Marbletown has proposed a zoning amendment to introduce “missing middle” housing in High Falls and Stone Ridge primarily along the Route 209 corridor, including the possibility of cottage courts, pocket neighborhoods, multiplexes, easing parking minimums, and allowing higher residential density in overlay zones.

Rich Parete, town supervisor for Marbletown, said that the proposal came from a housing task force formed three years ago to address the problems Marbletown is “having with housing for working-class folks.” Parete said the board has worked for about 16 months with the town planner on a housing overlay district to allow different housing options.

Parete said that the majority of the feedback so far has been “extremely supportive,” and even said that some residents asking for the overlay to extend to their properties. However, some residents appearing at meetings say that while they support the goal for affordable housing, they are also concerned about the overlay districts’ impact on the town.

Gary Tinterow has lived in Marbletown since 1992 and served as the chairman of the Marbletown Historic Preservation Commission from 2003 to 2012. Tinterow also lives where the Hamlet Overlay would be located. Marbletown, Tinterow said, is “blessed with a unique historic heritage” going back to the time of the American Revolution.

While Tinterow said he would like to “state plainly that the county needs more housing and affordability is a national problem,” and complimented the town board for “the hard work” in drafting the law, he is concerned with aspects of the proposal.

“Some of the elements in the current draft of the law: the density, the setbacks, the egress, the parking appear to have been borrowed from good planning that works in villages with a grid structure, with on-street parking, with municipal parking, with municipal water, municipal waste and sewage,” Tinterow said. “It has to reckon with the peculiarity of the limestone ridge of Stone Ridge, its depleted aquifer, its single street, a narrow state highway congested with commercial traffic, and wetlands on both sides.”

Marbletown does not have municipal water, and Tinterow said the aquifer the town currently used is “stressed.” During drier years, Stone Ridge businesses sometimes run out of water. At the August 4 town board meeting, Tinterow said that Stone Ridge does not have enough water to support a laundromat and asked where occupants of the new buildings would do their laundry.

Parete, however, believes that the Hamlet Overlay could help Marbletown with its water issues. Developers will have to prove water is on their site, according to Parete, and new construction would involve wells with “more advanced” drilling compared to the older homes on Route 209 that Parete said are older and have hand-dug wells. Likely this is the hydrofracking that’s been going on in locations affected by the shutdown of the aquifer. Parete also believes that more development will make it easier for Marbletown to receive state funding to extend its water district.

“We are looking to extend the water district,” Parete said. “The problem is, when you go through the state and you're looking for money, a lot of it is you need to make a commitment to do housing. It's hard to find money for water when you have restrictive zoning laws because they want to see more housing options and affordable housing options.”

Many concerns about the plan came to a head during an August 28 traffic crash near the post office. “Sadly, yet again, another car accident happened today on Main Street in the Historic District of Stone Ridge,” resident Claudine Brenner wrote afterwards. “Ironically, whilst this was happening, another resident along Main Street was hoping a rig would be lucky to find water … to supplant their lack of water in the old well. Two problems to consider for any haphazard development in this area: the dangers of increase in traffic; the current lack of water in the area.”

Two residents who also live on Route 209 in Stone Ridge, Wendy Saul and her husband Alan Newman, are also concerned about the Hamlet Overlay. Saul has circulated a petition addressed to the Marbletown town board to mandate a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) “hard look at Route 209 through-traffic before expanding the Hamlet Overlay.”

“I am distressed about the lack of research on these issues that has been shared with the community,” Saul said. “One of the questions you ask as a researcher is, who benefits from whatever law is going into effect, and who is absorbing the costs? And I would like to know that.”

Newman said that “a number of people on Main Street are having difficulties with their wells.” Saul said that since work has started on the aqueduct, they have started to get sulfur water. Newman is not satisfied by Parete’s statement that increased housing would make it easier to apply for state and federal funding to extend the water district, either.

