t Schroon Lake, but it is 7 homes in Newcomb and the grant was pretty reasonable. There’s a lot of work with it, but.

WOOD: Was there an acquisition of the land issue? That is what would pop up in Schroon Lake, because the value of the land is boggling.

MONTY: We were fortunate, it was town owned land.

WOOD: Yeah, we don’t own any land to speak of.

STANLEY: I think part of the problem is we’re trying to come up with a countywide solution and there’s a lot of positives to a Board of Supervisors and coming together to work on solutions together, but at the end of the day each one of us Supervisors are elected by the constituents of our town, so we feel that we’re very, in order to get reelected, we need to be really catering to the people who are in our own town, but this solution that we’re talking about is a countywide project, which we also sit on at the County level, trying to work on at the County level and I am just thinking outside the box here and talking outside the box, that if we want to County or some of these projects to go, we need to almost think about housing almost like we need to start thinking regionally about our emergency services. So, if we’re talking about a 60-units or a 40-unit or whatever I feel like we almost need to be looking at this at a Countywide, County owned property to go in to do this, but whenever we have any County owned property, we’ll sit together and we’ll be like, it’s happening in that town, it should be the responsibility or it should be the decision, does that town really want this. So, I think there’s a disconnect in a way we want to think about regionally and a fundamental challenge of trying to think of it town wise or a countywide solution and I might be talking in circles here, but I think we need to come to a consensus at the County level, I think to be able to work and find, because I mean it would be nice to have, in Jay, we have 3 hamlets that we have plenty of room to probably put something. We are the only town in our area that has wastewater anywhere, which would really help a developer and I think something in Jay would help Wilmington, Keene and even into Clinton County and into Black Brook and so I think looking at this, because we’ve done a lot of great things and have a lot of great success with the Land Bank is really starting to be able to do a lot of stuff. Adirondack Roots is doing a lot with in Keene and Wilmington with the projects that you guys are working on. The IDA is working on things, I think we’re all working together, but how do we really put that together to do what you’re saying and bring it together as one entity sort of going after a good sized project for the County?

MONTY: I understand what you’re saying, I get it, but I’m also old-school hardhead, if your townspeople don’t want it, we move on.

BRASSARD: Right, that’s what happened in Moriah.

MONTY: We move on, because we’re just kicking the ball down the road.

STANLEY: So, to go back to, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink, but if you irrigate a field and it creates food, everybody is going to come eat.

MONTY: Not if they didn’t want to participate, not in my garden.

STANLEY: Like people might be against the plan to start with, but once there’s positive things. I mean you’re also going to have people who, good point, we just won a $200,000.00 electric charge grant in Jay and we have people saying how bad it is that we’ve gone and won a grant for $200,000.00. I mean you’re going to get that, but at the end of the day, if that charger goes in, when you start having the tourism come, because it’s making our Main Street grow, people are going to be like, I told you that was a great idea. Somebody just needs to take the lead and say, hey, we’re doing this and then see the positive things that come from it and somebody has to be that leader to stand up and make the decision to move forward.

CALABRESE: I don’t have an answer for that, but what I will say that in our experience at the IDA, housing or whatever industry, sector that we’re talking about we always work with our partners, but we only have, because our eggs are this, this is what we have in our basket and New York State is dictated by law and then we also have some additional economic tools in our toolbox, but that can’t replace what housing can bring to the table, or what Community Development can bring to the table and it is very common, not only for us to work with our County partners, which we do on a regular basis, whether it’s individual towns or other County partners, but also the Regional Planning Board and the North Country Alliance, because quite honestly, the only way that we can move projects forward, public/private partnership is by working with our partners, because I don’t have access to housing per se, like Adirondack Roots would or some of the grants that Community Development does. We can do infrastructure and we have done infrastructure in partnership with Community Development, where they couldn’t get enough of the grant money to reduce the tax burden. Ticonderoga is a great example, you know, years ago, we’ve done it in Schroon Lake, we did the Main Street into Schroon Lake, but it always had numerous partners around the table with no conflict with the partners, whether again, it’s County, Town, State, Federal, we all have different rules and we all have different resources. In my experience those developers come to us and then if we are the person they contact first, when we gather all the resources around the table that we think we need to help that budget move forward and that includes the banking community. So, I never really have experience conflict with working with any of our partnering agencies. So, I think you have that intuitive wherewithal that we all realize we are serving the County of Essex and their constituents. It’s the question of the lead agency. So, I am just thinking of the IDA’s perspective, we do our job with partnership with many agencies, every single day and other projects wouldn’t move forward without that collaboration, so who the lead is, I don’t know. In our case it depends on how that developer, private or public comes to the table. It’s going to look different every single time.

