ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY
COMMITTEE
Monday,
April 14, 2025 - 10:00 AM
Ike
Tyler, Chairperson
Clayton
Barber, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman
Tyler called this Economic Development/Planning/Publicity Meeting to order at 10:15
am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Matt Brassard,
Chris Clark, Robin DeLoria, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington, Ken
Hughes, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Cathleen Reusser, Matt Stanley, Davina
Thurston, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Margaret
Wood and Mark Wright. Favor Smith, had been previously excused.
Department
Heads present: Mike Mascarenas and Anna Reynolds.
Deputies
present: Dina Garvey
Also Present:
Carol Calabrese - IDA, Elizabeth Lee - Cornell Cooperative Extension, Dan
Kelleher and Mary Jane Lawrence - ROOST, Megan Murphy - Adirondack Roots, Nicole
Justice-Green - Essex County Land Bank, Aurora McCaffrey - Essex County Historian and Roger Allen.
TYLER:
I’ll call the Economic Development Committee meeting. I will start with Carol
Calabrese. Our speaker, presentation today is not going to happen until next
time.
***************************
The first
item on the agenda was the Industrial Development Committee with Carol
Calabrese reporting as follows:
CALABRESE:
We submitted our report, does anybody have any questions?
TYLER:
Anybody have anything for Carol? Thank you, Carol.
***************************
The next item on the agenda was
Community Resources with Anna Reynolds reporting as follows:
REYNOLDS:
Good morning, I’ve got two area variances for the Town of Schroon. Area
Variance is the minimum lot size for a housing development on two properties,
located on Route 9. There are not inter-municipal or countywide impacts,
therefor a letter of impact may be submitted.
TYLER:
Can I have a resolution on that, please. Mr. Barber, seconded Ms. Wood.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN OF SCHROON
The following motion
was made by Supervisor Barber.
Whereas, the Essex
County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its
regular meeting on April 14, 2025;
REFERRAL
PROPOSED ACTION
Town of Schroon - 1375
US Rte. 9 Area Variance
Town of Schroon - 1531 US Rte. 9 Area
Variance
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 Wood and passed on a vote of 9 in favor and none
opposed.
TYLER:
Discussion? All in favor? Opposed?
REYNOLDS:
And within the Town of Chesterfield, they are planning to adopt their
comprehensive plan, I have reviewed and submitted comments to their committee
and their team. There are no inter-municipal or countywide impacts.
TYLER:
Moved by Mr. Barber, seconded by Ms. Reusser.
ACTION OF THE ESSEX
COUNTY PLANNING BOARD
ON REFERRALS RECEIVED
FROM THE TOWN OF CHESTERFIELD
The following motion
was made by Supervisor Barber .
Whereas, the Essex
County Planning Board has considered the following GML 239 referrals at its
regular meeting on April 14, 2025;
REFERRAL
PROPOSED ACTION
Town
of Chesterfield Adoption of Comprehensive Plan
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 Reusser and passed on a vote of 9 in favor, and none opposed.
TYLER:
Any comments? All in favor? Opposed? Carried
REYNOLDS:
I have nothing else, unless there’s any questions?
TYLER:
Anything for Ms. Reynolds? I don’t see anything, have a great day.
***************************
The next item on the agenda was the
Essex County Historian, Aurora McCaffrey reporting as follows:
MCCAFFREY:
Good morning, so you have my written, submitted report. I don’t have anything
to add to that, today. I just want to note one thing on my report. I want
everybody to be aware of is that our Essex County Historical Society meeting of
the membership is scheduled for May 15th at 4:00 PM. That will be at
the Museum in the library, although Zoom is available for those that can’t make
it. So, I just wanted everybody to know about that and I am happy to answer any
questions.
TYLER:
Aurora, in the past I think there might have been a few, a little bit of money
for those historic signs along the road, I’m not sure. I was wondering if there
was anything available this year for those. We have several in Westport and I
have had a couple of people talk about that.
MCCAFFREY:
Yes, and actually the new owners of the Arsenal are looking and we’ve done a
few, so for restoration, there’s not much money, but we have done it as a
project for the community. I mean it’s just paint and sanding it. The hardest
thing of us is to have to sandblasted, if it needs it.
TYLER:
Correct, trust me, I have investigated and it’s hard to find anybody.
