Minority Democrats on the Troy City Council are calling on the mayor to establish a task force to address a slew of housing-related issues.
Council Democrats released a statement calling for Mayor Carmella Mantello to establish a Housing Task Force to address the city’s aging housing stock, skyrocketing rents, and potential barrier to home ownership.
Council President Sue Steele, a Democrat, says a body of tenants, property owners, and community leaders could help the city address vacancies, affordability, and quality. Steele says she would use a similar plan recently implemented by the City of Hudson as a springboard.
“There's a tremendous need right now for affordable housing,” Steele said. “We see that with our homeless population, but we see it in groups such as the Baby Boomers, many of whom are on fixed incomes now wanting to downsize to apartment living, but can't afford the rents that are being charged now. So, we need to look at the needs of our community and begin making decisions that fill those needs.”
Steele says the previous council proposed a similar plan, but it stalled. Steele, who chairs the Troy Housing Authority, adds in order to succeed the group needs to gather ideas from diverse groups.
“I see this as a broad-based community task force that would sit down around the table and share ideas and come up with a strategic plan that would help us move forward in a thoughtful, planned manner that would really address the needs of our community, not make decisions piecemeal based on reactions to situations,” Steele said.
District 4 Councilor Aaron Vera says the statewide housing crisis is weighing on city residents. Vera says the task force could help the city review its current codes and planning and zoning processes. Vera says recent actions by city hall, including last summer’s displacement of nearly 60 apartments amid code violations, have resulted in housing insecurity for some Troy residents.
“Most recently, some of the actions by this administration, specifically that incident on Fifth Avenue, where residents were removed for lack of heat,” Vera said. “It's not to say that either of those scenarios, you know, the residents weren't in the situation that maybe they needed to leave. But it's the way that the city handled those, both of those situations that I think could have been better. And we should have, the city should have a clear policy on how to handle situations like that.”
Council President Pro Tem. Thomas Casey of District 6 says he campaigned on a similar idea.
“It’s something we really should look into. Am I naive enough to think Troy can solve everybody's housing problem? Because really, it's a very complex, and it's a bunch of different things. It's not one thing, it's a bunch of different issues,” Casey said. “But if we can somehow come together and just make anything better, that's better than doing nothing.”
Mantello, a Republican who took office in January, says she is concerned about the cost of the study proposed with the task force.
“I'm not really sure what the Housing Task Force entails in terms of specifics and how much it would cost to actually do a study as large as they're looking at,” Mantello said. “Fast forward, some people are confusing their task force with the Quality-of-Life Action Task Force. Apples and oranges. Their task force is a study.”
Mantello says her in-house group addresses quality of life concerns and could have a similar effect. Mantello says the group appoints one person from each department across the administration to address community needs like litter, vacant buildings, and code enforcement.
