After Fort Drum news, concerns housing development could slow
WW II-era barracks being demolished to make way for new housing. File photo: Army Corps of Engineers
In case you haven’t heard, the news came down a couple days ago that Fort Drum will be losing about 1,500 troops over the next four years. In a conference call that day, North Country Congressman Bill Owens said he didn’t think the losses would impact troops that much:
“This is well within the parameters that we thought might occur here. There’s no huge downside to Drum that we can see at this juncture. The net loss of about 1,500 folks, over a four-year period, with extended dwell times, likely has no material impact on the mission, nor the economy.”
Two out-of-state housing developers planning to build 573 new units in LeRay apparently haven’t been daunted by the news, but area economic development officials are concerned the news might have a chilling effect on future housing builds. That’s according to the Watertown Daily Times. The paper is reporting that the Army’s goal of building 1,035 new market-rate apartments has been met (or at least ground has been broken on the projects). That means the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency (JCIDA) says it won’t offer more tax breaks for building residences in the future (tax breaks have been quite controversial in the past.)
Development Authority of the North Country CEO James Wright told the paper that although it’s unlikely to affect construction that’s already happening, it could “cause apprehension” among developers who might be planning future projects to house the military population. “Obviously,” he said, “the loss of 1,500 purchasers in the community will have an adverse impact.”
Of course, there’s the question of whether, since the Army’s goals have been met, the Fort Drum area needs to continue actively recruiting housing developers. JCIDA Board President David J. Converse has that question in mind, too: “I firmly believe that financial people are going to sit back and start recrunching the numbers to see what housing the community really needs right now…It might not be a bad thing, because you don’t want to overbuild housing and hurt the entire market.”
There’s a lot more detail in the article, but this certainly won’t be the last we’ll see on how these troop reductions will impact the area surrounding Fort Drum.
Joanna Richards contributed reporting to this post.