MCCAFFREY:
Yeah, so the ones we’ve done we’ve had the little electric and it just kind of
takes it off of it, but I have the paint colors.
TYLER:
Oh, you do?
MCCAFFREY:
Yup, there’s specific ones that they like.
TYLER:
Perfect
MCCAFFREY:
But, I would be happy, you know, right now, I was telling the owner of the
Arsenal that I would love to help, but you know, until we get open, I’m not
sure we’ll have much time to get out and about to do that.
TYLER:
Thank you
MCCAFFREY:
This summer, we could help.
TYLER:
Thank you
MCCAFFREY:
You’re welcome.
CLARK:
Well, you mentioned the Arsenal, twice, any idea of the opening date?
MCCAFFREY:
I wish I knew, we have been starving here in Town. I just heard April, but I
think they’re still doing a lot of work over there, so I’m not sure that’s
going to be the case.
REUSSER:
Mark Barker, informed me that they will be mid-July towards the end of July,
specifically the 31st.
HUGHES:
Just a quick note, I noticed in one of your bullets about offering 46ere, all
for admission.
MCCAFFREY:
That’s right
HUGHES:
I think that’s a really nice thing, as we celebrate the centennial of the first
46ers and hopefully that helps to increase your visitors.
MCCAFFREY:
Yeah, as part of the centennial. I was actually talking to the Foundation
that’s funding this and there was consideration of doing free admission for all
this year and I was really excited, but at this point that hasn’t happened,
because of some of the uncertainty in the market and everything going on, but
free for 46ers.
TYLER:
I only have 44 more to go. Does driving up Whiteface, does that count?
MCCAFFREY:
No
TYLER:
45, anything else? Thank you, have a good day.
MCCAFFREY:
Thank you.
*****************************
The next item was the Regional
Office of Sustainable Tourism with Dan Kelleher, reporting as follows:
KELLEHER:
Good morning, great to see everyone, today. So, I know there’s a lot of volatility
in the market over the last couple of weeks, so I thought I would give you a
little update on where we’ve been and where the data suggests we’re headed. So,
I reported last month, that 2024 was a record year in terms of visitors to the
County, that continued into January, where we were up 24% over the rolling
5-year average, which 24% is a pretty good growth rate and then February we saw
a pretty significant drop and we saw a 7% drop compared to February 2024 and
what concerned us a little more than that is that our retailers are reporting
larger drops, to the tune of, on average about 20% and so what we have been
seeing is a factor of two things. One; the Canadians were locked into vacations
of their hockey tournaments, their ski trips and so they couldn’t get out of
their reservations and when they were in market, they spent less Two; if you
have been paying attention to customer sediment and the projections of business
like Walmart, American customers are also spending less money, as well and so,
when you look at Walmart reducing their projections by 9% and you add that to
the 7% reduction of people in the market, you can see where that 20% drop
towards our retailers started to hit. So, we have data where we can look at how
we’re pacing in terms of bookings for the rest of the year. What we see is that
spring is looking down, but when we get to summer, we’re actually above where
we were last year and that trends continues into the fall and October, being
14% over last October. Now, these are bookings and they’re all cancelable and
they can all change and the data is not necessarily perfect, but if these
results come to bass, based on bookings, we would actually end the year,
roughly 2% over where were last year. So, we remain hopeful and of course if
the economy does go south, there remain opportunities for us to take advantage
of and so to talk about that, I will turn it over to MJ.
LAWRENCE:
Mine isn’t going to be nearly has data heavy. So, I am just going to give you a
quick overview on the Canadian market, what we’re seeing. You know and
obviously we watch everything and we have the ability to react as well as
project. So, we’re always kind of keeping multiple balls in the air. Obviously,
things are a lot easier when things are looking like there’s more growth and
more positivity out there for travel and people with expendable income. We’re
not in that situation right now, so, we’ll start with the Canadian traffic.
What we’re seeing is the Canadian customer is not coming to our sites organically.
They’re not going on to Google and searching Adirondacks or Lake Champlain or
Lake Placid, that’s down significantly, but we are continuing to do some paid
campaigns behind this market and we are seeing engagement there; meaning, we
deliver an ad in front of the Canadian customer, they’re clicking on it,
they’re interested and they’re moving around the site from there. So, that’s a
good sign, that there’s still interest.
