Courtesy Warren County (2022)
Warren County along with the county’s Local Development Corporation and the Warren County Economic Development Corporation have tried over the past two years to launch a housing study that will inventory how much and what type of housing the county has, where it is and where growth should be located.
This year is it, said Jim Siplon, president of the Warren County Economic Development Corporation. He was speaking during the Warren EDC’s “Economy of Now” virtual meeting, Wednesday morning Jan. 26.
“And it’s going to be post-pandemic,” Siplon said, adding that the two-year delay was a bit of luck. “If we had gathered that data two years ago, I’m not sure how relevant it would be.”
The county planning department is drafting the RFP for the study now, he said.
This tied into the theme from the two other speakers at the event, Liza Ochsendorf, the county’s employment and training administrator, and Elizabeth “Libby” Coreno, a local attorney who specializes in development. She is working with Bonacio Development on the project to redevelop South Street in Glens Falls.
Coreno spoke about the need to build partnerships, to study a project together and build a conceptual framework with each other. She said one of the problems that thwarts this is that developers and people in the area do not come together and talk, and she challenged those to “undig from our fixed positions” and find a way to work together.
“Wise conversations about development pressure and infrastructure is great ‘across the aisle’ planning,” she said. Understanding what a community wants and needs and where it should be placed is key, and it allows for development that works with the environment. Economic opportunity zones are key areas for development. And the state’s Regional Economic Development councils can be key to guiding the study and putting money into projects.
“One of the most brilliant things we can do is think about where we put our infrastructure and encourage development in those spaces,” she said.
Coreno often cited Ochsendorf in her presentation, since workforce housing is a major consideration for development.
“Workforce development and economic development are forever tied together,” Ochsendorf read from one of her presentation slides.
[Read more about jobs here. Read more about housing here.]
She urged companies to look to the people they have and retain them. One element of that is having the housing they need. Right now, housing in general at all income levels is needed. With that in mind she presented a slide that asked people to look at the housing needs for a larger crop of traditional "workforce hosing."
She asked the community to consider the housing needs of people making the transition from incarceration to the community, the needs of active seniors making the transition to semi-retirement or working longer into old age, of new families that need homes in the area and of companies that rely on temporary housing and seasonal housing. According to her presentation, all of this is can be considered workforce housing.
If the community is absorb people coming in the area, the area must be ready for them.
"We have to put the system of support here before they arrive here," she said.
This discussion has been the topic of a few Warren EDC forums of the past year. It is a theme Siplon returns to.
He said the region has a rare opportunity to capture the people, many displaced by the pandemic, who want to move to the area and to build a strong economy here.
One example he gave was climate and clean water research.
"We haven't captured the full economic potential” on waterways tourism, education and research, he said. Understanding how invasives move or are stopped, and understanding the effects of climate change on waterways are just two possible areas of research, Siplon said.
But the region must act now to make space for these people.
"That industry is waiting for us to set it up here,” he said.