New Lebanon, N.Y. — It seems that a New Lebanon project will kill two birds with one stone. A group of 10 local investors are under contract to purchase the town’s popular Tilden Plaza, with plans to build a 12,000-square-foot market and grocery store on the first floor while dedicating its second and third floors to the area’s much-needed affordable-housing crisis. The housing component is slated to include 28 one- and two-bedroom units, with rents starting at about $1,000 per month.
According to the January 9 New Lebanon Farmers’ Market and Grocery’s daily newsletter, these units will be “reserved primarily for local people,” with 80 percent of the units serving individuals age 55 years old and up. The housing area will also incorporate a 2,000-square-foot amenity space for tenants.
An ideal situation for downtown
New Lebanon Town Supervisor Tistrya Houghtling, who also serves as the town’s chief fiscal officer, said she is personally “excited” about the project given it will add downtown housing, especially for senior citizens who may not drive a vehicle in an area that is without public transportation. She praised the project for its commercial space located beneath the residences as “an ideal situation.”
According to Houghtling, New Lebanon’s senior population is often confined to remain in their larger original homes because the town lacks downsizing options that would allow them to stay in the community—be it affordable rentals, smaller houses, or senior housing. “Apartments are rarely available for rent,” she said. “We have a huge housing crisis, and when they are available, they are much above that [nearly $1,000 monthly rent] threshold.”
Anticipating that local seniors will move into the newly announced housing, Houghtling said larger homes would be freed up to help the “huge” deficit of area residences listed for sale to accommodate younger families. “So, I think it’s really a win-win on all levels,” she said.
Hatching the plan
For New Lebanon Farmers Market and Grocery Director Josh Young, the project’s added lower-level space will help the daily indoor farmers’ market/grocery at 528 U.S. Route 20 buy more items in bulk, passing on those savings to neighbors at a time when food prices have soared. That notion sparked the Tilden Plaza project about seven months ago, when the property became available.
“It starts with the fact that we have an affordability crisis locally,” Young said. “Housing is too expensive. Food is too expensive. So those are the problems we are trying to address.”
Young is part of the investment group buying Tilden Plaza along with longtime resident and Zoning Board of Appeals Chair Anthony Murad, who is a builder; Community Preservation Corporation Vice President and Mortgage Officer (Albany) Christopher Scoville of Canaan, who is also a Trillium Land Trust working group member; Austerlitz architect/builder Ari Goldstein; as well as a couple of farmers, with contributions of $25,000 to $100,000 per investor. The connections Young made through his four-and-a-half-year-old market helped solidify the project that counts among its benefits, “be[ing] able to support the sustainable development of farms and local food producers.”
“If a farm needs to buy a better tractor and they can count on more sales to their local grocery, then they will be more able to afford that tractor and more able to farm more efficiently and more sustainably,” Young said, adding that the grocery’s shelves in its new home will provide more selections than its current stock and appeal to a wider range of shoppers. “And we can do that without sacrificing any of the locally produced foods, whether it’s vegetables or apple pies.”
The details
The tract is zoned general commercial, but Young, who serves on the New Lebanon Planning Board, said he doesn’t anticipate a variance would be needed for the project to come to fruition. He said he would recuse himself from any board matters pertaining to the Tilden Plaza.
Financing for the $15 million project includes a private group that will be responsible for buying the property, with that transaction having not closed yet, Young said. The bulk of the funds will come from federal monies administered through state programs, he said, tax credits that boast a September deadline for applicants. Other smaller state grants and a commercial mortgage will round out the project’s resources.
Poughkeepsie-based Hudson River Housing (HRH) will assist in the project, its first in New Lebanon, said Javier Gomez, the organization’s vice president of operations. Over the summer, his team embarked on conceptual discussions with the Tilden Plaza investment group, he said. “We’re still in early stages of the project,” Gomez said. “We’re fleshing out a lot of the details, solidifying our partnership.”
Specifically, HRH will assist the Tilden Plaza partners in applying for state-level funding, he said of the group that has a long history in Dutchess County of developing affordable housing. “Throughout the Hudson Valley, we’re all affected by rising rent, rising housing prices so we are getting a lot of interest throughout the region now from community members of how [to] get affordable housing,” Gomez said. “This is a good opportunity to work with the community of New Lebanon and do the project that it sounds like there’s a lot of excitement for.”
Tilden Plaza project is independent of Jan. 21 vote on a walkable downtown
Later this month, New Lebanon residents will vote on a $2.5 million proposal that will push forward efforts to increase the walkability of its downtown area, adding sidewalks, traffic calming measures, pedestrian crosswalks and walking paths. If passed, the project is slated to be completed in 2027. That proposal can be found here.
Although Houghtling said the Tilden Plaza project “fits in nicely with the downtown walkability proposal,” she urged residents that the downtown walkability and Tilden Plaza projects are independent of each other, with one being a town project and the other a private developer project.
“It’s important to know that the walkable downtown project is separate from this [Tilden Plaza] project,” Houghtling emphasized. “The walkable downtown is something the town’s been working on for two-and-a-half, three years and is a town project. We have $2 million in grant funding for it. The walkable downtown can happen whether or not the senior housing happens, and the senior housing can happen whether or not the walkable downtown happens. And, although it would be great to have them both, I don’t want residents to think that one is somehow contingent on the other because that’s not true.”