We
just got back from the Ottawa Travel Show, this weekend and the US Travel aisle
was quiet and the two staff members that went, said they could see, you know it
was a very active show, but our half aisle of I Love New York and some other
areas of representation of the States was not very active and the people that
were coming to our booth were saying, we love you, we love the Adirondacks, but
we’re not coming back for a year or three. So, that was much different than
last year. Last year, we did a lot of education, people were asking about
different activities, different parts of the Adirondacks, etc. So, that’s not a
great indication, but then on the other side, which is very anecdotal , we’re
seeing Canadian plates. So, it’s like
are people coming and just not saying they’re here or are they spending less
when they’re here and then of course the ones are mad are being very vocal
about being unhappy with the situation. So, we’re continuing to market to the
Canadian traveler. We’re doing a test for Victoria Day Weekend. We’re reaching
out to our businesses and we’re saying, please give us packages, specifically
for Victoria Weekend, because that’s our biggest Canadian holiday going into
the summer, the first one and we’re going to see what activities that
generates.
Enough
of the Canadian traveler, to be determined, any questions on that?
MCNALLY:
Yeah, I do have a question, are we seeing any difference in ability to attract
J1 Visa or J3 visa employees for the summer?
LAWRENCE:
We are not at this point and we have been in communication with our lodging
properties and other businesses that sponsor the international students.
They’re not having a problem, right now, with that workforce and students.
We’re actually hosting a welcome orientation for those workers that are going
to be here for the summer, to make sure that they feel welcome, to give them
information on where they can go for certain things. Obviously, they have to
get their social security card, their groceries, they’re health care. We’ll
have somebody there from the police department to just give them information on
who they are and please feel comfortable reaching out to us. So, no, but we’re
trying to be proactive, so the ones that come, feel very welcome and very safe
while they’re here.
MCNALLY:
I understand there’s areas of the county where a lot of the legal visa workers
are choosing not to come to the United States, because of the disparities,
because no one wants to end up in El Salvador.
LAWRENCE:
It’s top of mind, we’re concerned about it as well and conversations that we’re
having are so far, so good, but you know, things change from day to day. So,
what it might be today, may not be as we get into the summer and that would
certainly impact the ability for us to do busy at a high volume level.
You
know, talking about, sometimes there are opportunities in some downward facing
situations, so we have found historically, when the economy is fragile and
people are skeptical about traveling, whether it’s flying or international, the
drive to designations become very attractive. So, our marketing campaign, in
general, you know, obviously we’re doing very specific targeting to new
demographics, we’re bumping up the income, looking at double income families,
as well and the messaging is, we’re
drive to, we have warm days, we have cool nights, we have fresh water. Those
are all things, moving forward with the increase in temperature in summer in a
lot of regions that are drive to markets are looking for. It is going to be
very hot in New York City, it is going to be very hot in Albany, so we’re
looking at temperatures, again, being very warm in the summer and that we’re am
attractive drive to designation for that and then of course we’re working with
our partners on the 250th and then we’re also working with the DEC
and some of our other partners, towns and non-for-profits on hiking and you
know getting the leave no trace messaging out, as well as, be nice while you’re
here. So, that’s the big broad brush of what we’re working on coming into the
summer and again, watching everything every closely day to day.
WILSON:
First, I read the annual report that you handed out the last time you were here
and it was filled with data and that was really helpful to understand what’s
been going on and use it to inform what I am doing and what I am planning for
next year, so thank you for that excellent report this year.
And
then back to the economic data, so at the Treasurer’s report, last month, he
pointed out that sales tax collection was down, but occupancy tax was high. So,
you’re thinking that’s going to kind of even out again, or is it just a sing of
volatility? Do you have any thoughts? Ideas?
LAWRENCE:
Well, I think that we were talking about is, people are coming, but they’re spending
less while they’re here. So, that’s what we’re seeing in general.
MASCARENAS:
And I think, too, Mr. Wilson, Mike’s numbers are behind, so what Mr. Kelleher,
spoke about earlier, was January, which was still very good, so we’ll see, next
week, if Mr. Diskin’s numbers follows what you saw in February.
KELLEHER:
They should be down about 7%.
MASCARENAS:
Yeah
TYLER:
Anything else?
DOTY:
MJ or Dan, maybe address that as Canadian occupancy in our hotels, drops, are
those voids being filled with new visitors?
