An 18-hole golf course and helipad could get scrapped from the Woodstock National concept, developer Evan Kleinberg hinted at a meeting with the Woodstock Housing Committee September 13. The developer of potentially the largest project in Woodstock history is learning more, a lot more, about the community.
“As you’re fully aware, we have learned a lot since our [planning board] meeting. We’ve studied the zoning changes, and there’s a high likelihood the golf-course portion of it doesn’t exist in the future or gets removed from our plan,” Kleinberg said. “We haven’t finalized that. Again, we haven’t yet bought the land and we haven’t submitted anything, but the primary focus of this is building homes.”
Kleinberg was hesitant to share specifics about changes without first going back to the planning board.
Housing committee member Urana Kinlen pressed Kleinberg to make a public commitment.
“Will you be willing to consider … to take the golf course and the helipad off the table?” she asked.
“I just wanted to say that that’s how I started the whole meeting. I actually said we’re probably going to lose it. So take that for what it is,” Kleinberg responded.
A housing development with open space and a golf component was one of the options for using that space, he explained. “I think it’s a great way for people to just stay active,” he said. “But also, there’s a place for it and there’s a community for it, and we’ve been learning quite a lot over the last month. And so we’re very comfortable separating from it, because the point of this development is the housing. That’s sort of the goal.”
Kleinberg said the proposed helipad had “got away from us as well” because there was an existing airstrip that could be put it to another use. “That was a component of the golf, and we are very much exploring moving on from it,” he said.
In July, Kleinberg and his partner Eddie Greenberg presented a concept for 24 affordable housing units, 90 single-family homes and 77 townhomes on about 500 of some 625 acres in the Zena Highwoods area between Zena Highwoods Road and Eastwoods Drive. About 16 rental villas were intended for golf-course guests, but those may be repurposed if the golf course is eliminated.
Part of the project is in the Town of Ulster, where Kleinberg may be presenting the concept to the planning board this week. As of the beginning of the week, Ulster supervisor James E. Quigley, III said the town had yet to hear from anyone involved with Woodstock National.
“The proposed developer of that project has not contacted the town to arrange a meeting with the planning department to educate us on anything that they propose to do,” Quigley reported. “The only information that we have received about the proposed project has come from discussions with the supervisor in the Town of Woodstock with myself and what I’ve read in the newspaper.”
Much of the hour-long discussion late Wednesday afternoon focused on what Kleinberg needed to make more affordable housing, and how the housing committee might assist.
“The rental vacancy in 2021, according to the county executive, was just two percent. That means, at any given time, there were maybe two percent of properties available. In Woodstock for decades, that vacancy rate has been less than one percent,” said committee co-chair Susan Goldman. “With the short-term rental explosion in the last five years, it has made [long-term] rentals really impossible. And the average rent has increased around 60 percent in the county, and certainly more than that here. First-time home buyers don’t fare any better.”
The situation has been developing since before the pandemic, well before the short-term rental explosion, added Goldman. Working people were spending over half their incomes on rent, and they were unable to afford buying.
After the Woodstock National planning board presentation in July, Kinlen had asked Kleinberg to become part of the conversation about the town’s affordable-housing needs.
“Part of the reason that we’re here is because we want to learn what type of housing you want to see, what type of homes you want to see built,” Kleinberg said. “Obviously you’re extensively knowledgeable on what’s lacking in the market, and we want to be able to tap into that knowledge to design something that actually makes sense.”
An Ulster advocacy group, TownOfUlsterCitizens.org, submitted preliminary comments on Thursday, September 7 after watching an archival video of the Woodstock Planning Board’s July 20 meeting.
“Judging from the gracious yet pointed remarks from the Woodstock officials, we think that the developer will have some heavy lifting to do to demonstrate project feasibility against town standards and expectations,” reads the letter from group vice-chair Regis Obijiski.
Much of the letter addresses issues raised by officials in Woodstock, particularly the planned golf course which now might be off the table. Obijiski called it “more aspirational than practical.”
Another concern dealt with housing. The proposed 880 housing units at iPark 87 are workforce housing. The Woodstock Housing Committee last week met with Kleinberg last week to talk about the need for affordable housing, intended for people with considerably less than the area median income.
Kleinberg said he would hold public meetings in both communities to listen and learn.
Committee member Laura Warren, who works in real estate, hoped the new housing built in Kleinberg’s development would ease the area pricing pressure. “Since the pandemic, particularly Woodstock has become a runaway train in terms of cost,” she said, noting the average price of a home was nearly $800,000. “One of the things that might be really important is thinking about what can you do … what can any builder do … to make sure that those properties at all the different price points are as competitive as they can be,” she said.
Committee member Howard Kagan said partnerships with developers were key to improving the housing situation. “Developers are not our enemy,” he said. “We need developers to build this housing. We just have to find the right developers, and we have to have the right zoning, and regulations, etc, to encourage developers to build this housing.”
“And to stop them from taking advantage of housing revisions that were from the Eighties,” Kinlen added.
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