Morning Read: Saranac Lake says no to affordable housing grant
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise and the Plattsburgh Press-Republican are both reporting on the decision by Saranac Lake’s village board to reject a $400,000 Federal grant for an affordable housing project.
This from the Press-Republican:
Adirondack Housing Development Chairman Allan Dunham was floored by the decision.
It means, he said Wednesday, that the housing project is dead.
“We were just stunned, just flabbergasted,” Dunham told the Press-Republican.
The project was valued overall at $1.2 million. But critics on the village board say they don’t want more non-profit housing in the village. This from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
“I just think it’s time we say no to not-for-profits,” [village trustee Jeff] Branch said. “We’ve all talked about it. It’s time we do it.”
[Village trustee Allie] Pelletieri said he pledged to take a stand against allowing any more tax-exempt property in the village when he ran for trustee earlier this year.
“The tax-exempt property is just overwhelming in this village,” he said. “That was my platform, and I’m sticking to it.”
Supporters of the project point out that the property was already owned by a non-profit; they say they also offered to make a Payment In Lieu of Taxes Payment to offset the project’s non-profit status.
So what do you think? Enough with the non-profits in our towns?
Tags: adirondacks, economy
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People living in municipalities expect services and that requires as broad a tax base as possible. More tax exempt properties, or the continuance of same means higher taxes or lower services as costs rise. No easy answers to the problem. Low income people need a place to live but tax exempt properties cost the tax payer. Is it fundamentally fair to ask the taxpayer to further subsidize someone elses life?
I don’t know all the specifics of this project, but this is ridiculous.
I understand that non-profits don’t pay property tax, but if the land is already owned by a non-profit, this is a mute point–especially if they offered to pay the town anyway.
In the bigger picture, the reason non-profits don’t pay property taxes is because they benefit society and decrease the burden of government to look after its citizens. Affordable housing is a huge issue in the Adirondacks, especially in Saranac Lake. By not allowing affordable housing projects to happen, the council is harming the town. What about the increased taxes when adjacent properties are increased in value by the new housing? Not to mention the benefits of people living in safe, efficient housing.
This is just short-sighted.
It is a permanent decision and will impact these villages for a long time and the texture and composition of these villages for decades.
I have always wondered instead of funding permanent “affordable housing” complexes using rent, why they don’t subsidize the building of affordable private homes. They would then be sold on the market to qualified first time home buyers who fit certain income parameters. The properties would then go back on the tax base, everyone would win.
I would be interested to hear what the terms of the PILOT offered were. Seems that’s a good story for a certain reporter to investigate. And given this property is already tax exempt, it seems a bit hasty of a decision given the need for low-income housing in the North Country. I’d bet there’s much more to this story.
Why does there seem to be community support for a PILOT for the resort project in Tupper Lake (for the wealthy) but no support for a PILOT in SL for a project for lower and middle income individuals?
I don’t know if I have ever made this suggestion here but…
Why every time affordable housing is discussed in the Adirondacks is it always about houses?
If you really want to attract and retain young people, you need to look beyond houses and look at affordable apartments.
A halfway solution would be to encourage two-family housing where the owner occupies one portion and rents out the other. Even better would be a developer putting up two, three or four family unites in one building and rent out all the units at affordable rates.
Single family housing is wasteful of land and resources, and are less efficient to heat.
It depends what kind of non-profit you are talking about. Some like the Trudeau institute or the community college generate jobs. As a general principle I think they are correct and that you should look very closely at what type of not-for-profits you want in the town. But what control do you really have? It is only when there is a grant issue like this where you would have much influence. If a private no-for-profit wants to set up shop on land they own how are you gonna stop them?
Pete,
Very good point. Multi-family housing is much more affordable all around and is a much better solution to the lack of affordable housing here in the North Country. Does anyone know what type of housing was being considered for this project?
Having served on the Board of a local Not-for-Profit Housing organization here in Lewis County some years ago, I can tell you that all of our units were multi-family. The only single family situations we ever supported were via the rehab programs whereupon individuals applied for grants to refurbish and update their homes. And even those applications were reviewed and approved by the entire board of directors.
Given the site, it has got to be multifamily.
The articles, at least the Enterprise one, say that these would have been apartments and that terms of the PILOT were not worked out yet.
Peter Crowley, Enterprise managing editor
I’m sure this will raise some hackles, but the article didn’t make this clear. Is this welfare housing or low income working class housing?
What the heck is Welfare housing? I think the idea here was low income housing. Real estate prices in SL are way out of whack with income levels. That is why folks that work at places like Whiteface or restaurants in LP drive 50 miles to go to work.
Personally, I think a cross-the-board policy – or campaign promise – stands the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Sure, the village trustees who nixed this deal held to their promise, but it seems likely to end up being a shot in the foot for the village overall.
If workforce housing makes it possible for businesses to expand (because their employees can afford to live in town, and shop in town, too), then why not support it, especially if the property in question is already off the tax rolls.
These guys should look at proposals on a case-by-case basis, and not simply say “no” based on one aspect.
