Notes from Breakout Room Discussions
Notes from Breakout Room Discussions
The Village of Dobbs Ferry’s Affordable Housing Task Force (AHTF) held its first virtual public workshop on the topic of housing on June 2, 2021 at 7:00 pm. Close to fifty people joined the workshop. The Land Use Law Center (Center) facilitated the meeting. The meeting opened with a welcome by the Village Mayor. Staff from the Center presented an overview and summary of the evening’s event. Tracy Baron, from the AHTF, introduced the AHTF members, reviewed the goals, presented an overview of regional and local housing data, and discussed the variety of affordable housing types. Tiffany Zezula, from the Center, then explained the public input exercise for the evening and the ground rules for participation. Participants were divided into small groups to enhance effective conversation with facilitators. A trained facilitator led each small group discussion. The small groups discussed the following questions:
- What do you think makes a great community? What makes our community so great? These could be things you value in Dobbs Ferry/in other municipalities that you have visited (10-15 min)
- How are the values that you raised related to housing? How can housing strengthen our community? (10 min)
- There are a variety of creative sites/places that can be considered for housing (see list of site opportunities). Are there locations/sites in Dobbs Ferry that you want to suggest for housing? (10 min)
For each question, a recorder recorded all responses using a Word document. Each comment reflected below was stated by an individual person and was not necessarily reflective of the full group.
After the breakout room discussions, the public meeting concluded, participants were thanked and attendees were encouraged to visit the website for future meeting dates. A recording of the presentation and the PowerPoint were posted online.
After collecting the notes from every breakout room, the Land Use Law Center staff compiled the notes into one document. This document presents the combined comments from all the breakout rooms. Some comments have numbers by them, noting the number of times a similar comment was heard in another group.
- What do you think makes a great community? What makes our community so great? These could be things you value in Dobbs Ferry/in other municipalities that you have visited.
Diversity - in terms of ethnicity, economics
- More diverse than other rivertowns
- Economic diversity
- DF originally homogenous, but changing to become more diverse
- DF not yet as diverse as some might want
Family/Children
- Less than 30% of the town households have children
- Childcare opportunities
- The family environment/good environment for children to live in………….…............(2)
- Family involvement in the community
- Quality of school district/School system is great, and makes parents feel safe sending their children to school………………………………………...…………….……...….(4)
Community
- Neighborly Spirit (“50’s small town spirit”) - DF an example of this
- People look out for each other
- Social events between neighbors
- Sophisticated culture/community, but down to earth & neighborly
- Respect among the neighbors.
- Sense of community - Helping others
- Small town feel and close knit community……………………………….………….….(3)
- Caters to the different phases of life/ Families have lived in Dobbs Ferry for generations………………………………………………………………………………(2)
- Multitude of non-profit organizations that sponsor community events as does the Village
- Lots of volunteerism
Connectivity/Sense of Place/Transportation
- Complete, Compact, Complex place with good Connectivity to create a Convivial community
- Walking community by design/Walkability……………..………………..…….(2)
- Sustainable & resilient
- Feeling of “place” in the downtown area
- “Create”
- Multi-use, mixed income
- Arts-friendly
- Sports opportunities (tennis courts)
- Location - easy commute into the city (NYC)…………………………….…………….(3)
- Waterfront park is close to transportation as well as a restaurant so very easy access to important things.
- Not a typical suburban community – sidewalks, can walk to shops, can interact with other residents, the independence that walkability offers to residents
- Walkability to schools
- A quiet community
- Love the lack of unwelcomed distractions that we once had where we lived before.
- Old architecture is very authentic and makes it beautiful
- Physical characteristics such as the Village center, Hudson River and trees
- Affordability……………………………………………………………………………(2)
- Affordable housing developed in Hastings-on-Hudson
- Workforce housing developed years ago in Dobbs Ferry
Natural Places/Outdoors
- Large amount of parks around town
- Landscape
- Aqueduct
- River
- Topography- views of Hudson and beauty of the town
- Look of the town, hills and trees
- How are these values that you raised related to housing? How can housing strengthen our community?
Diversity of People
- A diverse community is hard to come by if all the housing is expensive - expense is a deterrence to entrance into the community
- A diversity of people of various incomes make interpersonal relationships more possible & enriches the community
- If not many young people or ability to attract young people, then it’s hard to have or keep younger people around
- Starter houses needed
- Attracting young people to move back into the community with their new families
- In addition to starter houses, it may be necessary to have people whose families are able to help them afford a house
- Starter houses needed
- Affordable housing = more people who work in the arts
- Large housing expense may deter creatives from coming in and enriching the community
- Mixed-Use & more housing options may allow people with disabilities to move into the community as well
- Housing diversity creates an inter-generational community
- You want a strong community engagement to draw different generations together
- Want people to remain in the community after their children graduate from the Dobbs Ferry schools
- Want long time residents to be in a position to maintain their homes – issues of real estate taxes, local approval processes to get approvals, and accessory apartments raised
- Seniors
- Housing diversity allows the community to know teachers and police as fellow residents
- Want less affluent people to be able to buy a home in the Village
- Decreasing economic diversity in the community – increased pressure on sale prices and rents
Connectivity/Sense of Place/Transportation
- Communities that allow for more walkable areas (not just “McMansions” or large single-family parcels) may lead to more connected communities
- Bus routes are not easy to understand; it is something for the Village to work on for others to be able to access public transportation from their house; bus station off Cabrini and Broadway not very well kept either.