STANLEY: Well, I think developers are interesting, too, like I mean, obviously, they want to make money. So, a lot of the developers I’ve seen, this project isn’t going to move forward unless I have grant money, which sort of puts a lot of barriers up right there. If you don’t win the grant money, the project doesn’t move forward.

MONTY: Or there needs to be enough units for them to make a profit.

STANLEY: Correct, I mean it’s kind of a catch 22.

CALABRESE: So, even, for example you’re talking about the Swartzberg project, I mean they did the school in Willsboro and a couple of us in the room, partnering agencies on it, Adirondack Roots and the IDA, along with many other, along with grant funds. So, he’s invested in Essex County quite nicely, took an old, derelict, Main Street, huge building and created this wonderful assisted living, memory care facility and now he’s doing it again in the region, like you said in Clinton County. If there’s building that are already in existence, you know, we can certainly, we actually have a page on our website that all it’s dedicated to is available space in Essex County. We don’t get involved, other than the fact that we’ll list it, if it a private developer or it’s a real estate agent and we categorize them by towns and if somebody’s interested in that, the link goes back either to the owner, who asked us to share it on our website or to the realtor. We aren’t getting involved in any of the negotiations, but we’ve centralized all the commercial space or real property that can be commercial space or other development in one central location, so it can make it easier for someone who’s looking for current property. Again, that’s just a function that we think we should be doing on our website, because we’re about commercial development.

MONTY: Right

CALABRESE: And it consolidates for someone who’s not going from real estate agent to real estate agent. They’re just looking, I’m interested in Jay or I’m interested in Keene or Lewis, they can go there, click on it, go right to whatever information that the realtor has posted. You know, so I think, again, and this is just my experience, the collaboration of the entities that are around that around the table, whether they are here today or not, it’s about how projects organically materialize and you’re right, it’s not one size fits all, it’s a combination. So, I get Reagan Development that you’re talking in Ti, it’s about scale of economy and it has to beneficial to a developer, financially, as well as the community.

