I sent the following letter to Pine Plains Supervisor Gregg Pulver, urging his board to eliminate generous incentives to developers in the town's proposed new zoning law.

Supervisor Pulver,

As your Town Board reviews the many controversial land use policies proposed in the Draft Zoning Law, there is one issue that all quarters of the community seem to agree on: a desire to promote more affordable housing for the benefit of Pine Plains residents who would otherwise be unable to buy a home in the town.

But the proposed ordinance, rather than devising a system that offers economic help to deserving residents, instead transfers most of the benefits to large-scale developers through so-called “density bonus” incentives. This seems to run counter to anyone’s interest—except the developers’—and I would urge you to revise the affordable housing regulations currently included in the plan.

As the proposal stands now, developers of subdivisions of ten lots or more would be required to set aside 10% of those lots for “moderately priced” homes. In return the proposal gives the developers the right to create the additional lots for those homes beyond what the zoning ordinance would allow, a so-called “density bonus.”

By giving additional lots to the developer, the town is allowing him to make a profit on the affordable houses which approximates his profit on the market-value homes he builds.

Consider an example: in a ten-lot subdivision of homes selling at $300,000 each, netting a per house profit of $60,000 using conservative assumptions, the developer would be given an eleventh lot where he would have to deliver an equivalent home and sell it to a qualified town resident at a discount. Though the law does not specify the size of the discount, some towns require the “affordable” home to sell at 75% of its “market value,” $225,000 in this case. The developer has “lost” $75,000 in revenues. But he has been given an additional lot which, if he had to buy it in the market, would likely cost him between $60,000 and $70,000. With the free lot in hand, the developer is able to make a sizable profit, $45,000-$55,000, on the sale of the affordable home even though it is sold for much less than market value.

Why should the town and its taxpayers give that additional profit to the developers? The returns on their investment in the subdivisions are huge, and I can assure you developers will be eager to build in the town even if they have to offer one of every ten homes at breakeven.

The new zoning code should not offer subsidies to private developers who are already likely to reap large profits for themselves and leave a legacy of sharply higher town and school property taxes for existing residents, according to many studies on growth in rural towns.

If you want affordable housing for some of your citizens, you have the legal right to make the developers give it to them. Eliminate the “density bonus.”

Sincerely,

James Sheldon
Gallatin, NY