Conference Outlines New Ideas for Affordable Housing

by Cindy Goldstein -

An all-day meeting that included a walk through the Village on Sunday, May 3rd, brought together elected officials, affordable housing advocates and community members to exchange ideas and hear about solutions that are working to solve the affordability crisis that plagues most of the region.

To Build Places People Love

CNU New York is a non-profit organization that sponsored the conference which culminated in a 3-hour forum at the Mamaroneck Library.  Their President Larry Gould described New Urbanism as a “movement” and their goal is to “build places people love” and by people he means not just the building residents but also the rest of the community.

John Verni, real estate developer and Washingtonville Housing Alliance board member, opened the forum with remarks about how to build affordable housing when large scale buildings are denied.  He described “incremental development” where projects are small scale and gradual.  Another speaker described these small projects as vastly different from “top-down” large projects that can often result in public backlash – especially if the community isn’t included in the conversations about large project that are then, unsurprisingly, rejected.

How Not to Be Successful – Hunter Tier Lot

Case in point: recently, a prior Village administration tried to push the development of the Hunter Tier Parking Lot (across from Old Village Hall).  Local public reaction was exceedingly negative in part because virtually no prior information was available to them nor was their input sought.  And as the details of the proposed project became available the public became even more skeptical.

Some outside the community voiced opinions that the Hunter Tier project was a lost opportunity to use a municipal resource to build affordable housing.  That opinion ignores the fact that in NYS a municipality may not give up its property if they are using it – and Hunter Tier provides critical parking for the Village.

But the Hunter Tier project had many other factors working against it.  In a Village with insufficient parking, losing a two-tier lot would be catastrophic.  Although vague assurances were made that there wouldn’t be a resulting parking problem, residents, especially those who brought their cars to safety at the tier during frequent flood events, would have been left with fewer options. 

Favored Developer Wrote the RFP

In addition to the lack of communication with the public was the fact that a favored developer participated in the writing of the Request for Proposals (RFP).  See previous article HERE that describes various improprieties that ultimately sunk the project.

As the attached emails show (see HERE) some trustees were having private conversations with the preferred developer with one trustee attempting to hire outside counsel for the Village trying to overrule the Village Attorney’s opinion.  See HERE. The Acting Village Manager described these actions, if they continued, as a potential violation of his ethics and “certainly subject the Village to potential litigation as the Village Attorney has suggested.”  See HERE for the article describing the BOT’s meeting to pause the project.

Elected Officials in Agreement

At the forum, Town of Mamaroneck Councilman Andrew Regenstreich pointed out there was a better chance for success to build affordable housing when you speak and listen to people.  County Legislator Anant Nambiar said that elected officials need political will and trust and that the community needs to be brought along.  State Senator Shelley Mayer urged the group to be community specific when proposing projects.  She said, “the Village of Mamaroneck is not Yonkers” and that you can’t be dismissive of resident’s feelings.

Lessons Learned

The failure of the Hunter Tier project and other large scale affordable housing projects that didn’t have community buy-in perhaps indicate that looking to small incremental projects will be successful if the sponsors do what they know is critical – include the residents in the process and communicate with them.