ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE

Monday, March 10, 2025 - 10:00 AM

Ike Tyler, Chairperson

Clayton Barber, Vice-Chairperson

Chairman Tyler called this Economic Development/Planning/Publicity Meeting to order at 10:00 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Chris Clark, Robin DeLoria, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Cathleen Reusser, Favor Smith, Matt Stanley, Davina Thurston, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Margaret Wood and Mark Wright. Matt Brassard had been previously excused.

Department Heads present: Mike Mascarenas and Anna Reynolds.

Deputies present: Dina Garvey

Also Present: Elizabeth Lee and Cole Trager - Cornell Cooperative Extension, Dan Kelleher -ROOST, Megan Murphy and Caitlyn Wargo - Adirondack Roots, and Nicole Justice-Green - Essex County Land Bank. Aurora McCaffrey - Essex County Historian was absent. Jody Olcott and Carol Calabrese had been previously excused.

TYLER: Economic Development, thanks for coming everybody.

IDA is excused, Ms. Reynolds

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The first item on the agenda was the Industrial Development Committee with Jody Olcott and Carol Calabrese having been previously excused and no report was given.

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The next item on the agenda was Community Resources with Anna Reynolds reporting as follows:

REYNOLDS: Good morning, many referrals today. So, the first five are in the Town of Essex. There are no inter-municipal or countywide impacts on the following submitted referrals for special use permits, number one through four; 30 Albee Lane, 2222 Lake Shore Road, 2854 Lake Shore Road, and 37 Beggs Points Road. They’re all reconstruction projects that do not affect roads, storm water, anything municipal, so a letter of no impact may be submitted.

TYLER: Can I get a motion that, Ms. Thurston. Second? Mr. Hughes, thank you.

ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD

ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF ESSEX

The following motion was made by Supervisor Thurston.

Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on March 10, 2025;

REFERRAL PROPOSED ACTION

Town of Essex - 30 Albee Lane Special Use Permit

Town of Essex - 2222 Lake Shore Road Special Use Permit

Town of Essex - 2854 Lake Shore Road Special Use Permit

Town of Essex - 37 Beggs Point Road Special Use Permit

And Whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.

Be It Adopted by the Essex County Planning Board that no recommendation or comment on said referral shall be or hereby is made, and the respective referring bodies may take such final action as they deem appropriate.

This motion was seconded by Supervisor Hughes and passed on a vote of 9 in favor and none opposed.

TYLER: Discussion? All in favor? Opposed?

REYNOLDS: So, the fifth one is an area variance, so therefore a letter of no inter municipal or countywide impacts will occur, because it’s on a state road and there’s no impact to county infrastructure.

TYLER: Mr. Hughes, second? Mr. Doty.

ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD

ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF ESSEX

The following motion was made by Supervisor Hughes.

Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on March 10, 2025;

REFERRAL PROPOSED ACTION

Town of Essex, 2217 Lake Shore Rd. Area Variance

And Whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.

This motion was seconded by Supervisor Doty and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.

TYLER: Discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Carried

REYNOLDS: The Town of Schroon, adopting their comprehensive plan, congratulations.

WOOD: We’re having a hearing, tomorrow night.

REYNOLDS: Yes, yes, this is part of that phase. The Public Hearing is scheduled for March 13^th.

WOOD: Right

REYNOLDS: So, there are no inter-municipal or countywide impacts.

TYLER: Ms. Reusser, Mr. Clark

ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD

ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF SCHROON

The following motion was made by Supervisor Reusser.

Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on March 10, 2025;

REFERRAL PROPOSED ACTION

Town of Schroon adoption or amendment to comprehensive plan

And Whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.

This motion was seconded by Supervisor Clark and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.

TYLER: Discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries.

REYNOLDS: Within the Village of Saranac Lake, they’re updating their development code for additions to the Short Term Rental definitions and sections of owner occupation criteria. There are no inter-municipal or countywide impacts.

TYLER: Motion, Mr. Doty. Second, Mr. Clark.

ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD

ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE VILLAGE OF SARANAC LAKE

The following motion was made by Supervisor Doty.

Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on March 10, 2025;

REFERRAL PROPOSED ACTION

Village of Saranac Lake Update to Development Code - Short Term Rental definitions and Sections 104.3-106

And Whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.

This motion was seconded by Supervisor Clark and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.

TYLER: Discussion?

DOTY: Anna, weren’t both of those updated STR permits, outside of Essex County or as a whole it has to be okayed by you?

