For more than a decade, the Town of Lloyd has failed to have developers provide a small percentage of their residential projects for Affordable Housing, as is required in the town code. Case in point, the developer of the Mountainside Woods project has been building homes for more than five years, and information provided recently to this newspaper through a Freedom of Information request reveals that he has yet to provide any affordable housing units while the town has simply let it slide. On this and other residential development projects where Affordable Housing is required, the town has thrown up their hands, claiming it is too hard to administer this law. We call that passing the buck.
Though the Building Department says they will require the developers of the proposed Villages and the Views projects to provide the required housing, the first ever, we will wait and see if this ever comes to fruition.
The fault lies squarely with the Town Board, the Planning Board, the Building Department and especially their Albany-based legal firm. During the past 10 years, when the Planning Board was approving residential projects, this firm should have stopped the proceedings upon seeing that no affordable housing was being provided. The attorney was supposed to guide the town in all legal maters, down to the smallest detail, but failed to do so when the approvals were being voted on, resulting in a clear violation of the town code.
More than a year ago, after two town councilmen made a motion to hire another legal firm, the Supervisor shot it down, asking them to show him where their attorney has failed to provide the town with accurate and sound legal advice. Here is just one example of many; and we implore the Supervisor to hire a firm that will put the residents of Lloyd first, instead of making compromises that favor developers.
Years ago at a Lloyd Planning Board meeting, an attorney for a developer stated publicly that he loves working with the Town of Lloyd because of their “flexibility,” a none-too-subtle nod to the town’s willingness to bend the rules. In fact, there is a single sentence in the Planned Residential Retirement Development section of the town code affirming this inclination: “The Town Board may waive or modify any part of the requirements of this section.” Variations of this are sprinkled throughout the code, which then begs the question of why have a code at all? It is long overdue for Lloyd officials to show they are willing to use their elected positions to further the greater good and not let developers dictate (and receive) exactly what they want, as has too often been the case in the past.
Letting anything be built and calling it progress is a recipe for disaster and will result in clogged roadways, senior housing units being set five feet apart, mediocre architectural designs in scope and size and townspeople who will wake up one day asking “what happened?”
At this point, we strongly urge Town of Lloyd officials to make substantive changes in zoning and planning that will stop these egregious actions, but further delay will only allow developers the opportunity to shuffle the town into a future of unregulated sprawl with development scars that will last for decades to come.