Like many local communities, Woodstock is in the midst of a housing crisis. One group of dedicated volunteers has proposed zoning changes to address the situation while protecting the environment and preserving the town’s character.
It’s a tall order. The zoning hasn’t’t been updated in four decades. And this monumental task isn’t made any easier by candidates for office who had made zoning changes a hot-button election issue. They oppose the present proposals of change to the existing code
“All of us on the Woodstock Housing Oversight Task Force are doing it because we like Woodstock the way it is now,” said Jeff Collins, a member of the task force known as HOTF. “We like the character and the nature of Woodstock, and it’s our goal to protect that character and nature of Woodstock while making it more affordable for more people to live here.”
Collins is running unopposed as a Democrat for District 23 of the county legislature, representing Woodstock, West Hurley and Glenford. He will replace Jonathan Heppner, who has opted not to seek another term.
The affordable-housing initiative came as a result of the passage in 2018 of the town’s comprehensive plan.
“Had that not passed, this task force would have never been started,” said HOTF co-chair Kirk Ritchey. State law requires zoning be updated to align with the local comprehensive plan. Changes must be made.
HOTF member Judith Kerman said changes to the zoning code in almost every case require some element of affordable housing. Zoning changes alone do not create new housing. Developers with the resources to build the needed housing are required.
“All we can do is make the law, support affordable housing, require affordable housing, and protect the environment,” Kerman said.
Supervisor candidate Bennet Ratcliff and town-board candidates Michael Veitch and Linda Lover claim the changes will turn the town into a suburbia, opened up to greedy developers. The end result, they say, will not increase the supply of affordable housing. They want to see Woodstock town government require developers to build on town-owned land, assuring a tighter degree of public control.
HOTF argues it can’t work that way.
“We are a town. State law does not allow towns to have housing authorities,” Collins said. “A county, a city and a large village can have a housing authority. We cannot.”
What the town owns
“The housing we currently have that’s affordable has been built by private non-profit organizations,” Ritchey said.
Woodstock Commons, a complex behind the Woodstock Playhouse, was built by RUPCO. Years of opposition from neighbors preceded a reduction in the number of units from what was originally proposed.
Woodstock Meadows, located behind the post office, was built privately. The units were made affordable for 30 years in exchange for tax breaks and other incentives. These have now expired.
“The thing that’s important to understand is that the town has no land, outside of a few exceptions that are way, way at the edge of town to build,” Ritchey maintained.
The biggest town landholding, some 70-plus acres, is the Comeau property, which is preserved by covenant, with a small sliver permitted for governmental use.
The next largest parcel is in Zena. It is landlocked and not near the center of town or transportation. Another parcel is mostly wetlands.
Proposals have evolved
Tweaks in the zoning gave been made based on input from the public, various boards and committees, and stakeholders, HOTF has said.
“People are finding things. And most of the things they’re finding are in good faith, and we look very carefully at them,” said Kerman, who is also co-chair of the town planning board. “Some of them are not related to the code, and then we pass them on to the zoning revision committee or the town board — because it’s going to need a policy, or it’s going to need an implementation.”
Those policy recommendations include tools and training for the building department, planning board and ZBA, clear direction for handling applications, and the ability to track the history of changes made to properties.
The town government, through a grant from Hudson Valley Greenway, hired planning consultant Nan Stolzenburg to aid in the zoning revisions.
“That’s another huge misunderstanding,” Collins said. “People have said. It’s been a rushed process. It’s been a hidden process. Both of those are not accurate. It’s been over-a-two-year process.”
That’s just the proposed zoning changes. The town’s housing committee got the ball rolling several years ago, researching and coming up with housing needs and proposals. HOTF asked for input from every segment of the community.
“You can’t talk to 6000 people individually, so we’re accessing people where we can find points of information,” Kerman said.
“We did it to really give us an initial pass on hearing from people directly what is important to them about housing and what is important to them about the town,” added HOTF co-chair Deborah DeWan. “And we didn’t talk to them in jargon. We didn’t talk to them in code.”
Collins said those conversations informed the decisions. HOTF documented the severity of the problem. For example, nobody who works at the library can afford to live in Woodstock. Some town employees are in the same boat.
“We know that the only people who work in the town live in Woodstock are people that have had their house for 30 or 40 or 50 years, because no one else can afford it,” Collins said.
Woodstock National
“The existing code today allows Woodstock National to do what their plan was. Absolutely. We couldn’t stop it,” Collins said. The Woodstock National developers can, under the current code, classify their proposed golf course as open space, since there is no current requirement for it.
