Housing Task Force

Housing Task Force Meeting #5 Minutes Jan. 25, 2024 7pm Village of Port Chester Conf. Room Attendees: Margaret Adamson, Chester Edwards, Monica Fonseca, Jane Lippman, Kathy Pandekakes, Andrew Weiss, Ursula Winchell. Absent: Arley Arno, Lisa Cordasco, Catrina Shivers, Aldo Vitagliano, Luis Yumbla. Meeting was called to order 7:14pm Updates: Monica Fonseca will not be able to attend next meeting, so it either needs to be recorded to transpose minutes later, or someone else will have to do minutes. Chester is still working with Village to determine whether we can allow members to attend virtually if they are unable to attend in person. Chester has a meeting set up with Village Clerk and Attorney. Chester sent link from Westmore News regarding Census data and we discussed how that data applies to our task. Affordable housing and lack thereof is a major issue in Westchester County and New York State. Action: Motion to approve meeting #4 minutes (Jan. 11th) was passed. Discussion: Determine each committee member’s interest in a particular group and we can break off into smaller groups to tackle housing needs assessment. Once smaller groups are established we may be able to find speakers that pertain to those particular groups. It was suggested, that if we do break up into sub groups, to partner people with housing experience with those that have similar interest but less experience in housing. List of committee members and interests: Chester Edwards a long time village resident and proud veteran and is interested in affordable housing for veterans. He is a member of many veteran groups allowing him to have outreach to that community. Monica Fonseca is 7 year resident and owner of her co-op apartment. She is interested in affordable housing and involved with local civic groups pushing for more affordable housing. Those civic groups would help with outreach. Jane Lippman is an attorney, has worked in NYCHA and is interested in helping poor people with affordable housing. Has extensive knowledge and willing to help wherever needed. Margaret Adamson is a tenant and on the tenant’s board in a housing authority building in Port Chester. Her interest is in affordable housing. She can provide outreach to other tenants and members of the community. Kathy Pandekakes has worked in PC for a non profit for 37 years. They are a multi service social service agency that does eviction and foreclosure prevention and had first time home buyers program in the past (pre-covid). She has helped people stay in their homes throughout the pandemic with the help of grants. She also helps people with special needs. Her focus is to work on affordable housing, special needs housing and seniors. She recommended perhaps having Blanca Lopez (a P.C. resident), who is now Planning Commissioner for Westchester County, speak at our committee about affordable housing and how the county can help. Ursula Winchell works for local landlord and property owner Howie Ravikoff. She sees first hand how many people are in need of housing. She hopes to bring a different prospective of renters being important stakeholders in the village. Interested in affordable housing but is open to work on any particular demographic. Has knowledge of the economics of the rental market in the village. Andrew Weiss was a commercial litigator and is now a traffic judge. He owns a co-op apartment and is president of his co-op board. His interest is in special needs housing and senior housing but does not have a particular outreach in either category. Affordable housing transcends all the categories and can also be broken down by income thresholds. It was discussed that many seniors are also looking for one floor living and it is in high demand with little new construction to accommodate that demand. Should we be concerned about the style of the new developments being proposed? Should we be concerned with displacement? Is there talk of impact to schools? It was agreed that we should start with determining the stock and the need. Our mandate doesn’t ask us to worry about schools, or services but to instead focus on finding affordable housing. Discussion was had regarding county programs for homeless vets with disabilities. We also need to think about whether the existing housing is adequate. Should we think about infrastructure and whether it can accommodate additional housing? It was agreed that any byproducts,(i.e. impact on schools, roads, services for seniors or veterans, etc.) from finding more affordable housing is not in this committee’s purview. It’s up to the village to determine how to mitigate those issues. Our mission is to find more affordable housing from new development and existing stock, and not to concern ourselves with the rest. It was discussed to reach out to other committee members to see which of the sub groups they are interested and what if any experience in housing they may have. So far, the housing subgroups are as follows: Affordable Special Needs Veterans Seniors Action: Motion to close meeting was made by Monica, seconded by Jane, and passed. Meeting adjourned at 8:05pm Next meeting Thursday, February 8, 2024 7pm at the Village of Port Chester Conference Room.