- There is a traffic problem, the Village needs to enforce and work on walkability. We need to bring to town businesses one can walk to, and provide easier access to convenience stores.
- Proximity to jobs and school is important connection to housing
Community Needs
- Need for local supermarkets
- Need for walkable communities
- If people can work there, but not live there, then there may be environmental and financial concerns
- Housing Taxes can be prohibitive
- Losing seniors who cannot afford the rising taxes and expenses may lose the corporate memory of the area too
- Paying for a nice house, but then getting stuck with large taxes may be hard for some, especially those who do not have kids (young people or seniors) and maybe do not benefit from the local government’s educational expenditures
- If people want to have rising property values, there’s an additional point that value of the homes may be tied to the quality of the schools too
- Lack of housing may also come from too many people staying in their homes and not enough available homes for new families trying to move in
- Loss of naturally occurring affordable housing as buildings are being bought
- The percentage of affordable housing is very low, there are mixed opinions there are different types of affordable housing and it doesn’t bring enough people due to the misconception.
- Values of newcomers different than residents who have lived in the community longer
- It’s not just about creating affordable housing, it’s about increasing the affordable housing ratio. It feels like one out of ten new units are considered affordable housing. That is not enough
- Although affordable housing is included in the new developments, not truly affordable.
- Invite more people with the stock of housing
- Housing is tied to security and safety
- Housing diversity leads to strong community ties
- More people live on the edge less able to contribute their best to the community
- Developers may not want to build affordable housing
- Reducing land costs, play with rules to make affordable housing happen
- It’s always a balance of where we can live and what we can afford
- Out of character with the community – too high a density
- Anticipated benefits of higher end development, such as bringing increased business to downtown, did not happen. Losing small businesses
- Developers’ interest in assembling properties for possible demolition and new development
- Poor conditions of some rental properties
- Important for Village residents to understand the housing needs in their community
- Is it realistic to think that we can address these issues and retain the values that make the community great?
- Loss of greenery from development
- There are a variety of creative sites/places that can be considered for housing. (See list of site opportunities; these are sites that other communities in the Hudson Valley have used in creating housing.) Are there locations/sites in Dobbs Ferry that you want to suggest for housing? Be creative.
[NOTE: Participants were encouraged to brainstorm and suggest anything that came to mind, without regard to actual availability, feasibility, legal constraints, etc.]
- Space for housing on the golf course, which is vast and has numerous fields
- DF may not have as much unused space elsewhere
- Cedar Street, a couple pieces of property owned by the village - not big but vacant
- New parking lot on Palisades Street, 99 Cedar Street
- American Legion Building…………………………………………………………………………..….(3)
- Possibly village owned land now?
- Empty piece of land next to Stop in Shop (walkable to many amenities in the middle of the town)……………………………………………………………………..……….(2)
- Gas station and grocery store, the gateway to the village, sliver of grass for a small building
- Institutional Properties, including:
- 145 Palisade - old heating plant & property not used anymore along the river……………………………………………………………………………(3)
- Rivertown Square - where the theater is………………………………..……………..(2)
- Theater may not be returning (possibility for a maker-space at ground level?)
- Ability to put apartments above the theater
- Downtown - 50 buildings that are substandard and need repair, restoration, or deconstruction………………………………………………………………………….(2)
- Could double the amount of apartments downtown
- For instance, the recently approved units at 100 Main St (though that project was cut down and does not have as many units as needed)
- Rudy’s - overlooks the water and it would make a great a place for housing………………………………………………………………………………...(2)
- A block from the hospital, near a nail salon, adding a story for housing
- Ogden Place, old house that isn’t entirely abandoned but could hold 3-4 units
- Vacant/Abandoned properties/empty storefronts……………………………………....(3)
- Development loan/property tax credit between local government and landlords (an agreement) to be able to improve the conditions on distressed units
- Maybe reducing the parking lot of the train station
- Possible survey to people who are nearing end of home ownership and or want to vacate a house soon
- Public-Private partnerships & Corporate Social Responsibility
- Examining maximum height regulations in DF
- Putting Accessory Dwelling Units back into the Village Code
- Partnering with Habitat for Humanity to build
- Underused parking lots
- Excess land at Children’s Village
- Excess land on Cabrini campus