MONTY: Right

CALABRESE: Lewis doesn’t need that, maybe, I’ve read some articles, mostly in Vermont where they changed the hamlet, where the number of housing units, they made them smaller, where they could get more economically feasible houses for small families, maybe it’s the house that they grow into, but it’s the starter home. So, they looked at different ways to look at zoning within developable areas of the community and I know that’s not something that’s going to happen overnight, but I also think, like the Land Bank, I also think we need to start looking short term and long term, you know maybe if there’s some properties that communities are interested, whether they’re vacant properties or have buildings on them that could serve that capacity, we do something about it. I don’t know if it’s the housing website we do that on or it’s the County website or it’s all the partners at the table. I just don’t think, I know who the leaders, in our experience it’s always going to be somebody else and then one certain entity.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, I think you’re on to something and maybe you and I are the same page and maybe we’re not, but I think, too, we’re discussing a lot of different programs that are being developed outside, we’re looking for someone else I feel to solve our problem and dealing with the State of New York and/or the Federal Government, right now, that’s not going to really happen, so I am the type the person that says, to heck with it and figure it out and let’s do what we can for ourselves; right? You’ve heard me say that an awful lot, you know assume you’re on your own and if others want to come play then great, but if we’re going to sit and continually try and pigeonhole what we’re trying to accomplish into program areas that are defined by someone else, when you’re not going to get very far, because a lot of those programs, at least in my experience and I was a former grant writer, really speak to the larger areas. A lot of them are even population driven in terms of formula grants. When they came up with the blight opportunities, a lot of that went to Troy and other areas of the State that had a much larger area, we couldn’t even apply, because our population was simply was too low. So, I guess my challenge and I am probably making more work for myself, which is idiotic, what is our problem? We know what our problem identification is, but what are our solutions to those problems and we haven’t really come up with that. We’ve come up with the Land Bank as a tool, but what are some of the other tools that we could potentially have some control over and we don’t even understand our full problem yet and I’m not picking on anything in particular, other than this just happened in an area where I live. A solar farm was just built in a huge hamlet area, what can we do to figure that out? That’s the hamlet that houses can be built. I don’t know how many acres it is, but I can tell you it’s not built on for at least 20 years and anytime you get outside of that hamlet, now you’re dealing with APA and those restrictive rules that we have to, but I’ve seen these pop up in hamlets all over the County. That’s absolutely counterproductive of what you’re trying to accomplish here at the housing committee. So, are these things that can start speaking to our communities about, because you can zone those things, other people are doing that, where they don’t allow solar farms to be built up in their hamlets, but there’s that fine line you walk and your constituents matter and all those things matter. I do think that we could do a better job at defining what our goals are. If you’re going to enter some public/private partnerships, I think the cheapest way that the County can go about it is start handling blight. We’re going to have a tax auction that’s going to come up in the fall and if we did a really good job at looking at those properties and really what they were, simply by removing those properties and putting them back on the tax auction as vacant lots, you could put deed restrictions, once you do that, that they can’t become STRs. If those can’t become STRs, now they’re being bought up by people with deed restrictions that we absolutely can control here on the Board and they have to maintain it for a certain period of time. I think looking at all those grants, CDBG are great tools, but they’re specific, they’re very specific to LMI that really don’t support what we’re trying to accomplish at that Land Bank. They help, they’re another tool in the toolbox, but when we talk about housing as a whole, I think we need to kind of go back to the drawing board, what is the problem identification? You’re right, there’s no developer that’s going to come in, because the tax incentives don’t pay unless it get over a certain size. I believe those are Federal Tax Exemptions that you’re looking at. So, until you look at a certain number, it’s not going to happen, but what can we do and how can we control our own density in terms of doing what we can at a cost that is acceptable to those that are paying for it and I think that’s really kind of a basic way to put it, but trying to course the State or Federal Government to come up with a program that’s going to fit rural community probably isn’t going to happen or it’s not going to happen anytime soon and if that’s the angle that we want to continue to go, then maybe we should develop our own program and hand it to these people. This is where you’re missing the boat; right? Some of New York State is very rural. It is, you can drive one from one end to the other, it’s not what people think and you know there is power in numbers what that happens. But, we should either be looking at what we can control or draw up our own program that we can then say that this is what needs to be funded in rural New York State and rural American. So, that’s a longwinded approach to what I think.

MONTY: I don’t disagree, my question goes back to Tyler-Hennepin, you know, the County takes that property, we invest in demoing it in selling it for an vacant lot, because now, are we allowed to deduct the demo? So, when that lot goes on the open market and they owe $10,000.00 in taxes and somebody buys $20,000.00, the previous owner gets $10,000.00.

MASCARENAS: And I can’t answer that question, I will leave that to the legal folks, but we can work with communities that want to work with us on these unsafe building issues and I’m not picking on any one town, but I’ve been here for 25 years, all of a sudden when the County gets a property, this property is terrible, it’s derelict, you need to take it down. We’ll, you’ve had it for 25 years and you’ve done nothing with the darn thing. That’s happened more times that I can count. So, if we’re working with towns and their code enforcements and being able to create that partnership, that’s just a different set of circumstances is my point, you wouldn’t just demo a property to demo it, you would demo it with purpose, because it truly is blight, it truly is unsafe, and you would have a legal standing in terms of demoing that property to hang your hat on. Now whether or not somebody could sue you and say that property was worth more with the house on it, they probably could and see where the chips lay there.

MONTY: And we still don’t know what the State regulations are, because the Federal who passed Tyler-Hennepin, put no language it in and then the State is coming in and saying, well, you can do this, this and this, but you can’t do this. So, no one really knows what has actually, potentially go back to the homeowner and they have three years to wait to see and stuff.

