Last week Councilman Joe Mazzetti again touched upon the lack of affordable housing in the town despite a provision in the town code that requires developers to provide a percentage of their residential projects for this type of housing.

Section 100-36 D of the code states that, “Ten percent of the total number of residential units or lots in any covered development shall be affordable to moderate-income households and shall be located on the site of the covered development.”

Mazzetti said one is eligible for affordable housing if the cost of their housing exceeds 30% of their income.
“So for someone making $60,000, that is $18,000/yr, which most of our rents now are way above that. I think a one-bedroom in Highland is going for about $1,500 to $1,800/month and two-bedrooms are about $2,300/month,” he said. “It makes it very difficult for them to enjoy life or do anything but work to pay their bills.”

Mazzetti said the town has failed to have developers comply with a law that has been on the books for more than a decade.

“It was reported recently that there are 16 lots in the Mountainside Woods Development Project that were supposed to be set aside for affordable [but] five of those lots were built on and not built as affordable,” he said. “I would like to propose, if the board supports it, to create a resolution to hire a housing administrator and we can start enforcing our town code. I was thinking that they should answer to the Supervisor and the Town Board.” He added that if the position were full time, other items can be addressed by this individual.

Supervisor Dave Plavchak said the Affordable Housing Law points to enforcement being done by the Town Board.

“When they wrote the law they said they would put a Housing Administrator in place to do it and it’s a skill where they have to figure out their income, the AMI [Area Median Income] and keep track of it over the years as these things change hands. So somebody has to do it and it is not a skill that you can just pluck out of the sky,” he said.

Plavchak said looking ahead at development projects that will mature in the near future, “it is probably not a bad idea for us to have a housing administrator and maybe it can be somebody that can also be a backup to other positions we have. I am not against looking at it; I think we just have to lay out what the roles and responsibilities are and then the five of us agree on how we would go forward with it. I don’t think we can just keep sitting here saying we’re not enforcing it or we’re going to put it back on a developer or put it back on somebody who is already overburdened with something because it is a skill that’s unique. I am absolutely fine looking at it and we should do the research and move forward.”