LAWRENCE:
So, we’re looking at new demographics like I spoke of, definitely still
focusing on the drive to designation. Maybe doing, like we just talked about on
Friday, you know, we have some, our traffic shows, there’s some more activity
from the State of Florida, so we’re like um, we don’t want to put a lot money
there, but maybe we should put some money there, just to see if we can generate
some more activity from Florida. But, in addition to that, what we’re looking
at, in the new demographic in addition to who we’re already marketing to,
looking at bumping up the income. So, the person who might take a week or 10
days to fly internationally or fly, even nationally, maybe they’ll decide,
maybe let’s take a road trip and go to the Adirondacks for a week, instead of
flying someplace for 10 days or 2 weeks. So, we’re looking at that as well as
double income. Si, we’ve got to find people with a little bit more money in a
time when money is a little bit tight.
KELLEHER:
And just to expand on that, it takes some time to do that. It takes time to build up that residence with
those customers and so that’s why you’re seeing the occupancy tax projected to
be down through May, but then we’re back up in June and we’re back up in July
and even in August. So, it takes a little time for that to bit, but at this
time we’re at least seeing positive numbers.
WILSON:
And that happened last year, too, didn’t it? We started out, kind of a little
below average and then ramped up as it heated up and summer got nicer, am I
remembering that correctly?
LAWRENCE:
I feel like, so the winter of 2024, that’s when it rained, we didn’t have any
snow, right? So, we were going into 2024, it was soft and then we had a nice
summer, a nice fall and then winter was strong.
MASCARENAS:
The spring of last year, had the eclipse numbers, too. So, I would expect that
we would probably be a little down in terms of April, compared to last year.
LAWRENCE:
I would say that’s a 100% chance.
TYLER:
You think maybe Albany and our Governor, being soft on crime and people maybe
be afraid of getting caught up in some crime in New York State now, because
they’re so lenient on that, does that have an impact on the people coming up
here?
LAWRENCE:
I mean there’s nothing to indicate that from our data that we’re seeing or any
comments that we hear. You know a lot of what we hear is from our Facebook, you
know, when we do organic posts or paid posts, we get comments and that gives us
a good indication of what people are feeling and thinking and we had some
comments from the Canadian market and what they’re feeling and thinking, so you
know, that doesn’t, when we get those comments, we pause and say, okay, we’ve
got to change our messaging, we’ve got to change how we’re talking to this, the
people that we’re targeting. So, we haven’t seen anything like that, not to say
that we won’t.
TYLER:
Anything else? Don’t see anything, thank you, guys.
LAWRENCE:
Thank you, have a great week, the sunshine is out.
***************************
The
next item on the agenda was Cornell Cooperative Extension, with Elizabeth Lee
reporting as follows:
LEE:
Good morning, everyone, I have a report that I submitted, does anyone have any
questions?
TYLER:
I don’t see any.
LEE:
If not, I’ll just point out a couple of highlights. Just in terms of ROOST, we
are going to be, we are working with them on a Agri-tourism event that is
coming up on May 19th. I hope some of you are can attend that. It
should be a good event, it’s at Rulf’s and more information is in your report.
We had
an amazing Ag Literacy Week. It was really exciting, there were so many
schools, with so many children and many new teachers who have not participated
in this program before. So, just wanted to make sure that all of you know, that
there is an Ag in the Classroom Program in each one of our towns.
We are
going to be representing, we’re going to be working with a number of
organizations at Adirondack Day at the Capital. That is May 5th and
Cooperative Extension is the lead organization for the food and agriculture
portion of that day, so we are working with farmers and we’ll have great
representation for Essex County and for the Adirondack Region so there will be
good turnout that day.
We are
definitely experiencing some challenges with our USDA funding. It sort of feels
like to ricochets around. We had one large program terminated for 8-weeks then
restarted and then we had one that we thought was secure and has been paused,
uncertain whether it will be restarted. So, that’s ongoing and we will be losing
one really valuable team member that is from the Public Health Corps., thanks
to Linda’s referral to us and that program has been terminated, so as of May 30th
we are going to be losing one person who we have not had to pay for, because it
was paid for by the Public Health Corps., but has really contributed a lot to
our Ag in the Classroom programs, and our partnership with Office for the
Aging.
