In Saugerties, future housing developments may have electric vehicle charging stations

As the number of electric and hybrid vehicles on the road grows, the demand for charging stations will also grow, Saugerties Supervisor Fred Costello said.

In his introduction to Steve Wehr, a local advocate for electric charging stations, Costello said the town is “proud to have installed five charging stations in Saugerties and there are more to come.” Wehr and Rich Cousins have been strong advocates for the addition of charging stations to private developments, such as apartment complexes, Costello said at the Town Board meeting on Wednesday, April 7. 

“Most people with an electric vehicle are just going to charge at home or they’re going to charge at work,” Wehr said.

“Installing a charger at your home is pretty straightforward and not very expensive,” Wehr said. “The biggest open gap in charging that I see, and that a lot of people see nationwide, is what happens when you live somewhere and don’t own your home and it’s not easy for you to just install a charger and run electric lines on your own. That’s why we want to address charging in apartments.”

Wehr is proposing requiring EV [electric vehicle] charging stations for new multi-unit dwellings with ten or more parking spaces.

 “We try to keep the cost of what they have to add to a minimum,” Wehr said. “Originally, what I had been working on before I went to the planning board is I was not looking at the chargers themselves, which cost about $500 each; I was looking at what you would colloquially call a ‘dryer plug’ attached to a 40-amp outlet. The beauty of that plug is it only costs about $35. However, the more I researched things with that, if it’s used in a public place and people are plugging in their charger and unplugging it every day,  it turns out that those plugs have kind of a service life, and plugging and unplugging means they would probably need to be replaced about once a year.” 

After talking to Kevin Brown in the building department, Wehr said, he concluded that the best solution would be to install real EV chargers. “The technical term is EVSC, electric vehicle service equipment,” he said.

“The charging stations are available from a number of equipment suppliers, such as Tesla, Bosch, Juice Box, and they cost about $500 each. They are weatherproof, they are kind of industrial strength and you can use them for years and years and years.” 

“My proposal is to install them anywhere there’s a multi-unit dwelling with ten or more parking spaces. We would dedicate ten percent of the working spaces, with a minimum of two, to have EV charging available at those parking spaces.” 

Wehr also provided suggestions on signage to go with the outlets. One thing Wehr said he would not like would be a requirement that the designated parking spaces be for electric vehicles only. “What would happen if there were no electric vehicle owners in a building?” he asked.

Nationwide, developers are saying that having electric vehicle charging stations will, in the near future, be no different from having a laundry room, Wehr said. Many tenants expect a laundry room to be provided and would not rent an apartment if the building lacked one.

Councilwoman Leeanne Thornton asked whether Wehr had an estimate of how many people in Saugerties own electric vehicles. Wehr said he might be able to get information from New York State on how many might be in Ulster County, but probably not Saugerties.

One reason for installing electric charging now is that the state offers incentives through various agencies to encourage installation of electric vehicle charging stations. Five years from now, these incentives may not be available, said Supervisor Fred Costello.

“If implemented, the cost of this infrastructure will be borne by the developer, not by the town; it fits in comprehensively with the efforts the town has made using grant opportunities to create a charging infrastructure in and around the Town of Saugerties, Costello said.

The town board has set two public hearings on a proposed amendment to the town law that would require new housing developments with ten units or more to provide charging stations for electric vehicles. The hearings are set for 5:15 p.m. on April 21 and 5:30 p.m. on May 6. Access details are on the Town of Saugerties website.