From Sky news this is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made and where you will find your next home.

This is one of the hottest subjects in American politics right now.

It is front and center in a new book about why Democrats in particular, have failed to make life better in cities and states that they have governing power.

The book is called abundance and the authors are self-avowed progressive Democrats who are tired of seeing sky-high housing prices and blue states and cities, and too many rules about who can come in and who can't.

They argue it's too expensive to buy a home.

It costs too much to build new homes.

There's too much regulation and too much NIMBYism, for starters.

Which is why a recent email got our attention.

The Pittsford Town Board voted in bipartisan fashion to create, in some ways, new housing opportunities.

The Democrats on the town board praised their Republican colleagues in a town where debates about housing and about NIMBYism have been bitterly waged for years now.

So what's going on in Pittsford?

What might change going forward?

How does this relate to the housing crisis?

In almost every part of our state and many parts of our country, and what they did goes beyond housing.

And of course, we're going to talk about a range of things, even micro brewing, which is new in Pittsford.

So a lot to talk about here.

And I realize when I say the word zoning codes, your ears or your eyes might glaze over.

I urge you.

I know it's not all that sexy, but zoning codes this this affects people everywhere.

This really does matter.

So what used to be this dry subject has suddenly become vital.

Who gets to build and wear?

Who gets to live?

In what town or community?

Who doesn't?

My guest this hour includes Stephanie Townsend, council member for the Pittsford Town Board.

Welcome back.

Thank you for being.

Thank you.

Evan, it's a pleasure to be here.

And Naveen, have another is with us, a council member for the Pittsford Town Board as well.

Welcome back to the program, Naveen.

Thanks, Evan.

Thanks for having us.

Always great to be back.

And, yeah, I mean, I should say it's a date.

Not supposed to be a home game for you.

I'll have to try to get even tougher with Naveen.

The sound of Ian's part of the cap.

The community advisory board for AI has nothing to do with why he was invited today.

So just want to put that out there.

Thanks for being back here.

And let me just start by asking both of you.

Stephanie, you reached out.

I'll start with you about some of maybe the headlines and the headline itself.

Town of Pittsford Enacts new zoning Codes.

Doesn't sound all that sexy, but to wonks, to people who are like in the weeds, this is kind of a big deal, isn't it?

Absolutely.

It's it's a big deal.

And it's something that we've been working on for a number of years with a lot of community input.

And to me, the headline really is that this reflects an inclusive and environmentally responsible approach to development for the town of Pittsford.

Okay.

You agree with that, Naveen?

I agree with that.

I mean, think about it.

It started in 2019 with comprehensive plan being built around, input from the community.

And since then, there have been 3 or 4 town board members recycled before I came in at the tail end of it.

So there has been a lot of community input, a lot of work, a lot of staff time.

So very excited that this is completed.

And my team and I had, some hand in getting this through.

Thank you.

And you know, Stephanie, we've talked to you, some of your colleagues, as Naveen says in, in previous board configurations, and there hasn't always been a bipartisan, outcome.

And so as a Democrat, what was different this time around?

Well, I would say that that there has been since 2018, which was when I came into office, alongside Kevin Bedford, that there's there's been an immense amount of bipartisan consensus and collaboration.

Our comprehensive plan, as Naveen mentioned, was adopted in 2019.

That was a that was a bipartisan, comprehensive plan.

The zoning code update is something that towns have to do after they update their comprehensive plan comp plans, lay out a vision for land use, but then you need the policies that actually put it into play.

so yeah, this has been a very collaborative committee.

Pretty driven.

process where we worked really hard to find common ground.

not everybody got everything they wanted.

But what we have is a solid foundation for the future.

We're going to talk about exactly what that entails in just a second.

Listeners, I would like to hear from you this hour.

And again, this is not necessarily even just show, but Pittsford, what we're going to talk to town board members there about what they are doing.

But really the broader questions for me, for listeners is, do you feel that wherever you live, is it more of a place where yimby ism exists or more NIMBYism is exists?

Not in my backyard or, yes, in my backyard.

Is it hard where you live to see new, housing built multifamily, perhaps different income or prices and a mix of options?

or is it more exclusive?

And what do you want to see?

Is that how you like it, or do you want to see some change?

844295 talk.

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If you call from Rochester 2639994.

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If you're watching on the WXXI news YouTube right now.

so here are some of the headlines and the new codes here.

Creation of a mixed use district that will permit development of a walkable area of commercial and multi-family housing.

