Roger Hannigan Gilson reports today in the Times Union about a housing project being proposed for Greenport: "Developers propose 8-building housing complex outside Hudson."
The location is off Healy Boulevard, with an entrance just beyond Midas Auto Service. The complex is expected to have 154 units of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments and is being described as "workforce housing." The developer is a company owned by Amanda and Eric Baxter of Baxter Construction, the group that is building 76 North Seventh Street. The proposal is a long way from becoming a reality, since the proposal has yet to be presented to the Greenport Planning Board.
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This is the kind of housing I had been hoping someone would propose. I always considered the old ShopRite as a perfect spot but this here is just as good. It's still within walking distance to Aldi, CVS and Walgreens and it puts the increased traffic on the rather unstressed Healy Blvd rather than Faireview Ave.
ReplyDeleteIt claims that 20% of units will be affordable but I bet that the remaining 80% market-rate units will be a lot cheaper than what the Depot Lofts currently (try to) lease for.
The proposed PILOT at least "only" runs for 15 years but just like any other, it's still highway robbery.
Great! This is exactly where this type of housing should go. Large vacant plots, next to high volume roads, room for parking, near retail options and minutes from Hudson proper. We don’t have to cram out of scale projects into the worst available land left in Hudson. I realize that this is technically Greenport so potential residents can’t vote in our elections, but I thought the point was to add housing not voters?
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Kamal will say to this. I know that Greenport elected and appointed officials are looking to boost its population. The town is being fleeced left and right when it comes to the sales tax apportionment since spread-out places like Claverack have a higher population while producing very little in terms of sales tax themselves.
DeleteGreenport should make an effort to eat Hudson's lunch when it comes to affordable housing. Kamal meanwhile would be in tears as his base moves to my town.
I think it’s perfect for Greenport and now that they’re thinking about zoning, hopefully will grow smarter. Good for all of us in the county. They could try and redevelop the whole Healy corridor and that first stretch on 66, across from the Falls, that would be good for more apts. A larger customer base could attract the chains that the Facebook crowd complains they drive to Albany for. I don’t see the need for PILOTs though. It should be much cheaper to build there than Hudson and the demand for apartments for working people is high, they can make a profit without the tax giveaways. But as long as the IDAs hand them out, they’ll ask anyway. It would be a stupid business decision not to try. What the IDAs should do, especially at the county level, is use PILOTs for their original intention and attract industry to the county and give the future residents better paying jobs above working retail.
DeleteBut yeah, cramming out of scale housing in Hudson is foolhardy. We don’t have the infrastructure or space—and we already have a high percentage of low income housing as it is, which means financially and NIMBY-wise, there’s no appetite for it and will get push back, rightly so imo. The problem is, as many problems in Hudson can be attributed to, the absurdly small city boundaries within the town of Greenport. Hudson is really just a dense historic neighborhood within a larger populated area. We need to think holistically about where to best develop. Maybe the county charter reform could help improve that by centralizing county executive functions beyond the town supervisor fiefdoms. Who knows?
Yeah, great location! Who wouldn't love to move to the country to live between an enormous and ugly storage unit business and a muffler shop?!
ReplyDeleteWhere do you propose that housing be built? We know that it can only be built in Hudson when it's stupid housing while the article points out that Greenport doesn't have that many suitable locations either due to where the water and sewage mains run.
DeleteWe can't just keep bemoaning a lack of affordable housing but when housing is being proposed do our utmost best to find flies in the ointment.
The other thing to consider here is that Greenport has a few areas where the population is clustered (Wortman Sq and Lorenz Park) and if you were to build closer to any of those I would expect quite a bit of local opposition.
This location is in this sweet spot where it doesn't directly encroach on those areas mainly made up of single-family homes but close enough to useful retail and it seems easily connectable to the water and sewage system. I reckon there is no other spot in Greenport that satisfies these requirements.
Good points, TvP. It’s in a sweet spot not to be NIMBY’d by the old neighborhoods.
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