And
with that, I know that there is a lot of important things going on today, so,
I’ll just end on a really great note. We are really excited. We have hired a
new Adirondack Harvest Program Leader and it’s a local, a young woman from
Moriah and her name is Taylor Sprague. She’s great, is getting up to speed
really, really fast. She will be full time starting in the summer and the
festival is completely on track. She brings a great much of fresh energy,
really great experience, she graduated from Paul Smith’s, she’s worked at Soil
and Water Conservation District in Essex County and she runs a farm and she’s
also run large events at the farm. So, we’re really excited. The Festival is
just such a great event and I want to thank you all for your support for the
Harvest Festival, September 20th, count it down.
TYLER:
Anything for Elizabeth?
HARRINGTON:
Yes, in regards to federal cuts and what have you, historically when Ronald
Reagan became President, one of his initiatives was to cut out 4H and at the
time, he did get a surprise and that was, you better have hands off on that.
So, I do believe down the road that there’s going to be some reality checks
here and we’ll have some security as a result of that.
LEE:
I’m an optimist. So, I will tell you, the funding that was paused on Friday is
for 4H program and it’s a big one. it’s $300,000.00 over three years. So, we’ll
see what happens. I think what’s really uncertain is the proposal that we
submitted and that was funded has nothing to do with DEI or climate change or
gender identity or any of the other executive orders that are prohibiting
previous activities. This program had nothing to do with any of those, it’s
mentoring at risk youth, using the 4H curriculum. So, it’s possible that when
the project is reviewed by someone that they will find no objection to it. It’s
not in violation of any executive order and I have had that checked by an
attorney. So, but, I don’t know, it is USDA funding, so there’s only 5 of those programs in that County. It shouldn’t
take them too long to review the proposals in that program, but I don’t know
what will happen. So, we really don’t know, we’ve had excellent contact with
the program officer in that program, as recently as Friday, but we don’t really
know. So, thank you for your support of 4H.
TYLER:
Thank you, Elizabeth, have a good day.
***************************
The next item was the Essex County
Land Bank with Nicole Justice-Green reporting as follows:
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Good morning, everybody. We have had a really busy spring at the Essex County
Land Bank. I have handed out to you, a number of you and I have some extras, a
flyer about the Plus One ADU Program which we were just awarded with NRDC, $1.5
million to bring this program to the North Country focusing on, obviously on
Essex County, Washington County and Warren County. The Land Bank does all of
our projects in Essex and NRDC then covers all the additional counties. If you
have not heard of what an ADU is, an accessory dwelling unit, it can be an
above garage apartment, a small addition on your home, a little in-law suite,
it can also be a tiny home on your property. A lot of research went in to
application for this program. Some of your zoning, like the Town of Ticonderoga
doesn’t allow for ADUs, so there’s some work to be done in the county to be
acceptable, but a number of your communities do allow them. So, I encourage you
all, these are grants of up to $125,000.00 for homeowners to build these units
or if they have an existing ADU on their property, to bring them into
compliance and they have long term rental restrictions. So, it is another tool
in our tool chest. I keep talking about where we have the ability to create
long term rentals as the land bank without actually owning these properties and
becoming landlords, which is not a situation that we have the capacity to do as
the land bank.
TYLER:
These are all income dependent, right?
JUSTICE-GREEN:
The rentals have to be restricted to 100% AMI or below, but that is in that
sweet spot above 80% and between 120% and so we’re talking about like proper
workforce rental units and then the nice thing about this is it also create an
extra income stream for these property owners and it has to be your primary
residence. So, like you, Davina, I am going to pick on you. If you on your
property wanted to put in an ADU, as long as that was your property, you lived
there full time, it was compliant with the Town of St. Armand zoning, you can
apply for a grant to add that to your property, but it can’t be a short term
rental. We become best friends for 15 years and I get to check up on you, every
year during that time to ensure it’s not an STR and that you’re renting it in
an affordable. So, it’s a very nimble forward thinking program and again, it’s
building off of existing infrastructure. We can’t in a lot of these towns that
I am trying to bring these rental units and these projects to, put in 20, 40,
60 units. We’ve had that discussion for years. So, this is on drop in the
bucket, another tool to just slowing increase that supply.