Expanded allowances for single family attached housing to encourage the building of smaller homes, provisions that support senior housing and aging in place.

Preservation of green space and historic landmark buildings, dark sky compliant lighting and environmentally responsible parking standards and regulations to permit responsible keeping of backyard chickens and bees.

Kind of a, a sneaky hot topic for towns like Pittsburgh.

So.

So we're going to get there.

I didn't see micro brewing on the list.

What's micro brewing is there as well?

We, now have codes that will allow microbreweries and micro distilleries in our commercial district.

So I'd like to kind of just walk down the list with both of you so you can explain a little bit more about what's coming.

And again, if this feels a little parochial, I think my, my sense is every town, every village, every municipality has to answer these kinds of questions.

What are we zoned for?

What should we be zoned for?

What is the effect on who can move here and who can't?

Who can age here?

Who can stay here, all of that?

And so, number one, the creation of a mixed use district that will permit development of a walkable area of commercial and multi family housing.

Tell us more about this.

I'll start with Stephanie.

And was this one controversial at all?

This was a big one.

I would not say it was controversial, but it took a lot of work.

In fact, it was one of the very first things when we started drafting code that we started with.

This refers to the Monroe Avenue commercial corridor, which currently is zone.

It was until Thursday night, zoned only for commercial purposes.

This is being turned into a what's called a mixed use district.

So it can be a combination of commercial and residential.

So Pittsford Plaza, that kind of Pittsford Plaza area, that the area across the street from it.

so what might that look like?

It could look like a, a lot of ways, depending on the creativity of the developer.

But, I think in the the most basic imagine storefronts on the bottom and 1 or 2 floors of residential on top.

the, the buildings would be brought closer to the street so that you don't have this wide expanse of a parking place.

parking would be in the back.

it might also be laid out as sort of, if you imagine, like, these little streets coming off of Monroe Avenue again with commercial on the bottom, residential on top.

Totally depends on the imagination and creativity of the developer.

So when I think of the Pittsford Plaza area, one thing I do not think about is walkable.

But what you are describing, I think, is off of the main drag.

More walkable streets, mixed use a chance for you to live there.

Maybe walk to a shop, maybe walk to buy groceries.

yes, that is exactly what we are talking about envisioning.

this kind of housing is really attractive.

Interestingly, always to me, to two demographics.

It's very attractive to millennials and it's very attractive to retirees who are downsizing.

so it also ends up having the consequence of creating this very vibrant, mixed age, walkable neighborhood.

So I live in town, I want to live in the town.

But I'm getting older.

I'm an empty nester.

Maybe I'm a widower or widow and I want an opportunity that's a little smaller, a little more manageable.

Yes.

And you're going to point to this kind of opportunity and say, absolutely.

We're looking out for people who are in perhaps those categories too.

Okay.

So what was the opposition?

When we talk multifamily, I'm going to speak again as someone who's never served on the town board, and I don't want to speak too far out of school, I want to tell you what, a little bit about perception and then get your take on it.

One of the perceptions of a town like Pittsford is that it is a town that prioritize, prioritizes larger houses, not apartment buildings, not multifamily, not opportunities to add on to what you have or, you know, add in-law units, etc.

everything is a big house, single house, big lots.

And this headline is the opposite of that.

So is that is my perception.

My perception is probably shared by some people who are listening.

Absolutely.

That first off, we have a lot more multifamily housing in Pittsford than a lot of people realize.

Okay, fair.

and, and we're adding more.

A few years ago, the Kilbourne Place apartments and townhomes were built on East Avenue, just down from Fisher College.

There is a planning application for, another, apartment building.

that's in the planning stages right now.

we've got duplexes, we've got triplexes quad plex is around town, have had for decades.

So what?

But why has the Pittsford Plaza corridor not been zoned for housing that because at the time that that commercial corridor was put into place, the idea of mixed use was not widespread.

in fact, the at that time, the the trend was to exactly what we have there on Monroe Avenue.

So it's not that there was opposition before, it's that I don't think it occurred to anybody, you know, a commercial area like Pittsford Plaza was the up and coming new thing.

so over the decades, the, the needs and, and quite frankly, just the desires have changed.

Demographic changes are happening.

and so this was an opportunity to re-envision what that corridor might look like.

Council Member Hoppe number.

You want to add to that too.

And the macro economics also changed, right.

Tell me more about that.

People are retiring.

We have an increasing population of seniors.

They are getting older.