REYNOLDS: Right, because it’s in the Village of Saranac Lake, it still has to be referred to Essex County.

DOTY: Okay

REYNOLDS: Because it’s within the 500’ of the municipal boundary.

TYLER: All in favor? Opposed? Carried

REYNOLDS: And last, but not least, the Town of Westport, it’s special permit for change of commercial use. It’s the new bookstore, right on Main Street. There’s no inter-municipal or countywide impacts.

TYLER: Mr. Clark. Ms. Reusser, second.

ACTION OF THE ESSEX COUNTY PLANNING BOARD

ON REFERRALS RECEIVED FROM THE TOWN OF WESTPORT

The following motion was made by Supervisor Clark.

Whereas, the Essex County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its regular meeting on March 10, 2025;

REFERRAL PROPOSED ACTION

Town of Westport, 6592 Main Street Special Permit for Change of Commercial Use

And Whereas, none of the referred, proposed actions directly impacts a county road or county property.

This motion was seconded by Supervisor Reusser and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.

TYLER: All in favor? Opposed? Thank you

REYNOLDS: That’s it for today, unless anyone has any questions?

TYLER: Anything for Ms. Reynolds? I don’t see anything, have a great day.

REYNOLDS: Okay, thank you.

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The next item on the agenda was the Essex County Historian, Aurora McCaffrey, was absent and no report was given.

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The next item on the agenda was Cornell Cooperative Extension, with Elizabeth Lee and Cole Trager reporting as follows:

LEE: I submitted a report, I am happy to answer any questions, if anyone has any.

TYLER: Questions?

LEE: I do want to let you know that I included in the Agriculture Program section, our new Ag in the Classroom video and I usually try and send a link and I will do that, I will follow up with a link. And the other thing I wanted to mention, is this morning, Willsboro got a nice shout out for the Research Farm and some research being done for some variety trials for some northern hardy nuts and some new fruit that may prove to be commercially important. So, it’s nice to see in the statewide morning Ag clips and I will be glad to forward, as well.

And with that, I will turn it over to Cole Trager, who it think you have all met.

TRAGER: Hey, everybody. So, as you know, we’ve recently wrapped up the Agricultural District Review. The Farmland Protection Board had our meeting back on January 9^th and included in the agenda, today is the letter of recommendation that we pulled together for the person in question for exclusion. Would you like me to read it?

TYLER: Yeah

TRAGER: To the Honorable Essex County Legislature, As per Article 25AA Sections 303-a and 303-b of the New York State Agriculture and Markets Law, the County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board met to review the proposed additions, exclusions, and modifications to the Essex County Agricultural District in compliance with the eight year review. The parcel reviewed was owned by Valeria M. Bodnar, 208 Young’s Road, Town of Westport and there’s no current agricultural production and Tax Map No. is 57.3-1-39.200. We recommend this exclusion following telephone conversations and in person visits to the property with the landowner regarding agricultural use of the proposed exclusion, as well as analysis of SUDA soil maps and satellite imagery of the parcels. Upon discussion as a Board, we determined this parcel consists of predominantly nonviable agricultural land and that exclusion from the agricultural district would not impact the public interest or the greater farming community. This is mainly because the property was only added to the agricultural district to accommodate an aquaculture operation that never materialized.

TYLER: Thank you, we need a mover for that. Would somebody like to do that? Mr. Hughes, Mr. Clark, second.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE EXCLUSION OF THE ONE PARCEL OWNED BY VALERIA M. BODNAR, IN THE TOWN OF WESTPORT FROM THE ESSEX COUNTY AGRICULTURAL DISTRICT.

Hughes, Clark

TYLER: Discussion? I can tell you, I have had a lot of discussion with Ms. Bodnar, about this and she’s very happy, for some reason, I don’t know. Anyway, all in favor? Opposed? Thank you

TRAGER: Thank you.

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The next item was the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism with Dan Kelleher, reporting as follows:

KELLEHER: Good morning, it is great to see everyone after a shorter weekend than normal. So, today, I have with me our end of year report. That gives you the summary of all activities we undertook over the last year, but before I hand that out, I just want to give some highlights of some 2024 results that came in after we went to print.

