An UNOFFICIAL summary of the Village Board meeting on Thursday, February 9th, 2023 from Trustee Joe Rand. The next meeting of the Village Board is scheduled for February 23, 2023.
WORKSHOP
Our first order of business was a workshop to discuss proposed changes to the Affordable Housing Law that’s been on the books for the last decade. This is part of what is going to be a wider-range effort to ensure that our current Nyack residents can stay in what is an increasingly expensive village to live in.
The main thrust of the Affordable Housing law is that it requires new developments to set aside 10% of the units for housing provided only to applicants whose income meets certain eligibility requirements. If the developer does not want to set aside the units, they have to pay $50,000 per unit to a fund that is dedicated to providing assistance to low income renters (and possibly for purchasers).
The law has been relatively successful in adding affordable housing units to the Village, with 22 units either completed or under construction over the past few years:
Pavion: 13 units
Glenmare Mews: 2 units
48 S. Franklin: 1 unit
Montclare: 4 units (currently under construction)
Diana Place: 2 units (currently under construction)
Total: 16 completed units plus 6 more under construction.
After about an hour of discussion, we agreed to make some changes to the law, including:
- Raised the opt-out fee to $100,000 per unit.
As indicated above, developers are required to set aside 10% of new construction units for affordable housing, or pay a fee that is dedicated to a fund to help support affordable housing in the village. That fee is currently set at $50,000 per unit. In the discussions, we agreed unanimously to raise it to $100,000.
- Set a 100-year term for the affordability requirement.
The legislation currently is silent about how long the affordable units need to be maintained as affordable. To avoid a potential legal challenge to the legislation for having an interminable restriction, we set a 100-year term for the affordability requirement. So these new affordable units will retain the restriction for 100 years.
- Set a 2-year term for the leases to create housing consistency.
In some cases, a tenant’s financial eligibility for the affordable housing is reviewed every year. In order to ensure some continuity in tenant housing, we set the leases for a two-year term, requiring them to meet eligibility requirements every two years rather than every year.
- Discussed finding other ways to support the fund.
The affordable housing fund currently has about $120,000 in it, and right now the only way we raise money for that fund is through the developer opt-out fees. We discussed looking for other ways to build the fund, including through a dedicated stream of revenue coming from the cannabis taxes once retail sales are licensed in the Village.
- Preference for Nyack residents.
Finally, we established a preference for the affordable units for existing Nyack residents, pending a review of the legality of such a requirement. We want to make sure that the affordable housing is designed to achieve our goal of helping retain our current residents.
Those changes are not yet official – they’re just proposed. Going forward, the Village Attorney will be preparing appropriate legislation, and we will be setting a public hearing to review the new law. That date hasn’t been set yet.
VILLAGE BOARD MEETING
1. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
The CDBG is a federally funded and county-administered grant program that requires we hold a public hearing about what our grant application should be. The main restriction is that the grant is only available for specific census tracks that meet financial eligibility requirements. We’ve previously used these grants to sidewalk replacement and street paving.
In the meeting, we approved the Village Administrator’s plan to apply for the grant for repaving and sidewalk work mostly on the north end of the Village between Main and Third (which is the edge of the applicable census track). We did get some input from the public about some work that is needed in the community housing area of the Plaza, but decided not to make that part of the grant because we would need more information first. So we’re going to get that information and look at other avenues of funding to address the issues.
2. Event Approvals
· July 4th fireworks in Memorial Park.
· Third Annual Black LGBTQ+ Pride Block party in Easter Square, June 14th, 6-9PM.
· Memorial Park Event for a Basketball Tournament on July 8-9, led by DeQuan Kerr.
· Dancing in the Streets event with 3 bands on Sunday, May 7, from. Brianne Higgins at Maureen’s Jazz Cellar.
· The Maureen’s Jazz Festival on Sunday, July 23, 2023