Five years ago, you probably wouldn”™t have seen someone like Kevin O”™Connor speaking at an Ulster County Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
But there he was up at the dais, telling chamber members about the ongoing challenges his organization, Rural Ulster Preservation Co. (RUPCO), confronts providing work force housing, as well as its numerous successes.
As the old barriers come down, a healthy dialogue between the business community and not-for-profits is emerging, enabling each to benefit the other through a process that includes education and pragmatic problem-solving.
RUPCO, which owns seven buildings and manages 178 rental units, subsidizes low-income rentals and assists first-time homeowners. It currently provides rental assistance to 1,300 families and has spent more than $3 million in helping people purchase their first homes and nearly $2 million in rehabbing homes for low-income people and seniors, O”™Connor said.
O”™Connor, RUPCO”™s executive director, painted a grim picture of the affordable housing situation in the county. Housing prices doubled between 1998 and 2004. The percentage of people earning 100 percent or more of the county”™s median income that could afford a house for sale was 63 percent in 1998, compared with less than 30 percent in 2004, O”™Connor said. Renters are also getting squeezed, with a current vacancy rate of only 1 percent; 5 percent is healthy, O”™Connor said.
The demand for affordable rentals is so high RUPCO has had to close its waiting list for recipients qualifying for Section 8 subsidies. The increase in real estate prices, along with spiraling construction costs, have crimped the numbers in other ways: the $500,000 annual state subsidy earmarked for new homeownership now serves half the number of people as it did in the past. Each new unit of housing costs $200,000 to build, but qualifying recipients are able to obtain a mortgage of only $145,000, creating a gap. “It”™s a struggle to keep up,” O”™Connor said. “We”™re attempting to bring in more dollars.”
The trend of workers migrating outside the area is also a problem, O”™Connor said. Between 1990 and 2000, Ulster lost 20 percent of the population aged 20 to 35 and a third of the work force works outside the county. Commuting not only puts a strain on parents, but also affects volunteerism, with fewer people available to serve in fire departments or on planning boards.
To address these problems, O”™Connor called for more comprehensive planning by municipalities to meet their affordable housing needs, such as requiring developers to provide a percentage of affordable housing units. He also said concentrating growth in existing population centers was a sound policy, saving on infrastructure costs and preserving the environment.
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RUPCO is involved in several new housing and rehabilitation projects. It is building a 63-unit development in Woodstock that will provide a mix of properties both for rent and for purchase, to both families and seniors. As the first LEEDS-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) affordable housing project outside of New York City, it”™s also a model of green development.
RUPCO is building 15 townhomes in Ellenville and rehabbing two historic structures in Kingston. The sprawling Tudor-style Kirkland Hotel will have a restaurant, offices and seven rental units. On Clinton Avenue, a restoration is under way of a gabled Victorian building that will consist of affordable condos.
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