Can you have more moderate-income housing without losing any more rural land?

The answer here in Sullivan County is through the utilization of an existing NYS law that permits the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) with funding for the costs coming from Sullivan County legislators finally sharing at least 1 percent of sales tax revenue with its townships.

An additional benefit of allowing ADUs would be to provide senior citizens with extra income so they can afford to live in the homes where they raised their children. 

ADUs would have a minimum of 300 square feet and a maximum of 1,000 square feet, and no more than two bedrooms. To fund the cost of winterizing senior-citizen basements, attics, cabins, campers and recreational vehicles on their property, sales tax revenue needs to be shared with the county’s townships.

Additional apartments can be found by converting adjacent rooms in closed motels into one­-bedroom apartments, each having a kitchen, full bath and living room. By utilizing pre­existing structures, we can increase livable space without decreasing our rural landscape.

Sharing part of the county’s sales tax revenue will directly add reasonably priced apartments while keeping greedy developers from destroying our precious rural landscape.

John Maniec 
Kauneonga Lake, NY