MURPHY: So, I just want to say, you know I came to this job, I wasn’t in housing and I found it to be incredibly fascinating. I appreciate what everybody here is saying, because I think, anyway, I tend to think about this and going back to the idea of thinking about it on the larger side and trying to tickle down to make something happen, like a strategy down to implementation and I come at it from 4 buckets, you have your existing housing, so you have your existing rentals and your existing single family homes and then you have your potential rebuilds, and so thinking about it like that, we’ve been working on all those things at Adirondack Roots and everybody else, I mean everybody is working on this, having a regional coalition, you know there’s a lot of different people, RPC in Clinton County, Friends of the North Country, you got other folks coming in to think about this, but the thing that you also need to acknowledge is each one of these projects is going to take a lot longer than you think it’s going to. I mean, just those four houses in Keene and it’s a lot of internal resources, just trying to get those things going. So, the capacity of being able to do these things is very important and so that I think is part of, I think a little bit of the frustration when we all talk about this, is we all know there is an issue, we’re all working on it and I completely agree with you. I think we’ve done a great job in Essex County working together, at times and then there’s times that each one of us do our own project and then that works as well and I think this group has been a great vehicle to be able to get things done, but we also have to acknowledge that it’s going to take a lot of time and to be very frank, I ran into some of these issues when I tried to buy here in 2000 and they just become exuberated and worse and worse and it’s worse everywhere else and so ultimately and then the other thing we do have is 18 towns and we would like to believe that we’re similar and we are, but there’s also a lot difference and the housing issues in some of those communities are very different and we’re working in Lake Placid and Keene and we’re working in Moriah and those issues are very different and there’s still some really basic issues that have not even been addressed, like lead in homes. You know and so we’re trying to work on all these different fronts and it’s really hard, because you know there’s needs. You know we have folks with lead in their homes and children testing high and we want to be able to do something about that and there are no good programs for us in Essex County to pay for that, but then on the other hand, we want to build new and we want to do all those things. I hear what you’re all saying, we all want this and we all want to work towards it and that’s the best part is that we want that. So, I guess you know trying to think about how to prioritize and how to figure out how to make those resources best work together, and for each other and for our communities. You know, I would love to see this group work on this a little bit more on that strategy up top and then helping us understand what the priorities are, you know we’re going around as organizations working and I agree, now everyone is going to want to do these things, but what I’ve always found in my jobs and I say, I’ll go and I’ll work with, who wants to work with me and you set an example and you build houses in Keene and you do something like that and now we’re working a little in Chesterfield and that piece of property is a totally different piece of property and that’s another thing, you’re not going to have one solution. We’re working with Mountain Lake Services and so that’s a totally and we worked in Keene with Little Peaks and like how do you make that lot work for you and work in the groups together, but then what do you need? Up there they have a new comp. plan so they want senior housing, so we’re talking about how do you approach developers and how do we do another small single family development and you know, because when you go to that comp. plan, that’s what the people in Chesterfield want and that will make it successful, but each one of these things are going to take a long time and it’s not, it will house a certain amount of people and that’s great, but it’s going to take a lot of effort, energy, resources and you know at the same time, some of our single family homes are going to continue to dilapidate. So, it’s almost like this reoccurring thing, so this is tough, this is a nut that hasn’t been cracked any way, but it’s just great that we’re talking about and then how do we feel better about the job that we’ve done, because we’ve done a lot. You know, we’ve done well in Essex County. We’ve brought the resources, we have the organization, we’ve all been trying to work together, as much as we can and then you have projects fall threw and it’s so disappointing, because you’ve put a lot of time, effort and energy into that project and so when it doesn’t result in something and that’s frustrating and so yeah, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t think there’s a magical thing here, but I think keep meeting here, trying to get an agenda, trying to get a little bit of a strategy and then trying to say, okay where are those areas that we can work together and do those things. I think we have a lot of those component pieces, lets maybe try and form a little better and think about that.

WOOD: I just want to reiterate that I think the Lake Champlain, Lake George will be really helpful to get us pulled together.

MONTY: We’ve invited them 3 times.

CALABRESE: I can invite them again, I sit on their committees, I can talk to them.

MASCARENAS: I didn’t even know that they applied for that huge grant.

HUGHES: Meg and I are on the Board.

CALABRESE: I mean I work with Beth all the time.

HUGHES: Go ahead and start and make it happen.

CALABRESE: I’ll ask, I can’t say I can make it happen.

MONTY: And I would also like to get the Northern Forest Center in, because they have a lot of grant funding. I believe they’re going the housing project in Elizabethtown.

HUGHES: So, my question now and I’ve been listening for once, is, are we talking about strategy, because I am still hung up on what Terri was talking about, a strategic plan, are we talking about? Because are you referencing the Planning Board, because they have a great strategy that we should latch onto or are we looking for grant funding?

