SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — “For a rural county of 79,000, Sullivan County has a remarkably complicated housing market that defies simple description.”

That line opened a recent strategy report aimed at developing affordable housing in Sullivan County.

Consulting and planning group CZB LLC drafted the report in partnership with the Sullivan County Housing Task Force. The report analyzed the county’s housing market and suggested a strategy for helping people find affordable housing.

If adopted, the strategy will result in county subsidies for a total of 320 rental units. CZB proposes that Sullivan County pursue three initiatives between 2023 and 2027: fund repairs to 240 existing rental units, and require that 80 units go to households making under $20,000; build 40 new units for households in the $20,000 to $35,000 income range; and build 40 units for households in the $35,000 to $50,000 income range.

Rentals

This strategy focuses on improving the quality and the quantity of Sullivan County’s rental stock.

Too few rental units serve the top and the bottom ends of the spectrum, according to CZB. Families making under $20,000 have to rent above their means, and families making above $75,000 have to rent below their abilities, squeezing the middle of the market.

Not only are there not enough units, many of the units that exist are in poor condition. This is especially true of the county’s “core villages” of Liberty and Monticello, according to CBZ: “Housing in poor condition is relatively inexpensive and becomes a housing opportunity, by default, for households with the fewest options.”

“That dynamic has been playing out in the core villages for decades, and to such an extent that households with choices tend to look past the villages as appealing places to live, locking in a vicious cycle that constrains reinvestment in the villages.”

Building additional rental units and supporting maintenance of the county’s existing units can help ease the strain on the county’s housing market. It’s also an easy initiative to pursue, said CBZ director of revitalization planning Peter Lombardi. “It’s easier to subsidize rentals [than homes] in terms of making them more affordable to households.”

Home ownership

CZB’s focus on rental availability de-prioritizes the direct issue of affordability, something that’s more commonly thought of as an issue throughout the county.

House prices have risen since the start of the pandemic by around 38 percent, according to CZB’s analysis. “The pandemic price spike came, however, on the heels of a period of decline and slow recovery for the county’s housing market in the wake of the Great Recession… the typical home buyer in Sullivan County can afford to purchase the typical house.”

Rental rates tell a similar story. Rates have hovered in the $900 to $1100 range for the past few years, according to CZB, a range that’s affordable to households making upwards of $36,000.

Members of Sullivan County’s Housing Task Force pushed back against that characterization at an August 22 meeting to discuss the draft strategy.

Anecdotal accounts told of a rapid, recent increase in rental rates, said planning commissioner Freda Eisenberg. Members of the task force mentioned other invisible costs that might impact affordability without directly affecting the prices of homes, including Sullivan County’s tax rate and the effect of out-of-area landlords.

Lombardi said that those contributions could be included in the final draft of the study.

The study presented

Sullivan County officials Jill Weyer and John Liddle, members of the county’s housing task force,  presented the study to the Sullivan County Legislature at a legislature meeting on September 8.

“This plan for us is a guiding document to kind of start to address some of our housing needs that have been identified,” said Weyer.

Weyer said that additional feedback from residents had helped the county and its consultants update the study, bringing its conclusions on rental affordability more in line with the gut feeling of those working on the ground.

Liddle supported the recommendations of the study in his section of the presentation. While the specific numbers of units proposed were only “bite-sized chunks in the bigger problem, if we can get these numbers of units produced by working with municipalities and developers, these are the kinds of things that are going to show real improvement in the housing market over the next probably five years.”

The study is available at https://www.sullivanhousingstudy.org/.