Housing Task Force

Port Chester Housing Task Force Public Forum Meeting # 40 Minutes Date: Thursday, October 9, 2025 @7:00 pm Location: Port Chester Senior Center 222 Grace Church St Port Chester NY Attendees: Chester Edwards, Monica Fonseca, Joan Grangenois-Thomas, Jane Lippman, Andrew Weiss, Ursula Winchell, Arley Arno, Jane Lippman, Catrina Shivers. Absent: Kathy Pandekakes, Aldo Vitagliano Meeting Overview: Public Forum to hear from residents and stakeholders regarding housing needs in the Village of Port Chester. Meeting opened at 7:15pm with a brief overview from Chairman Edwards and intro by Secretary Monica Fonseca. Chairman Edwards introduced the Housing Task Force members, discussed the rules of engagement for the event, and explained that the meeting was designed to hear directly from the public on their housing needs. Speakers discussed the following: Stacey Harris (renter and Sustainable Port Chester Alliance Co-Executive Director) discussed the Village opting into Good Cause Eviction to help secure protections against unfair evictions/lease renewals and excessive rental increases. Trustee Nancy Naulaguari spoke on overcrowding for the Under-housed, or those middle and low income residents, that are living in overcrowded apartments in order to collectively afford high rents. An unnamed resident (P.C. renter for 25 years) asked for assistance for eviction protection and was referred for follow up from Housing Task Force member Arley Arno, who is also a HUD certified Housing Counselor. An unnamed resident (P.C. homeowner of 10 years) spoke about the history of affordable housing and that it is and will always be a perpetual issue no matter how much housing is built. Paval, a three year resident, expressed that new building’s with high rents will only increase future rent prices and cost of living expenses. Luz Cabral, a 30 year P.C. business owner, expressed the need to address housing for the immigrant community. New buildings with high rents will bring in wealthy people, but we leave the immigrant community behind. Many are living in overcrowded apartments just to be able to afford the rent.She asked who can afford $3000 a month rent for a 1br apartment? She also spoke of lack of adequate senior housing, and low income seniors can only apply for studio apartments. Village homeowners are straddled with high property taxes, which can force them to rent rooms in order to afford the taxes. There needs to be programs, funding and other ways to help middle and lower income families become homeowners. She suggested the Village reach out to the community, people with families, find out their income levels, and create ways to offer home owner opportunities, whether apartments or housing, for those income levels. Westchester County Planning Commissioner Blanca Lopez (a lifelong Port Chester resident) shared housing resource information: 1. If someone is behind on rent, they can dial 211 for the United Way helpline. They will direct you to nearest assistance locations 2. Westchester County Office of Housing Counsel offers free legal assistance regardless of income. 3. Homeseekers program is located on Westchester Planning’s website. There you can identify upcoming affordable housing opportunities and apply for units that are coming up to rent, and also includes homeownership units and resales. 4. Westchester County will be providing property improvement funds for older affordable housing stock. 5. During the 2019 Housing Needs Assessment, the County asked municipalities to identify vacant or abandoned property they owned so that County could see how they could fund new development of affordable housing. 6. The County has asked religious institutions, schools and office buildings to identify abandoned property for the development of affordable housing. 7. The 10% inclusionary zoning should be the start of the conversation. If the powers that be don’t ask for more, it will never be built. 8. The County Funding for affordable housing would go towards additional affordable housing over and above the 10% inclusionary zoning baseline. 9. New York State required that municipalities compile a list of all their ETPA units (rent controlled units in buildings of 12 or apts built before 1974). Trustee John Allen discussed how the 10% set aside is not enough for Port Chester and that the Village missed an opportunity to require more affordable housing when the new high density zoning code was adopted. He stated that it’s possible to amend the code to require more affordable housing, but there needs to be a will of the majority of the Board of Trustees for that to happen. The Village is doing what they can to encourage affordable housing, adequate parking, infrastructure improvements, and all that goes along with it.There are benefits built into the zoning code that require new developments to improve infrastructure, as well as large payments for permitting and mitigation fees used to improve roads and parks. The Task Force discussed ADU incentive programs funded by New York State and administered through Habitat for Humanity. They are also looking into first time buyer opportunities. They discussed that creating more senior housing not only helps struggling seniors but it also frees up housing for families. They are also looking into creating recommendations for veterans’ housing. The Task Force expressed thanks to the public for attending and commenting and invited the public to view the Village website for more information on future meetings and past meeting minutes. The Public Forum meeting closed at 8:45pm.