They cannot maintain big, large half an acre or an acre house.

Right.

They want to downsize.

Where do we send them?

Right.

that opportunity was not there.

With this, we are creating those mixed house opportunities for seniors to move out so that young families can move into these bigger lots or half an acre, acre lot and then creates the, ongoing circle of, of house housing usage and provides that opportunity for more and more housing in Pittsford.

So.

Well.

So let me add to that point that Navin is making there the second point on the list of what the town board has passed recently is expanded allowances for single family attached housing to encourage the building of smaller homes.

why is the building of smaller homes something that might be attractive?

Naveen.

Oh, take my own example.

Before I came to Pittsford, I searched houses for three years.

and, anywhere in Rochester, I was I didn't have kids yet, so I would have loved a starter home.

right.

And then when I had kids, I could have moved up.

And this allows for that opportunity.

Now, if there are more single family.

sorry.

What do you call townhomes and duplexes?

Allows for new couples to come in, get into Pittsford, plan.

while the seniors are aging and moving out, they can plan their next move within Pittsford.

The goal here is if you come to Pittsford, you should retire.

In Pittsford you should.

While retirement, the goal should not be.

How do you walk out of Pittsford to our neighboring towns?

How do we keep you in Pittsford?

You have spent all your life there.

You have paid taxes, you went to school, you done community service.

And I think this this plays into that area of we will take care of you, right?

We taking care of our seniors, taking care of our young people, coming in and college students, if they need housing, because we have pretty good colleges right next door.

You talk about young couples who don't have kids yet or may choose not to, but are childless.

For the moment, I'm thinking of a 25 year old couple and Naveen I was reading recently.

I don't think this one was in abundance.

I think it was a review of abundance, but it was this idea that, we use the phrase starter homes a lot, and a starter home for 25 year olds is pretty unaffordable.

Now.

And unless you are, you know, generationally wealthy with a family that has a lot of money, or you are fortunate to be in a very high income bracket very early in your adulthood, the idea of buying a house at 25, even if you're married and there's two incomes, is out of reach for a lot of people.

And you seem to be saying, I don't want to put words in your mouth that you recognize that in Pittsford and you want more opportunities for people in that category to to decide to live there if they're looking for a place and feel that the current market prices them out.

Yeah.

Is that true?

One thing to remember in this conversation town board members cannot solve affordability.

Market does.

Right.

It's it's it's it's the truth.

Can we influence affordability?

The one way to influence affordability is providing more supply than there is demand.

Right.

If there is supply of smaller house where people can move out, then we now have a larger house available for those couples to come in and occupy and then, not have to worry about spending $500,000 for a half an acre lot.

Right?

So, so I think I think it creates that microcosm and allows for that opportunity.

And I think that is where town board can influence.

We cannot we cannot solve for affordability.

I don't want you to have to solve the one of the biggest, current crises in the country.

Stephanie, you're only working in one place, but why do you think it is so hard to build new housing, whether it's in Rochester or in California or in places across the country?

What is what are the dynamics in play there that have made it so difficult?

It it that's a excuse me, a totally probably an unfair question.

and I'm not an economist.

I'm a community psychologist.

But, you know, a lot of it does come down to supply and demand.

We stopped building as many houses a couple of decades ago.

and this is something we see globally.

we're not the only country facing this, but as we didn't build as many homes then there was less supply.

There's more demand.

Prices go up.

we also sometimes have values that we hold equally important that work against each other.

So Pittsburgh is actually a great example of that part of the reason the land costs so much in Pittsford is because we have done an amazing job of preserving agricultural land and green space, and I want to apologize for that.

Yeah.

That's admirable goals.

Absolutely.

a staunch value in our community and something that that more towns should be doing.

But the the fact is then you have less land available to build on.

And so what do you do with that?

And so what do you do with that land.

and that's where we are almost to the point that every bit of land that can be developed has been developed.

This is what it's referred to as build out.

We have reached that point.

So now it's how do we redevelop?

And that's where something like the mixed use corridor on Monroe Avenue is so critical.

That is how we bring in more housing is by redeveloping that into something different.

We also have to look at the infill issues.

So that's where, you know, you brought up about the single family attached homes.

This is this is something that I'm very proud of and is a major step forward.

Like I say, we have had duplexes, triplexes, Quad Park places in Pittsford for decades, but they they were only allowed in, certain areas.

So we have expanded the areas where those that type of building can go in.

