Michael Moriello, self-described as “a farm kid from [New Paltz] for 59 years,” had a talk with neighbors last week about a 650-bed, rent-by-the-room housing complex that he wants to build on 50 to 60 acres just south of the college on Route 32 South. The neighbors were residents of the adjacent Harvest Hills development .
The plan, not yet a formal application to the village planning board, calls for a market-rate ring of “cottages.” each having one, two, four, or five bedrooms, around a central recreation area. Each bedroom would have a private bath.
Moriello wants the property annexed by the village. It’s contiguous. The parcel includes an arm that snakes up behind the Bella Terra apartments to brush the village line.
No payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement will be part of this proposal, and the higher density allowed under village zoning is what’s necessary to make this a profitable venture, Moriello explained.
Standing in the parking lot of the Apple Hills farmstand Moriello, a Kingston-based land-use attorney, was joined by partners John Mullen and Tom George. Mullen has been a partner with Moriello in this land, and the pair brought in George, an expert in building student housing.
Moriello explained that he wanted to talk to neighbors first about this idea, which dates back to the failed Park Point project to build private college dormitories on other land nearby. At that time, there had been little political will to build more dorms with taxpayer dollars and no incentive to keep the student population low enough so that it didn’t’ distort the local housing market. Local residents opposed the significant breaks in property taxes sought by Park Point.
Moriello told Harvest Hills neighbors that officials, including county planning director Dennis Doyle, have been asking whether a different project might reduce community housing pressured caused by the large number of students looking for places to live. “I’m happy to say that there is no Pilot [for this project], otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here,” said Moriello.
Increasing housing density is seen as a preferred way to support an increasing human population without gobbling up all remaining natural and open space. Harvest Hills was built on a suburban development model : lots of two and three acres, each with a well and septic system. This proposed development, dubbed “New Paltz Apartments,” would have a significantly higher housing density, the sort of density that modern planners seek to concentrate in the core of a municipality. In New Paltz, that core is the village, and Moriello wants to expand that core to make it possible to provide this student housing.
The footprint
The proposed complex will be a collection of two-and-a-half-story cottages that will take up about half of the 50 to 60 acres of the development. George, a Rochester native, has built similar projects near a number of colleges around the state. The buildings in New Paltz would be nearly identical to a design used near the Rochester Institute of Technology.
While the developer spoke about the difficulty in finding housing for employees at the college and Mohonk Mountain House, among others, it’s clear that this proposal would be about housing students.
The staffing levels “by a national firm” would be somewhat higher to address the maintenance needs. Recreational facilities will be designed with student input. The complex would be “managed more for students,” but George said that experience elsewhere has shown that police and other emergency calls are not notably higher in similar complexes. Village housing law would require that ten percent of the units be designated as affordable, but developers are allowed to tack on additional units as a density bonus. .
Questions from the neighbors
Some of the questions neighbors posed displayed confusion about how the village and town are related. If this property iwere annexed into the village, it would not leave the town, because every square inch of the Village of New Paltz is in the town of the same name. Therefore, the property would not be removed from the town’s tax rolls, and the town assessor would decide on its value for tax purposes.
What would change is how taxes are allocated. Owners of village property pay village taxes for village services, which include municipal water and sewer, snow plowing and the village refuse pickup cancelled this year due to the pandemic). Village propertyowners also pay town property taxes for services that are town-wide, such as the assessor, but do not pay for the town highway department, because that’s covered under the village taxes.
Moriello believes that the assessment of this property would be a positive for other propertyowners in New Paltz, because right now it’s land with agricultural tax exemptions. It’s the human improvements that carry the biggest tax consequences.
There is no intention to connect this complex to the Harvest Hills development in any way. Neighbors welcomed that news, and roundly shot down a suggestion of a bicycle and pedestrian connection from William Weinstein, a former chair of the bicycle-pedestrian committee who became interested in that work specifically because there was no safe way for children to ride into the village from that distant development. Weinstein’s neighbors were less concerned about their children heading into town than they were college students wandering into their neighborhood.
The long arm of apartments that will wrap around Bella Terra to the north will make it possible for residents of this complex to walk or ride to the college, however, and for those who desire it, a private shuttle service will also be provided, according to George. It’s likely the developer will request to put in less parking than is required under village code.
The amount of parking is an area of tension in planning. Developments that are intended to encourage walking and biking in theory lead to a reduced dependence on automobiles, but older parking regulations also serve as a way to put a limit on the number of people by making it difficult to bring in extra cars.|
A formal application may be filed by year’s end.
Moriello has also been representing David Shepler of Zero Place. From that experience, he is aware that in New Paltz development plans rarely get approved in the shortest possible time.
Join the family! 
