News from the Noteworthy from the Community Foundation of Otsego County

County Leaders Gather To Discuss Housing Crisis

Who’s happy with the status quo?” Darren Scott of NYS Homes and Community Renewal asked an audience of more than 70 people at the Housing Summit on Wednesday, October 23. Not one hand went up.

Local elected officials, developers, nonprofits, and community leaders gathered at the Foothills for a Housing Summit, co-sponsored by the Community Foundation of Otsego County, Hartwick College, Springbrook, and SUNY Oneonta. The summit was created to share information on the state of housing in Otsego County, and to examine unmet needs. The idea of the summit came from the Regional Innovation Council, created by SUNY Oneonta in 2022.

Professor Alex Thomas, executive director of the PLACES Institute at SUNY Oneonta, cited the history of Otsego County and the region, from early and long-lasting successes to steady decline since 1970. Dire projections show the possibility of Otsego County’s population dropping by 25 percent by 2050.

Tammie Harris and Trevor Fuller from the Otsego County Planning Department, and Bridget Stith from Otsego Rural Housing Assistance, discussed the new housing needs assessment. Our housing stock is insufficient and old (42 percent of housing was built before 1942), and nearly 16 percent is vacant or unavailable due to various reasons including condition.

The current situation may be bleak, but the future is not cast in stone. The early-morning sessions were a wake-up call to all who attended (and beyond), but in these stark set of facts lies great opportunity. The afternoon sessions highlighted those.

The aforementioned Scott, along with Derek Crossman of Empire State Development and Danny Lapin, revitalization specialist at the New York Department of State, spoke of the many funding opportunities available to communities of all sizes, not only for housing, but also for planning. The current priorities of New York State have to lead to the availability of billions of dollars for housing.

Scott said that funding alone is not sufficient, and is, in reality, the easiest piece of the puzzle. In addition to the readily available resources, housing projects need talent, expertise, capacity, and, more importantly, collective and sustained public will. The latter is often the hardest; yet it is the most vital to keep our communities alive and thriving.

“Lack of housing is an existential threat,” warned Scott, and no one disagreed.

Often there is a misperception that things are stagnant in the county, that little to nothing is going on. That is untrue and the final presentation, a panel that included Mark Drnek (mayor of Oneonta), Seth Haight (chief operating officer of Springbrook), Dan Sullivan (former Richfield town supervisor and local planner), and Ellen Tillapaugh (mayor of Cooperstown), showcased recent successes.

From the Dietz Street lofts (City of Oneonta) to the Ford Block (Springbrook), to Chestnut Crossing apartments (Village of Cooperstown) and the Bank Lofts apartments (Village of Richfield Springs), housing units have sprung up all over Otsego County, and the leaders on the panel assured the summit audience that there were more on the way in each of these municipalities, some of which are already in progress.

As the summit ended, it was clear that the three hours had been a huge success and that new connections had been made. There was great optimism and a feeling that change can occur.

I spoke with one of the developers who appreciated that we had put this session together. I told him that if only one connection was made that day, and one developer connected with a local elected official to build more housing, it would have all been worth it. He thought much more than that would come from the day.

In the end, we all agreed to work together to create new opportunities and build a better future.

Jeff Katz is the executive director of the Community Foundation of Otsego County.