For many young professionals who grew up in Westchester and Fairfield, Conn., counties, moving back here is a desired, if not always attainable, goal.
Like many recent college graduates who grew up in the area, Kevin McCarthy would like to live in his native Westchester County. Not being able to afford anything in the areas he was looking in, McCarthy leases a place in Manhattan, but is determined to move back to Westchester once that lease runs out.
McCarthy, 26, who works as a broker for CB Richard Ellis in Stamford, Conn., along with Bridget Kennedy of Abigail Kirsch at Tappan Hill, Daniel Lansen of Compufit Computer Corp. and Ana Morais of Union State Bank formed the young professionals advisory committee of the Westchester County Association earlier this year to address these issues of no small import to their demographic.
The issue of affordable housing for young professionals in Westchester will be addressed at a forum sponsored by the committee Oct. 30 at 360 Hamilton Ave. in downtown White Plains.
“It”™s a hot topic,” said McCarthy. “The more we brought up this issue the more people wanted to get involved.”
It”™s not just a hot topic for young professionals themselves, but for their parents who live in the area and want their kids to stay close to home, McCarthy says.
“A lot of them are thinking: ”˜When my kid graduates from college will he be able to stay here?”™” he said.
High on any list of the reasons living in Westchester County is so high are the property taxes. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, Westchester residents pay the third-highest median property tax of all counties in the U.S. with a population of 65,000 or more. Rockland County came in seventh on the same list.
One reason for that are the number of taxing entities in New York state, said William Mooney Jr., president of the Westchester County Association.
“All the layers of government, why do we need it all?” asked Mooney. “We have 4,200 local governments, 4,000 school districts, and 6,900 special taxing districts.”
Whatever the reasons, Mooney agreed that the flight of young, working college graduates from the state is an important issue.
Last week, first lady Silda Wall Spitzer kicked off the “I Live NY” campaign with a summit on this very issue.
The summit featured business and community leaders, university representatives, elected officials, leaders of young professional groups, students, and the general public to discuss the state”™s “affordability crisis and how it is disproportionately affecting young New Yorkers,” according to a written statement.
Specifically, Mrs. Spitzer said the focus will be on stemming the mass exodus of young people from upstate New York, including from the Hudson Valley.
Kenneth Adams, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State, said, “The problem our young people are facing isn’t the weather, and it isn’t the nightlife. They absolutely want to live in upstate New York, but they need good jobs, affordable housing and livable communities and they are not finding them.”
In the weeks ahead, the office of the first lady will issue a report identifying ideas and policy recommendations raised at the summit.
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Al Samuels, president of the Rockland Business Association (RBA), said without housing “appropriately priced” in the area for young workers, local business will start to lose its work force.
“Rockland seems to be enamored with ”˜active adult”™ housing, but not housing priced for young people,” he said. “The community isn”™t thinking about that, and yet there are parents who have children in college, and they should be thinking about it.”
Samuels said the RBA has been vocal about addressing this issue.
“We need to get the message out, for Rockland to continue to thrive as an economic venue, we need the most important component of business, the work force, and we need the housing for that work force,” he said. “Where are our young people going? They”™re not staying here.”
David Fink, policy and communications director for the Connecticut Partnership for Strong Communities, a housing advocacy group, said in Connecticut some things are moving in the right direction.
He pointed to the state Legislature”™s funding of the HomeConnecticut housing program for economic growth, a bill that was backed by many regional and statewide business advocacy groups.
The program created incentives for higher-density housing. It authorizes $4 million for technical assistance and planning grants to towns, nonprofit developers, housing assistance organizations and regional planning agencies, and for zoning and building permit incentive payments.
However, two key elements of the initial proposed legislation were not included in the program: state reimbursement of additional school costs incurred by towns that create housing, and project-based Rental Assistance Payments to help developers make units affordable to residents earning 50 percent or less of the annual median income.
But perhaps Connecticut”™s biggest problem, said Fink, is that it simply does not create enough new housing of any kind. For the last two years, the state is 49th in units built per capita. (See chart below.)
Part of the problem is individual towns and villages not wanting to build new housing, he said.
“Ninety-eight percent of the revenue (for Connecticut localities) comes from levying property taxes, so they make decisions based on that,” Finks said. “(Municipalities) believe building housing costs more in services than it brings back in revenue.”
But Fink argues that isn”™t the case, if the right housing is built. Building one- or two- bedroom homes would likely bring in young families with no children, who wouldn”™t be a burden on local services.
But the homes Connecticut is building, he said, are four-, five-, and six-bedroom homes, which bring in many new residents and children who go immediately into the local school system.
“What we are building is not what young professionals need,” said Fink. “They”™re voting with their feet. We”™ve lost more 25- to 34-year-olds since 2000 than any state in the country. If jobs are plentiful somewhere else, and housing is less there, why would you stay in Connecticut?”
However, Fink is optimistic for the future. He believes state residents are becoming more aware of this problem, and that aging baby boomers at or nearing retirement will be the ones to take it up as a cause.
“They want their kids to live in a condo one town over or in the same town,” he said. “They don”™t want to have to take a five-hour flight to see their grandkids.”
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