WOOD: Well, one thing at a time.

HUGHES: Right

WOOD: But, I think they could really help us create a strategy that is focused and maybe help us with the way on what we should be doing when and how we can be loosey-goosey when we need to be and then the money wherever we can get it.

HUGHES: Because there are a lot of organizations that I think could be helpful to us, but I think, I really think we need a strategy. I think we’re a committee that’s adrift right now, I think we have been adrift since the end of the Land Bank approval and I think we are really solid puzzle pieces that can form a really terrific puzzle when they’re put together.

WOOD: But, someone who is used to the overarching way of looking at things.

HUGHES: Yeah

WOOD: And you people are in your spheres.

MORSE: So, we step away and be objective.

HUGHES: Yeah, and we’ve been at this Task Force for a very long time, for right or wrong, it’s a national problem that’s not going away anytime soon and it’s going to take a long time to solve it. I think that strategy, that strategic plan really needs to identify, if this was the first day of the Housing Task Force, what would we do? What are the problems? What are the barriers and what are the problems? Identify those first and then identify your resources and then identify solutions, possible solutions, even if they’re pie in the sky solutions and then try to execute those solutions, those three or four things, right there. We’re all incredibly capable people, running incredibly capable organizations, doing incredibly great work for the people of this County and I really think we need that glue to bring those jigsaw puzzle pieces together, because they’re all great pieces and they do fit. So, I really want to lean in on this strategic plan and maybe the Regional Planning Board is the puzzle master.

WOOD” They have a lot of experience doing, knowing when to pull what in.

HUGHES: Right, because when we met 3 months ago, the one thing that stuck with me that Jim Dougan, when he was at that chair said, we’re just talking, we’re just talking and no disrespect to anybody in the room, that’s what we’re doing today and yeah, they’re good ideas, but we’re talking but we need action, we need some action and that’s what Jim said, give us homework, and let’s get the homework done.

ALLEN: And everyone needs to do their homework.

HUGHES: We need to do homework, we need to do homework.

MORSE: When was the last time and I think it was 2019, when did we accomplish and when I say, we, I think it was the Lake Champlain, Lake George Regional Planning Board who recreated a needs assessment, do we have a current needs assessment? Because I feel like a pre-Covid needs assessment is different than a current one.

HUGHES: They did that housing study.

MASCARENAS: They did it and the County did one, too and they’re pretty relevant, still.

MORSE: They’re relevant?

MASCARENAS: Well, nothing changes.

MORSE: But, STRs have increased.

MASCARENAS: Maybe slightly, yeah.

MORSE: And more people, like during Covid, there are a lot more people.

MURPHY: One was ’22 and one was ’23.

MORSE: Okay

CALABRESE: Two people from every county, I was one of them and Housing, Adirondack Roots was on it, so they had representation from other counties that they cover, if you will, in New York State, and continually brought it back to the County Board to update. So, I think it’s still relevant and I think I handed it out once before, but if you don’t have access to it, you can find and it will drill down to individual towns.

MORSE: Okay

CALABRESE: So, you will get the Essex County stats and then you can drill down to each town and I think, like I said, it’s more or less, either fortunately or unfortunately, still relevant.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, it is.

MORSE: Then that’s our homework, between now and the next meeting, we all need to pull that document out and study it.

MURPHY: They came up with 10 strategies and like I said, some may or may not be more relevant to Essex County and so the homework here would be thinking about that and then maybe having them come in and talk about more specifically about the strategies and how they might relate to Essex County.

CALABRESE: I can email it out to everybody.

HUGHES: That would be great.

MURPHY: That was ’23, the Astra-Hill Research study was 2022. That was the one that Anna, did from the Planning Office and that has some other good data in it, slightly different.

MONTY: And speaking of homework, after that meeting, I sent out an email asking everyone to come back with some ideas that we can flush out and put together in a mission, I had two people respond to me. So, it’s a group effort and without getting the response where do we go but come back here and discuss it and we’re leaving here today with homework, will it come to fruition.

STANLEY: So, Ken you’re my ChatGPT at this meeting, because I started off by saying, there needs to be somebody in charge in creating something and you said it much better, is we need to actually start to really look at that group, like I brought up the fact that Community Resources do an incredibly great job at keeping tabs on the County’s infrastructure projects. Like they send us out a list every year of what projects you’re working on in our town, they have a list for 18 towns.