“At this point, it's a hope. And it would be wrong to start building without addressing that issue,” Newman said. “So, I understand that the hope is by creating a high-density network area with people of lower means, they have a better chance of getting water. That is yet to be proved. So the question is, which comes first?”

The Environmental Assessment Form (EAF), which was reviewed by the town board on August 18, left blank sections regarding water, historic resources and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regulated wetlands, according to Tinterow. Parete clarified that the EAF reviewed on August 18 was part one. Part two and three will be reviewed at later meetings and be “much more in depth into the impacts with water and sewage.”

Parete also said that the law is “not going to change Marbletown's character,” but is instead to bring more people into the community during a time when school populations are declining, with elementary schools closing and the Rondout Valley Central School District reconfiguring its middle school.

“I don't think they quite understand the law,” Parete said of the historical character concerns. “We've got strict design guidelines, so [developments] got to be in concert with the current historic district.”

As to traffic concerns, Parete said that part of the reason why the location for the proposed Hamlet Overlay was selected was because of traffic, describing the area as more walkable and with public transportation.

“The whole idea is to reduce traffic and have people live where they can walk and ride a bike,” Parete said. “People that don't have cars can live there, or a family that can only afford one car, can live there because there's more public transportation. The college has public transportation with all the busses bringing students from around the county.”

Parete also found it “funny” that people move in and become part of the additional traffic, and do not want others moving in, describing it as “I’ve got my slice of heaven, and I don’t want anybody else to have it either.”

“We need people of all economic backgrounds to live here. We need a much more diverse, community, not just people that build million-dollar houses,” Parete said. “There are people in town that don't want people that can't afford million-dollar houses living here. And we understand that as a board, but we're elected to represent everybody.”

Saul said that is the “opposite of our experience,” and said that she has worked with people who needed affordable housing for her entire career. Saul also questions if the overlay will be successful in creating more affordable housing.

“To build is going to be expensive. Their only chance is to get a good nonprofit to build on property that the town already owns, but to build along this road will be very expensive, and I can't imagine it being affordable or attainable,” Saul said. “Whereas if they used another piece of property, I think courts with cottages would work very well. Not have as many driveways and make Stone Ridge the historic walkable district.”

Erin Von Holdt-Gilbert, a historian and genealogist for the Marbletown Historic Preservation Commission who attended the last board meeting about the topic, said that it is “incredibly important that we address the shortage of housing in Ulster County in general,” but that the “fine details” need to be narrowed down.

Another resident, Christine Herbes-Sommers, expressed similar concerns.

“If this is for affordable housing, what does that really mean? Who decides that? Who who's in charge of it? Who will profit by that?” Herbes-Sommers said. “And none of those questions have been addressed.”

Herbes-Sommers believed that the proposal should be put on a town referendum, while Saul said that she did not understand why the development has to be “bundled together,” describing the overlay district as a “huge reach.”

Tinterow, for his part, wants to see four things happen, which he expressed in a memo to the zoning board. He wants to see an environmental review, evidence that the new construction will be affordable, and for the board to “evaluate a reasonable alternative: implementation of the Filare affordable housing initiative while excluding the Main Street Historic District from the proposed Overlay.” This is in reference to a 92-acre property acquired by the town from the Open Space Institute for the purpose of green space and affordable housing.

“The affordable housing can be accomplished at the two ends of the historic district, north and south, and there's land, and there's easier access and egress to our one road,” Tinterow said. “Placing large developments right in the center of town will be difficult, and I don't see the necessity of placing them where there is already density and traffic and insufficient water.”

“Marbletown's not going to solve the housing crisis, but the board members just feel it's important that you know we do our part in trying to help,” Parete said. “We've got so many people that go to work every day, and they can't afford to live here, living with their parents, and we just want to try to increase the housing stock and do what we can do.”

A public hearing is scheduled for September 15 at 6 p.m. at town hall.