The Clinton County Industrial Development Agency has released a study on housing needs in the county that provides data and recommendations for advancing housing availability.
The Housing Needs Assessment provides data including demographics, economics, housing inventory, affordability and trends specific to Clinton County.
The Lake Champlain-Lake George Regional Planning Board had issued a regional report in 2023 that assessed workforce housing needs in Clinton, Essex Franklin, and Hamilton counties. Planning Board Director Beth Gilles says the next step was to identify individual county needs. The Clinton County IDA then conducted this latest study.
“This countywide assessment will help identify and prioritize areas within the county doing a little bit more granular analysis of the needs in the county and so that’s what’s come out in this plan,” Gilles explained.
Clinton County Industrial Development Agency Executive Director Molly Ryan said the Clinton County Housing Needs Assessment is an outgrowth of the Regional Planning Board’s report.
“That study identified one location in Clinton County but we wanted to get a better understanding of what the housing need was specifically to Clinton County as the Clinton County IDA can benefit projects in Clinton County,” Ryan said. “So what we decided to do was hire Camoin Associates, who had already done the regional study, to take a deeper dive into Clinton County itself.”
Ryan says the report has provided a number of findings that will help meet housing needs.
“It told us five specific properties that they think would make good housing developments for Clinton County. And what it also told us was the need that we actually have, which is 1,100 homes need to be constructed over the next five years to meet the housing demand, whether that’s replacing aging stock or building new homes. So that is a target that we now know is specific,” noted Ryan. ”It also identified the cost to do that. We already know that housing is very expensive to do. So that’s why the IDA, in addition to doing this feasibility study coincided modifying our Uniform Tax Exemption Policy to provide benefits to housing developers. And having this study going forward will also help the municipalities in which they were identified as potential projects to seek grant funding to do that.”
Plattsburgh Supervisor Michael Cashman says the town has taken a leadership role in aggressively pursuing housing development.
“We take a multipronged approach. The Town of Plattsburgh launched a developer’s guide working with our local realtor’s board. The Town of Plattsburgh took a leadership role by convening a six county, 120 stakeholder North Country housing symposium. We also invested $24 million in our water and wastewater capital plan so we know that we have the infrastructure that can support housing needs. We actually adopted a new local law called CHAMPS, which is Creating Housing Acceleration Measures for Plattsburgh.” Cashman continued, “We’re very pleased that housing continues to rise as a conversation within the county. We’ve been calling for this for quite a while.”
The Clinton County IDA is working with the consultant on next steps to implement and complete the housing recommendations.