So, in 2024 we hit a record high number of room rents. That’s the total number of hotel rooms, motel rooms, short term rental nights that are booked per night. So, that record was roughly 24,000 new room nights higher than the last record and we know that for every room night that there is roughly $23.76, roughly, of sales tax generated to the County. So, we’re pleased to report that hopefully we helped generate an additional, almost, $600,000.00 in new sales tax revenue over 2023 and all prior years. So, we’re very excited about those results and we’re also able to go back and look at, as a percentage of total spending in the County, what percentage of that comes from visitors? And so for every dollar spent in Essex County in 2024, $.36 ½ came from someone that lived outside of Essex County and that ranges, geographically, the region in Essex County with the lowest percentage of spend coming from visitors is the Saranac Lake Region, which is western North Elba and St. Armand. They came in at roughly16% of all spending came from visitors and the highest region, was actually the Adirondack Hub Region, where roughly 57% of all spending came from people that live outside of Essex County. We also know that of total small business spending, so these are businesses owned by people in Essex County, 37% of their revenue came from visitors and if we look at some of the key services that we all rely on, roughly 20% of all grocery store revenue came from visitors, 32% of all gas and service revenue came from visitors and nearly 60% of all restaurant revenue came from visitors. So, we’re glad that we keep increasing that spending, because that’s, according to local businesses, keep our communities vibrant.

Before I conclude, I just wanted to give you an update on what we’re doing to address the Canadian market. As I am sure that many of you have read, there is a lot of animosity brewing with our northern neighbors. At the last, at the Chamber Legislative Dinner, this past week, you might have heard Garry Douglass, mention that 40% of Quebec residents now view America as an enemy and only 35% view us as an ally and so we’re tracking those potential impacts to our region. We have anecdotally heard about people not, cancelled their reservations and not coming, our paid advertising in Canada, as received significant negative comments online and then when we look at the traffic to our websites to Canada, we’re down roughly 40%. So, Canadian visitation makes up around 5% of visitors to Essex County, so we are looking at a potential decline. If Canadian visitation drops just 20%, we’re looking at roughly $9 million less in the County and $176,000 drop on sales tax revenue. So, we’re looking very hard to offset this. I mentioned at our paid advertising is getting a lot of negative feedback. So, we actually significantly cut that Canada and redirected that to markets in the United States where we think we can make that volume and quality of visitor up, quickly, so we hopefully we not see that drop. We will continue and we recently have, really boosted our earned media and public relations efforts in Canada. So, trying to get that message, you’re valued here, you’re welcomed here, we love you, thank you for coming. We just hosted a Canadian snowmobile blogger who make videos, snowmobiling all over the world. They just came down to southern Essex County to do a video, so that should be coming out soon and then we’re trying to get into those Canadian news outlets, again, with that message that you’re welcomed here. So, we’re hopeful that we will be able to offset that drop, that anticipated down in Canadian visitation with new American visitors and hopefully when everything shakes out, the Canadian visitors rise and these new American visitors keep coming and you know in several years there will be a net gain for our region.

So, with that, again, I’ll hand out the annual reports, after any questions that you have, so thank you.

HUGHES: I am glad that you said several years, because no matter what happens policy-wise, a change could be made quickly, immediately, maybe , but sentiments last a lot longer and so turning the tide of those sentiments will take a lot of work on your part and the part of ROOST to change those sentiments with those individuals north of the border.

REUSSER: I recently attended a boating show in Montreal, my husband’s company, which is out in Willsboro, Safe Harbor Marina. We were all representing the different marinas between Vermont and New York and my experience with the Canadian people was very favorable, lots of folk looking to come to the area or continue business.

KELLEHER: That’s great to hear.

TYLER: Yes, thank you, anything else?

KELLEHER: That’s it and the report will give you all the activities that we did to help drive the results that I mentioned earlier.

TYLER: Thank you

KELLEHER: Thank you all, very much.

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The next item was the Essex County Land Bank with Nicole Justice-Green reporting as follows:

JUSTICE-GREEN: Good morning everyone. I don’t have a report this month. All my report from last month is still active. We are still in construction on two rehabs and ongoing construction on three demolitions. So, the big push I’m trying to make this month is on the 24^th of March are the VRPIP, the Vacant Rental Property Improvement Program, during the grants, between $50,000.00 - $75,000.00 per unit, it’s due. We have about 12 very viable applications throughout Essex County. It’s very southern focus and so for my neighbors, Westport and above, I would love to see applicants from your communities. If you have any property owners that would qualify or are interested. We have an open house, tomorrow, but are willing to have additional open houses in the northern part of the County, to do an application workshop and answer any questions of those that are very interested and again, this is a very rare grant from New York State, wherein, it does not require a match and it is more than an enough, as long as there is not any major structural issues to create move in ready rental units, which we are, obviously, in desperate shortage across the county for. These rentals unit comes with a period of affordability and restrictions. So, obviously, we can’t put deed restrictions on the property, because the land bank won’t own it, but these will have to be long term, you know, workforce, structured rentals, can’t be Airbnb, can’t be short term, for at least 10 years for New York State. So, that’s obviously a huge boon for our county.