“They came to us with this thing that’s got some conservation and a golf course. And they say, Look, we did it. No, you didn’t’t,” Kerman added.
“Under the new code, half the land must go to conservation. And that does not include a golf course,” Collins said.
“Under the proposed changes, the number of houses or dwelling units you can build would be subject to net acreage, which means all the wetlands and the wetland buffers and the steep slopes greater than 25 percent must be deducted from the total buildable acreage,” Kerman said.
Part of the original Woodstock National concept included 24 affordable housing units segregated on one section of the property. “None of that would be acceptable in the new code. It has to be integrated and couldn’t be segregated. It would have to be built at the same time,” DeWan said.
Under the current code, a home can be built anywhere on the lot where it is feasible. Under the proposed new code, applicants must designate the footprint of the house and septic field in a subdivision.
Changes and allegations
Based on recommendations from the county planning board, HOTF made several changes.
“They asked us to put in ten percent affordable [housing] in subdivisions. We went to 15,” DeWan said. Another change was requiring a first accessory dwelling unit (ADU) to be affordable housing restricted to income-eligible renters when there were two ADUs on the property. If there is only one, it cannot be used as a short-term rental.
Multiplex housing was excluded from the scenic overlay district. Affordable housing units were required to be indistinguishable from unrestricted units in design, appearance, construction and quality.
“People are being misled in ways that is making it harder for us to really have a conversation,” DeWan said.
Certain districts under the proposals will allow 48 more units of housing to be built in a subdivision. A map circulated by Ratcliff purported to show the impacts of zoning changes contained that allegation.
“It was [considered] from the very early stage of the task force being together, and it was an analysis that was generated by an outside consultant to help us understand the buildability of our town,” Ritchey said. “It’s like a part of the film that ended up on the cutting-room floor.”
Ritchey said the task force “freaked out” when it saw that charge. “To post that was a disservice, because there’s a lot of people now who are confused as if this what we were proposing was not a proposal document,” Ritchey said.
Some of the proposed changes do focus on the number of dwelling units permitted to promote more housing.
“It really does upset me because, as someone in the political arena, I believe we need to communicate facts and information as opposed to communicate lies and disinformation. And we have people doing that communicating misinformation, and it bothers the heck out of me because unfortunately it works,” Collins said.
Claims of disinformation
HOTF has been on the offensive, trying to counter claims about the impacts of proposed changes. More recently, a false claim has been made that nearly 100 roads in Woodstock will likely have new multi-dwellings buildings. A widely circulated email and social-media posts lists nearly every road in town.
“This grossly exaggerated message appears to scare and confuse our community, and has numerous inaccurate statements and omissions,” HOTF said.
Both a duplex and ADU are now allowed anywhere in town “as of right,” meaning only a building permit and reviews of septic capacity and wetland/watercourse protections are required.
Though duplexes have been allowed everywhere in Woodstock for over 35 years and ADUs for 25 years, there are just a few duplexes in Woodstock. Currently, only six percent of properties have an ADU on them, HOTF wrote.
In Woodstock’s proposed code, anything more than a duplex will be subject to planning-board review, including scrutiny of the site with an eye to its suitability for additional housing. The planning board will have the power to determine whether sites have the carrying capacity for multi-dwelling structures (anything more than a duplex), including water and septic capacity.
Environmentally sensitive areas will be subtracted from the buildable land.
HOTF said it was looking to further evaluate and explain how and where multiple-dwelling structures can be permitted.
Ratcliff, Veitch and Lover have expressed their opposition to the changes through letters to the editor, email newsletters, and multiple daily social-media posts. Ratcliff has vowed to vote against the proposals in their current form.
Will the wells run dry?
HOTF disputes a claim that people will run out of water after the development encouraged by the new zoning.
“In 1980, there were ten percent more people than we have today. We had 6800 people in 1980. We have 6200 people today in town, give or take. So we’re not at the density that we were 43 years ago,” Collins said.
“One of the things that we’re doing in the new code, and I think we’re probably going to strengthen it as a result of some of the comments that we’ve gotten and requiring, in many instances, hydrological studies and making it even stronger,” DeWan said.
The housing committee will be hosting a question-and-answer session to help unravel the complicated world of zoning and housing on Saturday, November 11 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center. The proposed changes with summaries can be found on the town’s website, woodstockny.org, by clicking on “Zoning Updates” in the list of links on the left. Also within those links is “Myths and Facts: Housing Oversight Task Force.”
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