And that's really important because a lot of the land we have left that can be built on, it's relatively small parcels that are maybe a little idiosyncratic in their shape.

So developers look at it and say, I don't know how to put something there, but if they have more option for a single family attached, which in our case means four units, no more than that.

We're not talking apartment buildings.

It's four units.

then they may be more likely to to fill in those little pockets that we have.

before I turn to your colleague, a couple of other points in this.

First of all, any I'm going to use the phrase NIMBYism or any opposition to, those attached dwellings and any opposition among business owners on the commercial corridor saying, we don't want housing here.

You didn't get a.

No, we didn't get any, I, I certainly didn't I heard no pushback on that.

This is something I think a lot of developers want.

Okay.

to have available to them because, you know, economically, it just makes sense.

And the pandemic certainly showed us this, that if if you're a developer owns a property like Pittsford Plaza or the plazas across the street from it, if that is entirely based on commercial and there's a commercial downturn, then your your development is at risk and you're losing money.

if it's only residential and there's a change in the housing market, you're also at risk.

This balances the risk for the developers.

So it's much safer for them.

So I, I certainly hope that the, the multiple people who own properties in that corridor are going to be excited about it.

And then the other thing that I wanted to ask you, Stephanie, is one of the formula when you when you talk about supply and demand and you talk about that over the last generation or so, we just have not seen housing supply keep pace.

That's undeniably true.

That's true here.

That's true in many, many places across this country.

And so what Klein and Thompson are writing in their book is they say that in response to that, that question of, well, what do we do?

What they see on the federal level, again, not the local level, not the town board in Pittsford, which was a bipartisan effort to do what we're talking about here.

But on the national level, what they see from this administration is a move towards scarcity.

Anti-Bds what they say is we don't have enough housing.

So instead of finding every way possible to build more housing, we're going to try to deport more people.

We're going to, a lot of the immigrants, a lot even undocumented people who are working jobs and try to raise families.

We don't have space for them.

We're going to take them out of the equation, as opposed to what can we do to make housing more affordable for everybody and find ways to build more, and that that's the mindset they want to see towns, states and the country have.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah, absolutely.

We need to look at how can we.

And it's a balance.

And I think that we found that balance in these codes.

They are reasonable.

They are sensible.

They do not.

The the concern I I heard at times was concern about don't don't encroach on my neighborhood.

Nothing in these codes encroaches on an existing neighborhood.

We were very thoughtful about how we did that.

So yeah, we need we need reasonable policies, reasonable regulations.

Sometimes overregulation does get in the way of progress.

we this is a Democrat talking, by the way.

Yeah.

I feel in Pittsford we have over the years, you know, found that balance.

solar panels are a good example.

Just just at the residential level.

So I've owned two different homes in Pittsburgh.

Both of them.

We put solar panels on and, and, the company that we worked with said they love doing work on houses in Pittsburgh because they said the solar permitting and the rents were so reasonable and easier to work with them, many other towns.

So I'm really proud about that.

As as a representative of our town, I feel like our our zoning codes, likewise they're reasonable.

Does her sensible.

The other thing to to remember in this though is that that you're elected officials are not, in most circumstances, the ones who vote on whether or not a particular building gets built.

That's done by the planning board.

That planning board is made up of volunteers who live in the town, who dedicate incredible hours to making those determinations.

Now they have to do it within state law.

They have to do it within the zoning code.

Sure.

You know, so we we create the framework, but they're the ones who make the determination.

But they're playing on the field that you create.

They are playing on the field that we create.

Yeah.

But but sometimes people people get a little confused about that.

And they think the town board is making those decisions.

And there are only a in fact, that and even in the couple of examples where we get more directly involved in an application to build something, even then it still goes through the planning board.

So in other words, you look at the core, the commercial corridor the town has stepped in, the board has stepped in to say, hey, multifamily housing is in play now, but you're not going to steer.

Which projects happen and don't.

That's up to we can planning.

Okay, well, well, it even the planning board can't do it.

They can't steer it like it's all driven by a developer who comes forward and puts in an application.

Yeah.

If that application is within the rules that we've laid out, if it's determined to not have adverse impact on the environment, it's determined not to have adverse impact on neighboring community.

You know, the neighbors that are nearby.

Then so long as all the rules have been followed, the planning board will approve it.

and there's a lot of back and forth between the planning board and the developer, but but yeah, all of this depends that the towns don't build anything unless it's a town building.

Okay.

It depends on the.

And so basically what these codes are is we're saying Pittsburgh is open for business.