The magistrates are covering up. They have to say they have a problem with non profits and and pretend they answered the question.
The real answer is political suicide.
“We don’t want more have-nots to proliferate in the village. We prefer for them to live in the outlying areas of the county.”
Certainly they don’t want to spend money to attract the have-nots into town.
They won’t let trailer parks in town and they won’t subsidize or encourage lower income housing in town, either.
In Tupper Lake, they want to subsidize the rich, too and claim they will get some jobs for the have-nots.
Crowley,
Thanks for the input. Makes me wonder if apartments wasn’t the unspoken reason for the rejection, especially sense PILOT was on the table.
For some strange reason, some people think renters don’t pay taxes. They do and they would with a PILOT. It’s part of the rent and they also pay takes when they shop.
correction: they also pay taxes when they shop.
Well what group of people would be dead set against lower priced subsidized apartments? Current landlords.
If the problem is taking or keeping lots out of the pool of property on which taxes are paid, then the obvious solution is to stop waiving taxes on property owned by churches. Why I should I pay higher taxes to subsidize institutions that spread ideas I find offensive?
Gromit,
You might be on to something. Not just churches specifically, but all not-for-profits. Why shouldn’t all housing, no matter what their status, be required to pay property taxes like everyone else? Perhaps this made sense years ago when property taxes weren’t all that high, but as they’ve risen over the years and become a greater burden, those that don’t pay are subsidized to a much greater extent.
Have to agree with Gromit and Clapton. The city of Ogdensburg for instance is something like 60 or 70% tax exempt properties. Canton and Potsdam have large exempt areas, so do many other towns. It has nothing to do with anything offensive to me, it’s simply a practice that’s run it’s course.
You can’t just target Churches it would have to be all not for profits, colleges, hospitals, charities etc.
Of course one may find that many of these smaller nfp would not be able to exist and you would just end up with empty buildings. Although that would likely not be the case in Saranac Lake. It would be the case in the Burg, no one is going to snap up the old nursing home which goes bankrupt when it gets an assessment of millions of dollars it has to pay taxes on and then simply goes out of business.
But how would you assess the property of some place like St. Lawrence or Clarkson? I guess you could do it, but it would mean a huge expense hit and that would have to be made up somehow, likely with layoffs.
Anyway it is an interesting conceptual idea, but very unlikely to happen in the near future as it would be a national issue and likely involve some sort of Supreme Court decision.
Mervel is right – this is not something that will happen soon and would mean an entire revamp of how we assess property throughout the United States.
The only reason the village board is able to have an impact on this is because this grant must go through the village – they are now in control of whether this project moves forward and the only reason it is being stopped by this board is because two members have decided that they don’t want this “non or not for profit” property in Saranac Lake. However, it is ironic that the proposed project from the Adirondack Housing Development Corporation would actually allow for some level of payment through the PILOT (which does not exist now) and that it would foster a multi-family apartment complex for work-force housing, both desperately needed in Saranac Lake. There is a quote in the ADE from one of the apartment landlords in Saranac Lake saying it will give an unfair advantage to the AHDC over the existing landlords. Affordable, good quality housing is needed in Saranac Lake. As I observe in Saranac Lake, there is no real competition for good housing – every bit that is offered is needed. The board’s decision, from my observation, is short-sighted and a lose/lose for Saranac Lake.
“There is a quote in the ADE from one of the apartment landlords in Saranac Lake saying it will give an unfair advantage to the AHDC over the existing landlords.”
Right there is the likely reason this did not pass.
Mervel- How would we assess SLU, Clarkson, etc? 100% just like the common man pays! This idea that elitist entities like our beloved colleges and universities should get a complete pass on paying their fair share is bogus from start to finish. Of course it’ll never happen in St Law Co since SLU IS Johnson Publishing which IS the Journal/Advance,. etc. The old boy network isn’t limited to OBPA.
The problem with taxing school properties is that it would increase the cost for an education.
If you want to go that route, where do you stop? Should the military pay taxes on all the property it owns? What do you think that would do to your income taxes?
But Bret think of the implications. If you realistically assessed our hospitals at what those properties are worth and taxed them at current rates they would likely go belly up, how would that help our communities? How about the Boys and Girls club, the YMCA etc, they can’t afford a 20K tax bill, once again gone. In addition as far as SLU and Clarkson go; it is not St. Lawrence County decision, this would be a national decision about the tax status of not for profits in this country.
I have a little more understanding about private housing though; in that regard it is directly undermining a current tax base. Those renters would normally be living in taxable rental properties and when they move to non taxable rental properties you lose tax revenue, so I understand that a little more. But these not for profits do contribute to the communities both in services and in direct employment.
I think someone mentioned above wanting to tax churches because they found the message offensive, well okay I find Planned Parenthood’s offensive but still believe if they are not for profit they should not be taxed on their numerous properties and clinics.
But politically this will never happen so it is kind of a moot point. Landlords never want new quality lower income housing as that would hurt their business.