On an
additional note, some of you already know, some of you don’t know. We, the
program that I have been talking about, before the vacant rental improvement
program, where we give grants of $50,000.00 to $75,000.00 per vacant rental
unit, that application is closed two weeks. We made our awards and Essex County
got a lot. Ticonderoga, there will be 9 units across 4 properties; Port Henry
is getting 1 unit; Elizabethtown is getting 5 units; Mineville is getting 3
units; AuSable Forks is getting 7 units across 3 properties; Schroon Lake is
getting 3 units and Willsboro is getting 4 units. So, that is a pretty big
drop, I am very excited. We are in the contracting phase with all the awardees.
We did end up wait listing 2 property owners, depending on how all our bids
come back, if money frees up, those folks on the waitlist will be bumped back
up and we obligated all $2 million of our funding in the first round, which was
a concern that we may not get there and then obviously there is a smattering of
awards on the NRDC side of things for Washington and Warren County in the pot.
So, we have started and have ongoing construction at the Land Bank home, which
is a gut/rehabilitation in the Town of Lewis, 29 Myers in the Town of
Ticonderoga, another property has started construction, as well as 175 The
Portage, those are our last 3 gut/rehabs in our inventory. The rest of the
properties in the Land Bank’s inventory are demolitions and replacements. We
have completed one demolition on John’s Street, which is a burned out, donated
structure to the Land Bank. We’ve also lined up funding to place a new home
there. We have a slew of 3 other demolitions setup, to kind of fall behind
that. We’re working through a tricky one on North Elba. We also have a property
tax issue with a potential donation in the Town of Jay, that I look forward to
discussing with the Board, because that is holding up that demolition. So, next
on the list is our property on Curtis Way in Bloomingdale in St. Armand.
Any
questions?
TYLER:
Anything for Nicole?
WRIGHT:
I would just like to thank the Land Bank for the demolition of 8 Johns. This
has been a blight in our community for several years now, so good work.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
Thanks, Mark.
THURSTON:
Can you send this out to us in a Jpeg format?
JUSTICE-GREEN:
I would love to do that, I will definitely do that.
STANLEY:
I’m not on this committee, but Nicole, I would like to thank you and NRDC for
the work that you have done in the Town of Jay. Especially working, being an
open conduit for people to contact you about these grant programs. People come
ask me and I just forward them to you guys and your staff takes care of
everything. I know we do have the one property in Jay that we have money
secured for to demo, I am looking forward to finding a way with this Board to
resolved those tax issues. The sooner that we can do it, the sooner this
property can be cleaned up and be another property on the Land Bank’s register
to hopefully get somebody in, because you are definitely filling a niche in
finding that housing that we so desperately need in this County, so thank you.
MASCARENAS:
Yeah and I think there are some solutions there. Mr. Manning and I have had a
lot of discussions about it, Mr. Stanley, as well. From our standpoint it’s
really about harm reduction, there’s no silver bullet that gets us away from
costs and who bares the costs when we have these issues, every one of your
communities has blight and what’s the best way moving forward. I think what Mr.
Stanley presented was kind of a shared cost model between the County and the
Town and to me that’s the best I saw, so often people just tear houses down and
it becomes our bill, but what I think what we need to do as a Board is agree to
a process that becomes the process in the future, so that we all are playing by
the same rules and playing the same games, so to speak. So, I’m not going to be
here, if it’s something you’re looking to get done at Finance or that kind of
meeting, I won’t be around, but I can certainly speak with Mr. Diskin, this
week, if it’s something you’re looking to move on rather quickly, we can get
that moving. Your model made a lot of sense.
JUSTICE-GREEN:
And I from a standpoint, we are legally connected to the County. You all own
us, having these policies in place in perpetuity is profoundly helpful for me
and my Board and my staff as we strategically plan and understand where and
when the County can assist us with tax forgiveness when we have towns come to
us with properties that they would like to donate, the ability for us to kind
of meet in the middle and then apply for funding and so it will only be a help
for us, because if it’s not feasible, it’s not feasible and I am happy to have
that conversation, but I know it took us nearly 18 months to get going with limited
funding, lots of support and help, but we’re there now. By the end of this
year, my inventory is going to be small and I will be coming to you all to be
asking for more inventory, because that is one of the only mechanisms that the
Land Bank can get inventory is from their foreclosing governing unit, your FGU
and so I hope to also have those conversations with you all in the coming
months, because I want to keep this momentum going, because even though the
State Budget is in limbo right now in both Houses and the Governor’s Budget,
there’s additional money for Land Banks and that is what is funding everything
that I am doing now. Really, really impactful preservation projects, home
rehabilitations, placements of new homes and until they stop giving me that
funding, I am going to be advocating that we get that portion of that funding
in our County, because we have so many hurdles that we have to go through and
I’m tired of seeing it constantly going to New York City and downstate. So,
please know that I am your partner and I am really trying hard at this housing
crisis, so I just really look forward to getting some direction and it’s sunny,
so we’re all really happy today.
