Officials to draft affordable housing law
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. » Town officials are seeking to draft an affordable housing law that is similar to village regulations allowing developers to construct additional rental units if at least 10 percent will be for low and moderate income tenants.
Supervisor Neil Bettez during an interview Tuesday said a committee asked to have language ready by the end of the year.
“The goal is to work with the still-existing Affordable Housing board that the village has and modify that law so that it applies to the town,” he said.
“We can’t just adopt the exact same law because the town is slightly different with different types of development,” Bettez said. “We may have a housing development and not just an apartment building. We have bigger pieces of land. ”
Under the village law new developments with 10 or more housing units are required to make 10 percent of the units available as “affordable” to rent for people whose income is 60 percent of less of the median income in Ulster County or for purchase if the income is under 100 percent. Officials reported the 2016 median income was $75,900.
“One of the things that we want to do is incentivise people to build these affordable units,” Bettez said. “So what the village does it is allows you to increase density or increase the number of units above what would ordinarily be allowed to make it economically feasible for the developer to build affordable housing. We’re trying to make it so it’s not just a tax on the builder.”
The village law also requires affordable housing units to have minimum sizes of 450 square feet for an efficiency apartment, 700 square feet for a onebedroom unit, 900 square feet for two bedrooms, 1,100 square feet for three bedrooms and 1,200 square feet and 1.5 bathrooms for four bedrooms.
Bettez did not know how many people in the town would qualify for the affordable housing units.
“I think that there is more demand than there is availability,” he said.
“I probably know three or four people off the top of my head who would certainly qualify for affordable housing and that are paying too much,” Bettez said. “They are in their 40’s or 50’s and have house mates because they can’t afford to live alone.”