MONTY: But, can you imagine the work that they could do if they weren’t doing as much of the town work.

STANLEY: Correct, but what’s saying is, we need another organization, whether it’s the Lake Champlain, Lake George Regional Planning Board that is the housing portion of that idea and that strategy and understanding that we’re not competing with each other for grants, that we’re working together. Yeah, we’ve had a lot of talking here, I’ve been waiting to come back to something that we’ve talked about, there are a lot of tools that you can actually pick out of this meeting where we’re just talking, but there are a lot of things that we can actually work on. Like, Mike you brought up the foreclosure that’s going to be happening in the fall. There is a way to start to look that to get around the Tyler-Hennepin thing. So, in Jay we went to an owner whose house was going to be on this property foreclosure list, we said, if you give this to the town, you will not have any, we’ll deal with the tax issue. So, we are dealing with that tax issue, there won’t be a Tyler-Hennepin thing, it will be a vacant lot when it’s done, the Land Bank has actually acquired a grant to clear property, we just need to figure out what’s the next step to relieve those taxes. If it would be gone through the tax auction, we could have got rid of those taxes and cleared to go. So, I think there’s a lot of things that could happen and I think there’s a lot of good ideas that are little tools that will go into a toolbox that to who is going to be in charge to keep track of that, to plan the housing and I think that’s where we need to get, is we need to really start the message of who is going to be the ones that are in charge and how are we going to keep all these little tools together, because not one thing does fix everything. The Land Bank may fix certain problems, Adirondack Roots may take care of some other problems. There may be infrastructure problem that are going to help some things which the IDA helps on. Now, just to go on the other portion is thinking of Economic Development. I have a dozen people who want to start businesses in Jay. The problem is I have no site control. So, we have all these property owners that have vacant property, but there’s no site control and that is where does the County come in? Maybe the County is that conduit and I agree with you, we are thinking alike. We can’t rely on the State, we can’t rely on the Federal Government, we need to think about how are we going to take care of the problems here and be a beacon for other people that are going to be like, the Essex County has got it going on.

HUGHES: We’ve got great resources.

STANLEY: We have great minds, precisely and Angie, you are one of those great minds. So, I think today has been productive, even though it hasn’t felt productive and it’s felt like a bunch of talking, but it just takes, essentially, the Ken or ChatGPT to put it all into, so it spits something that’s polished.

ALLEN: I am just going to throw out something that’s not going to popular, but something Mike has taught me and I hate giving him kudos, is that I am a little concerned that meeting quarterly is just going to spread this out, where maybe we take a look at more of a concentrated, short-term, type turnaround things, because if we do a once a quarter, before we get Lake Champlain here is 3 more months.

CALABRESE: I was going to ask if we could do it sooner.

MONTY: That came from a request from the group that they only wanted to meet once a quarter.

STANLEY: Well, maybe we need to start meeting monthly, again.

ALLEN: And I don’t know when that request happened, this is only my second meeting, because I am new to the group, but if we’re talking strategic thinking, we can’t wait 3 months on strategic thinking. So, I am going to propose, again, that we take a look at meeting more frequently and maybe it’s not going to take 3 years, but maybe a year of meeting and concentrating with tasks, accountability. So, if we’re all great partners and we all hold each other accountable for not doing a task. Sorry, I know I sent his email, Jim, I don’t think I send yours and I apologize, but if we’re going to do this then there’s a partnership and a true partnership is commitment and accountability. So, I am proposing that we meet, maybe every 6-weeks. I don’t know what you guys have on your plates.

STANLEY: I think it works out for the schedule wise to be every month, so there is a consistent time.

MASCARENAS: I think we need a work session. I have facilitated these a lot of times, I prefer not to. I might be able to bring in Anna, because I have taught her how to do it, too and Angie, I have taught it, too, but where we identify the problem, identify the barriers and we need to get ongoing real minutes of these meetings that are task driven that then point us in a direction each time. We don’t have real good organization.

HUGHES: I recommend that we have an agenda, that would be very helpful.

MASCARENAS: Well, doing that properly drives an agenda. So, you talk about your old business, first, your new business that comes out of that; right? I am a Planner, that’s what I used to do, so that’s how you keep projects moving in that direction is they’re task driven. So, maybe we can even bring in Zoey, into our meeting to do that organizational piece, we have taught her this skill and she’s done it for projects for different entities.

