The continuation of a hearing on zoning changes intended to promote affordable housing drew a mixed bag of supporters and detractors to the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center November 28. Some attendees warned the town to protect the environment rather than risk harmful development.
“We urge the Town of Woodstock to demonstrate visionary leadership to protect the town’s natural environment by requiring an 80 to 85 percent open-space requirement in conservation subdivisions. This is particularly important in areas that are formally designated as critical environmental areas,” said Susan Paynter, who told the town board she was speaking as a member of the Woodstock Environmental Commission.
Paynter wanted open space to be defined as natural features, including wetlands, ponds, streams and forests, and not manmade structures such as golf courses.
Housing Oversight Task Force (HOTF) member and planning board vice-chair Judith Kerman said the proposed zoning changes both protected the environment and provided opportunities for affordable housing. She said she had agreed to serve on HOTF “because I believed I could address my concerns by helping to revise an outdated zoning code, which sometimes hinders good planning-board work and I’m speaking from experience,”
“In more than two years of steady work, HOTF has produced a draft code I am personally proud of,” Kerman said in support. “Nothing is perfect, but this proposal is damned good. It’s been made better by comments from our fellow Woodstockers, even some who oppose it. I hope the town board will study the proposal carefully and pass it expeditiously.”
HOTF member Jeff Collins brought up the Woodstock National situation. He claimed little to nothing could be done to stop that proposal for luxury housing under existing zoning.
“If the proposed subdivision and zoning codes are passed, this major subdivision would have been changed in several significant ways,” he said. Under the existing code, a subdivision is not required to be clustered.
“A cluster development differs from a non-cluster development in that all the lots are grouped in a smaller area instead of spread out throughout the entire development,” he explained. “This has the advantage of reducing the total footprint of the development and reducing the amount of impermeable surfaces, such as roads, resulting in a significant reduction in the total disturbed area.”
More protection, less protection
Stuart Auchincloss was impressed with how the new code addresses the environment.
“It gives the planning board a lot of power,” Auchincloss said. “And one section that really stood out to me was Section 202-22, which lists a whole bunch of things the planning board can require of a subdivision.We have an imaginative planning board. And if an imaginative developer comes in with some way to damage our environment, our planning board can use this to prevent that damage from happening. This is a really well-written and well-thought-out code from an environmental point of view, and I hope you will pass it soon. I really look forward to that.”
Woodstock Land Conservancy executive director Andy Mossey said the changes offered more protection.
“This new zoning revision aims to cluster housing and protect larger contiguous functional areas of habitat,” Mossey said. “In our world of severe climate change, protecting lands will be critical to maintaining a resilience to the accelerating effects that we are bound to face in the years to come.”
Wishful thinking?
Given the income levels for what is considered affordable, some expressed doubt that developers will be able to build housing at the right price.
“If you go through the calculations, an affordable unit would have to have a selling price of $375,000. Now in Woodstock, you don’t get much for $375,000,” Ken Panza said. “So this presents a dilemma for developers. Either they can game the system — make promises that they have no intention or possibility of keeping — or walk away from developments in Woodstock.”
Terry Antman called the update “the first and necessary step to take toward the needed solutions.”
Updating the current zoning law by itself, she said, wouldn’t solve all the housing problems. It had appeared to her at the first hearing that people hadn’t read the proposals.
“I heard several people warn of environmental disaster and overdevelopment,” she said. “The proposed changes include greater environmental protections than the current code, and provide stronger language so that the planning board will have greater authority to ensure projects have a minimal impact on the environment. Doing nothing and leaving existing laws in place will ensure nothing changes.”
John Ludwig warned the town not to rely on the good will of developers.
“The proposed zoning and subdivision regulations are littered with phrases like designated affordable and deed-restricted to being an affordable unit. But those are just empty words. Wishful thinking,” Ludwig said. “We’re a small town. There’s no attorney on staff and no housing authority. The zoning enforcement officer already has his hands full, and would be no match against the developers and their attorneys. The incentive to maximize the profit that comes with the Woodstock brand is powerful. Let’s not kid ourselves.”
“Lack of affordability forces people out,” said a sometimes emotional Urana Kinlen, a member of the housing committee.
“Most of my friends have been pushed out of this community because they can’t afford to live here. I see a couple maybe here. The rest of you all pretty much have grey hair,” she said. “Even AARP, that’s all they’re talking about is ADUs, and smaller clusters and affordable housing, and the 1000-square-foot unit is not really that big that’s attached to your McMansion that only two people are living in. So when I’m bringing food to people in town, that are serving the tourists that are keeping you afloat. Why don’t you think about those people and your neighbors and everybody?”
Dramatic action needed
Janine Mower said she had been following the progress of HOTF.
“As many of you are aware, we reside in the Bearsville Flats development, a 1950s style assortment of nearly 200 ranch-style homes. Depending on their condition, they go up for sale in the $300,000 to $500,000 range,” said Mower, a supporter of the changes, said. “If the townspeople of the Town of Woodstock wish to maintain the income diversity of its residents living within its boundaries, dramatic action needs to be taken,” she said.
Ed Sanders, who chaired the committee that wrote the current zoning law, said the changes would not result in affordable housing.
“I am saddened that some of you in this room were drawn by the false promises of affordable housing delivered by a local group,” Sanders said, “because I strongly urge the town board not to pass this massive zoning boondoggle, which threatens hundreds of Woodstock roads with hundreds and perhaps even thousands [of units] of market-rate expensive housing, which will devastate Woodstock’s fragile water supply, stands of trees and drainfields with pollution and which will not create virtually any long-term affordable housing, which someone who works at Houst or works for the town can actually afford to rent or purchase,”.
Sanders urged the town board to turn down “this highly inappropriate boondoggle, which will just enrich developers.” He favored creating “long-term and lifelong genuine affordable housing in the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society legislation.”
Hearing reopens this month
Supervisor Bill McKenna plans to reopen the public hearing in December.
The zoning changes are intended to encourage the development of affordable housing for rental and purchase by among other things expanding and clarifying rules for ADUs, or apartments attached to a home or in a cottage, changing subdivision regulations to allow multiplexes in certain areas, and encouraging cluster development.
The zoning changes, including a summary and guided table of contents, are available on the town website, woodstockny.org. Click on Zoning Updates on the left side.
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