Affordable housing proposed for Catskill

By Ariel Zangla, Freeman staff Daily Freeman January 29, 2006

CATSKILL - An architectural landscape designer plans to build an affordable housing community on about 185 acres off Cairo Junction Road in the town, according to his real estate agent.
Steven Griggs purchased the property and wants to develop a project that would benefit the community, said Jeanette Nolan, an associate broker with Coldwell Banker Village Green Realty in Stone Ridge, Ulster County. Nolan said Griggs found a need for affordable housing in the area and decided to build a project with single-family homes and townhouses, as well as two-family homes designed to suit a broad range of requirements and budgets.
Nolan said the development would include "green space" to give the project a community feel.
Griggs, whom Nolan described as a downstate resident, originally planned to build only single-family homes, but that changed after he spoke to local residents and learned of a need for townhouses and two-family homes, Nolan said. She noted that the project still is in the planning stage and it is yet to be determined how many homes would be built.
"Nothing is set in stone yet," Nolan said. She said Griggs is reworking the engineering aspects of the project and hopes to break ground in the spring.
Nolan said the homes being planned would not identical to one another.
"He (Griggs) wants to do things that really fit in with the landscape," she said. "He doesn't want to put up one of those developments where everything looks the same, where everything looks like it doesn't belong."
Town Planning Board Chairman Dan Howard said Griggs met with the board to discuss the project but doesn't need its approval. Howard said the town does not have a subdivision law, so the number of units, which he said would be approximately 40, would not trigger a state environmental quality review. Howard added, however, that the town is looking into creating a subdivision law.
The proposed project could be subject to an environmental review by the state Department of Health, Howard said, but there are no regulatory controls beyond the town building code. Howard said Griggs simply has to file a subdivision plan with the county and apply to the town for building permits.
Howard agrees there is a need for affordable housing, allowing people who work in the community to live in it as well.
"I think a better definition or connotation would be 'workforce housing,'" he said.
Howard said the plan is not to build substandard homes, just homes that are affordable for local workers. And he noted that Griggs came before the Planning Board not because he had to but because he wanted input from the community.
"They're not just exploiting the current lack of subdivision law," Howard said. "They came to get input so they could build something nice in the community."
Nolan said preconstruction sales are scheduled to begin this spring. But she did not yet know what the costs of the homes would be because the cost of construction has not yet been determined

.©Daily Freeman 2006

AREA NEWSPAPER
CONTACT INFORMATION

ULSTER/ DUTCHESS

Poughkeepsie Journal
PO Box 1231
Poughkeepsie, NY 12602
(845) 454-2000
For an on line letter to the editor. Fill out this form

ULSTER COUNTY

Saugerties Times
Monday deadline
P.O.Box
Phone:334- 8200
FAX your letter 334-8202
saugertiestimes@ulsterpublishing
(Attention Erica Freudenberger, editor)
P.O.Box 3329
Kingston, NY 12402

Albany Times Union
Times Union
90 State Street
Albany, NY 12207
(518) 454-5091
For an on line letter to the editor. Fill out this form

COLUMBIA COUNTY
The Independent
Indenews (online)

P.O. Box 360
Hillsdale, NY 12529
Phone (518) 325-4400
FAX (518) 325-4497
Parry Teasdale, editor

letters to editor require form through website

***NOTE: Our websites make an effort to glean info for our readers from local papers. This is no way a substitute for subscribing or picking up a local paper. We gratefully acknowledge the efforts local newspapers and publications make to our community.