HUGHES: It keeps us dialed in, it keeps us dialed into all the great ideas that are circulated around and some may be duds, some may be homeruns, and some may be somewhere in between and take a little bit longer to work on. I think you’re right.

MASCARENAS: I sit on every committee at the County, so for me to try and track that and do whatever, you sit on a great majority of them, so we spend a lot of time meeting.

HUGHES: I look at EMS, they do a really nice job of organizing what they’re going to talk about on their agendas and they cross off things that they take care of and you know, they add new stuff.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, so that’s the same format that we’ve taught these different things as they come in and that’s the format Zoey knows.

HUGHES: I would encourage that it happen.

ALLEN: That is the format I use for supervisions. All my supervisors use that same.

HUGHER: It tightens it up for all of us, because we all have different things going on.

MONTY: So, that being said, we’re moving to meeting every month, second Monday of the month at 11:00.

MORSE: The second Monday?

CALABRESEL When we were meeting monthly and you sent out emails and I apologize, too, because I completely forget about it and I did not respond back, but it’s too far in advance for me to do that, anyhow, when the County submitted the Land Bank Plan, building up to that, we had to have a great deal of information in which Ken, he was the lead on that. We put together our internal plan, as Mike is talking about to get to that point, to accomplish these goals, which we have done and I think we just kind of have fallen back to doing our own thing again and now it sounds like it’s time to rally the troops and I think we should also relook at the plan that the County submitted to the State for the ESD Land Bank Designation, because I think some of it is still relative, also. So, I don’t know, is that, where is that Plan online? Is at the County level?

MONTY: It should be on the County website.

MASCARENAS: I think it is.

CALABRESE: Because that might be good to recirculate.

MASCARENAS: You have it in a Google Doc.

HUGHES: Sure.

MASCARENAS: Well, we all went in and added to it.

HUGHES: Yeah, you’re probably right, yeah I probably do.

CALABRESE: In addition to me recirculating the Regional Planning Board study, it would be good to go back to what we created in the last 18-24 months. So, that we don’t forget, we just need to update it and bring in a fresh pair of eyes.

HUGHES: I’ll look for that.

CALABRESE: Would you like me to ask Beth to come from the second week of June or May?

MONTY: I’ll shot out an email, because I want to make sure Sayward is invited from Northern Forest. Should I invite Adam DeSantis?

ALLEN: Again, not popular, but I have heard a lot of people talking back here about can we do it after Ways and Means, because I know that second Tuesday of the month, we go to noon and the Human Service Committee doesn’t sometimes even start until 11:00, so I am just fearful that it will never fall on-time. So, could we look at after Ways and Means?

MONTY: I would rather do it Economic Development.

STANLEY: Because that Economic Development day and the next week there are so many meetings. It’s EMS, Public Safety, Economic Development and Human Services.

BRASSARD: Your Ways and Means is typically just Ways and Means.

MORSE: But, just so you know, we’re doing a BRIEF presentation on the 27^th to Ways and Means, so it should be about 20-minutes.

MONTY: Just tell Dina and then somebody let me know.

GARVEY: So, Tuesday the 22^nd at 11:00.

MASCARENAS: So, do we want that meeting to be a work session? If so, is Lake Champlain, Lake George Planning Board going to be asked to run that work session or should I ask Anna? Anna’s style is going to be very different.

HUGHES: I say bring in the Planning Board and see, they’re outside of us, but they’re still part of us.

MASCARENAS: Who is going to be in charge of asking the Planning Board to run that session?

MONTY: I’ll send it out.

MASCARENAS: And then we’ll ask Zoey if she can come and start doing that task driven type document that comes out of every meeting, following the meeting.

MORSE: And our homework is to review the Planning Board from 2023, that document and the Astra-Hill.

HUGHES: Who has access them to send them out?

MURPHY: I can send them out.

HUGHES: And I will look for the Land Bank document and the Google docs and share those out.

MONTY: If there’s nothing else, we stand adjourned. Thank you everybody.

THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS TASK FORCE WAS ADJOURNED AT 12:10 PM.

Respectively Submitted,

Dina Garvey, Deputy Clerk

Board of Supervisors