But, with that, I am happy to answer any questions that you might nave.

TYLER: Nicole, if we have some property in Westport, so we have the landowner get in touch with you?

JUSTICE-GREEN: Yup, it has to be the property owner or it could be the tenant, as long as the landlord or the property owner life site control or they have a long term lease. So, that’s the best way, is to shoot our office, you know, an email or a call. We also, on the Essex County Land Bank webpage, have a whole tab dedicated with the application, online application, any sort of information. If we don’t award the full $2 million in this round, we will probably in the next few months, reopen it again for competitive applications. This is a two year contract and this also, the State of New York, which is very rare for a program, most property owners have to front the money first and then be reimbursed by the State. The State is allowing us to front the money. so, the property owners that they don’t have their own line of credit, can do cost incurred, which is super rare for them to do. It’s really aimed, at only addressing our workforce rental storage, but also economic development, because you know, this program, while it’s targeted at really mixed use structures and vacant rentals in the top floor and commercial businesses on the second floor, one that just gives these property owners multiple revenues streams, which is very necessary to exceed in our economy in the North Country, but it’s also applicable for homes that have been broken up into no more than 5 units. So, it could, I’ve seen them across the County, especially in smaller areas.

TYLER: Is this just for renovations and/or new construction?

JUSTICE-GREEN: They have to be fully vacant. So, it would be for any unit due to code issues or a new piece of property that they bought that has had a tenants in it, but they’re looking to renovate. So, it’s moderate to sustainable renovation, if the unit currently has tenants in it, then it’s not applicable for this program, they would have to go to another funding source, which there are few out there that we can help with.

TYLER: Thank you, anything else? Thank you, Nicole.

JUSTICE-GREEN: Thank you

TYLER: Before we go to go Adirondack Roots, before I forget, we need a resolution to accept the year-end report from ROOST. Mr. Hughes, Mr. Doty

RESOLUTION ACCEPTING AND PLACING ON FILE THE 2024 ROOST (REGIONAL OFFICE OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM) ANNUAL YEAR-END REPORT.

Hughes, Doty

TYLER: Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Thank you

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The next item was Adirondack Roots with Megan Murphy reporting as follows:

MURPHY: Good morning, so I did submit a report, so, I don’t know if anyone has any questions.

But, I did also want to point out that we did include a, Did You Know section, just to follow up a bit on what Nicole, said, actually. I was having a conversation with Bill Johnston, the former County Planner and we added in the Did You Know section, this issue, about the Housing Choice Voucher Program, as we know, we’ve been on hold over the past year. New York State has had a budget issue and we haven’t been able to bring anyone new onto the voucher program and so, obviously, we are getting right now are a lot of calls from our clients and actually from landlords, as well. People are obviously concerned about what’s happening at the Federal level and so obviously we don’t have a crystal ball and we don’t know what’s going to happen, but it was such an interesting conversation that I had with Bill Johnston or actually we had at our Board meeting, he brought up what is it like here in Essex County, prior to having the voucher program in place and so a great program that Nicole has, as well, because the issue is about the quality of rentals for the people that we have renting here in Essex County and so prior to the Section 8 Program, there was a real problem with the quality of rental housing in Essex County and this just assures our landlords that they are getting a fair payment and it enables them to make investments in their properties and then it gets our community members stable housing and I just wanted to back up what Nicole’s saying, it’s just so important for us to be able to work on rentals. It really is the core for workforce housing in our communities, as we all know, at least I did when I started out, rented, you know, you’re not a homeowner immediately. So, when you are looking for your first jobs, when you’re a young family, you may not be able to afford to buy and it’s just super important for us to have these rentals available and important for our, the different types of workforce we have in our communities. I just wanted to bring that up and I thought about bringing Bill, in. he spoke so eloquently about it, but I thought I would let that go, but I wished I had taped him, because I think, it’s hard, you know, some of you worked with Bill and you may know what he was referring to, prior to that time, but I think of some of us that have only worked in our experiences to have these things available for people, we don’t know what it was prior to that and so it was really meaningful to hear about that.