TYLER:
Thank you, have a good day.
***************************
The next item was Adirondack Roots
with Megan Murphy reporting as follows:
MURPHY:
Hi everybody, so I did have a report, I don’t know if anyone has any questions.
MONTY:
I was just wondering with the Section 8, I see, I know we had to shut the list
down, because we’re unsure of the funding. Anyone receiving Section 8 Funding,
now, are they going to continue to be able to receive that or is this shutting
down as well?
MURPHY:
So, yes, as far as we know, so far, Section 8, I don’t have a crystal ball, it
will continue, anyone that’s currently on the program, will continue to receive
their, the housing will be paid for, the rental assistance. We have had, as
usually attrition off the program, you
know a lot of the people that we serve are elderly, and so people move, so we
have lost vouchers in both Essex and Clinton County, simply because those
people are naturally attrition off the program.
MONTY:
The reason I asked, is I did have a question asked me over the weekend,
watching the news, people are panicking, justifiably so, what’s going to happen
if they don’t receive that? I said I didn’t know, but I would find out.
MURPHY:
And there’s no knowing and I think, I believe in the original executive order,
the first one that was out, that it wasn’t clear about rental assistance and
then it was clarified. So, so far, we believe, as far as we know that rental
assistance will continue.
TYLER:
Word of the day, unknown.
MONTY:
A big unknown.
DOTY:
Megan, if you could explain a little bit, you mentioned 5 foreclosures were
prevented in the last 12 months. Foreclosures represents 3 bad years, so I’m
curious to what degree the help was to help with these efforts?
MURPHY:
Those are mortgage foreclosures.
DOTY:
Okay
MURPHY:
So, what we do is we have a HUD certified housing counselor and she has a
background in the mortgage industry and so she works as a go between with the
family and with the mortgage company and they create a situation that’s
acceptable to the mortgage company to continue to have that person remain in
their home or they may have a situation in which they are able to avoid
foreclosure, but the person may still need to leave their home. So, it may
depend, so that way they would not have foreclosure on their record, but
they’ve come to an acceptable agreement with the mortgage company as a way to
avoid foreclosure.
DOTY:
It is overall a somewhat successful program?
MURPHY:
It is, we have a lot of people that contact us about it. I think they’re in a very
difficult moment in their lives and it can be a lot of work on the part of our
housing counselor and we’re not always successful with individuals and we’re
not always successful with the mortgage companies. There’s times when they are
not very interested at all in trying to figure out a way of keeping that family
in that home for lots of different reasons and so it’s, I would say our
foreclosure counselor, she’s very dedicated to this and I think she feels like
she’s using the skills that she learned in the mortgage industry to be able to
advocate for individuals who may have just not understood or have had a
difficult situation in their home life and we’re able to keep up with their
payments.
DOTY:
Thank you
TYLER:
Anything else?
MURPHY:
I just wanted to point out that we do have a new program for down payment and
closing cost assistance available. So, as we know from the Lake Champlain/Lake
George Regional Planning Board study, in Essex County there is a gap between
what the average individuals earn in our county and what those housing costs
are. So, this will help with down payment and closing costs assistance and we
have it for Essex and Clinton County, so we’re excited to, we haven’t done this
is quite a while, so we’re very excited. We have another new HUD certified
housing counselor and she specializes with homebuyers. So, we’re hoping to get
some folks into homes here, existing homes that are out on the market. Thank
you.
TYLER:
Anything else to come before this committee?
GILLILLAND:
Just about the 1:00 groundbreaking that we’re going to have out at the
Fairgrounds today, anybody who is interested in coming and swinging a shovel
and also, if I could, at the completion of the committee meetings today, if I
could just have a quick two minutes with all committee chairman in the
backroom, thank you.
TYLER:
Anything else? We are adjourned.
AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME
BEFORE THIS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/PLANNING/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE, IT WAS ADJOURNED
AT 10:54 AM.
Respectfully
submitted,
Dina
Garvey, Deputy
Clerk
of the Board