MONTY: As you know, Megan, several years ago, I think Tommy, brought it up more than anybody, because he was here longer than even Steve, he mentioned with the voucher program, a lot of these people that are living in these apartments, the landlords aren’t really maintaining those apartments to a standard that equates to, I won’t say comfortable living, but you know, the right style, who enforces that? If they’re receiving their voucher, who enforces that they’re maintaining that apartment at a safe level?

MURPHY: We do, actually, the only recourse we have is to abate a payment. So, that means, that if we have an compliant and we have, you know, winter it’s often the heat isn’t working, the hot water’s not working and we what we do, we have 4 certified inspectors, they just actually changed the type of inspection, we went from the Housing Quality Survey (HQS), to something called Inspire, which is a national standard and so we’re not code enforcement, so some of the things that we address are not going to be to the level of code enforcement, but there are things that are either 24-hour fixes or longer term fixes and so when our inspectors go in, we then contact the landlord, we let them know and a lot of times the landlords do work with us, very closely, occasionally we have an issue and then what we do, the only recourse that we have is to abate payments, stop the payments to them. We do often work with code enforcement, if we find that the conditions are at a point that all we can do is abatement payments, but we feel that there is a health or safety issue, we do work with code enforcement and we do, it is incredibility important, especially to be sure that folks, we also encourage them to make reports to code enforcement, that those tenants, as well and we’ve worked with Supervisors, when we’ve found that code enforcement may or may not be as responsive that we want them to be. So, we have taken it all the way up to the Supervisor level to be sure that the issues are addressed.

MONTY: So, if your inspector went into an apartment and it wasn’t up to code, they would report that to the Town?

MURPHY: It’s not that it’s not up to code. We have standards that we need to meet, if we see something that is definitely a health or safety violation, yes, we have worked with, everything from bedbugs to electrical, i.e., heating, any of those things that are certainly, especially in the winter, heat, hot water. We have gotten Supervisors involved, not just code enforcement, but Supervisors.

MONTY: So, how many times, estimate, I know it’s hard to say, has payments been abatement?

MURPHY: Oh, we abate payments on a regular basis if we feel that we need to and then a lot of times it’s working with that landlord and hopefully that is enough to and sometimes the violations, like I said, there’s different levels, so it might not be an immediate health or safety violation, but it is something that we feel is important. That is when we continue to talk with that landlord. We want to try and get the units in circulation, obviously, and it’s not great for our, when we do abate payments, we have to, the tenant needs to set aside, usually they have a portion, you know, they pay 30% of their income to rent and then the voucher program picks up the additional part of that. They need to set that aside and then the landlord would ultimately get that payment. They just don’t get it at that month that we’re abating payments.

GILLILLAND: What towns do you have this voucher program active in?

MURPHY: All of them, we have our list right here or where all of our vouchers are. Some of greater numbers than others.

GILLILLAND: So, how many inspectors do you have?

MURPHY: Between the two counties, we have four people that are certified inspectors. It’s not the only thing that they do. They are also Housing Choice Voucher, we have one dedicated, certified inspector.

GILLILLAND: Clinton and Essex?

MURPHY: Yes, we also have vouchers in Clinton County.

MONTY: So, on that report, Megan, I love Ken, like a brother, we’re lumped in with Essex. I would like to know how many are in Lewis, it’s Essex/Lewis.

MURPHY: Yeah

MONTY: Yeah, I would think the demographics would be more Etown/Lewis.

REUSSER: Is that representative of, both towns have 7?

MURPHY: Correct, together. Essex and the Town of Lewis, together have 8. Elizabethtown and Westport together have 27. It’s for some reason the way that the system puts them together, but we can break them out, individually, but we can break them out individually, by running a different report, if you would like? We did do that for Newcomb, North Hudson and Minerva were lumped together and you guys asked us to break them out. So, we would be happy to break out Elizabethtown/Westport and Essex/Lewis also.

THRUSTON: And St. Armand and Wilmington, too.

MURPHY: Yup, I see that.

THURSTON: Thank you

MURPHY: And Jay and AuSable Forks.

STANLEY: You can keep them together, it’s all the Town of Jay.

MURPHY: Yeah, AuSable Forks, used to have its own separate system. In fact, when this started that was the other thing, lots of towns had the Housing Choice Voucher program and then they all sort of aggregated together and we actually just combined Jay with Essex County.

TYLER: Anything else? Thank you.

MURPHY: Thank you

TYLER: Anything else to come before this committee? If not, thank you.

AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE, IT WAS ADJOURNED AT 10:28 AM.

Respectfully submitted,

Dina Garvey, Deputy

Clerk of the Board