You want to redevelop.

You have an opportunity now.

All right.

You want to add to that Navin go ahead.

let me I want to go back to your Nimby question for a quick second.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

did we get pushback?

There's data right now.

The data is that if you go to our public hearings and you say how many for or against that we received in Pittsburgh is the 10,000 strong people community?

we received less than 6 or 8 public comments.

And for or against what we were trying to push right.

so I think there is that consensus that was built and that allowed for this component of this, the zoning code to be approved.

Do I say was that a Nimby situation?

I would not agree with that.

However, we had a lot of conversations around, creating in law apartments within within residential zoning, and we didn't get a little bit of a pushback.

However, there are two aspects to remember in that matter.

One is that, we solved for making sure that if, seniors wanted, their kids to be with them and somehow allow for a little bit privacy, and that was made, made possible.

the second thing also to remember is that, if the the goal was to allow for in-law apartments and in-law apartments only and, how do you enforce once the in-law passes away or moves out.

Right.

So it becomes a rental property.

And I think that was some nervousness that the community showed about adding, that piece of code for residential zoning.

And then I think, I think after thorough deliberation back and forth and finding consensus, we came to a point where we are now able to say that, hey, listen, we are able to create that space without having to worry about throwing resources from a enforcement perspective to go house and house, look for rental and rental properties.

So I think that was one thing, where it applies to some of the questions that you asking there.

Okay.

Do you want to add something there?

Stephanie.

Yeah.

that was one of my disappointments, I would say, is that I think Naveen and I had tried to advanced some modest changes to our accessory dwelling unit code.

So this again, this is not new.

This whether you call them bedrooms or you call them in-law suites or whatever you call them.

they've been allowed in Pittsford for years.

What I was wanting to do was to modify, in a clear up, some ambiguity in the code and be allow for them to provide a little more independence.

So whether that is, in-law who's living there, whether it's an adult child, whether it's an adult child with a disability who wants a little more privacy, that that's what I was trying to do.

So I was disappointed that there we did get a lot of pushback from residents because of this issue.

They were concerned.

I don't have a problem when it's your in-law, your kid, but what happens after that?

And they were concerned about it becoming essentially a single family home becomes a two family home.

And that was the concern.

So I was a little bit disappointed in that because there were a lot of assumptions about renters that are not borne out by the data.

and so it was disappointing to to hear those stereotypes, especially because personally, I don't know of anybody who bought a home when they were 22.

We were all renters.

Most of us at one time, you know, my my grandmother bought her first home.

She was 72 years old.

She was a children's librarian.

She was a renter for the majority of her life.

I don't think she was a threat to anybody's property values, you know?

So this is something you still like to address in the future that I would like to address in the future.

So yeah, it's a disappointment the that we heard that this stereotype around renters.

But it's also important for people to remember there's nothing in the code that prohibits rentals, nor can that a town by law prohibit rentals.

Our codes are about the size of the structure, how far it's setback, how much of the pavement, how much pavement is there, things like that.

We cannot, by law, regulate whether a building is owned, owner occupied or whether it is rented.

But the but through the code you can discourage what would allow for more rentals.

yeah.

I, I suppose you could say that, although I, you know, it's interesting because we're in Pittsford, we have the unique situation of having a village.

So it's important to know they have their own government, they have their own zoning code.

Lots.

What we're talking about today does not apply to the village.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of people are surprised to realize that about over 25% of homes in the village are rented.

Not only that, but if you do, as Naveen and I have had to do, knock on a lot of doors, you realize a lot of what look like single family homes are homes that have been divided into two apartments.

They've not been a threat at all to the vibrancy or the quality of life in the village.

So, so yeah, but there are certain sort of housing types that are more likely to be rented than others.

You know, you're not likely to rent a 7000 square foot home.

You're more likely to own it, you know.

So in that regard, yeah, we the possibility of rentals may be a little more attractive, but, there's nothing in a code of any town that can declare this is owned or this is rented.

I have questions and comments from a wide range of angles from listeners as we talk about maybe the driest headline will have on connections all year.

And yet I think it's kind of sexy.

Town of Pittsford enacts new zoning codes.

Zoning codes matter.

They absolutely do that when we're talking about why they matter.

you know, where people can live.

What the circumstances are, and the kind of the playing field that the town sets for that.

So, Pittsford did that in a bipartisan fashion recently.

We're going to continue down the list, and we're going to work in your questions that that pertain to things like supporting senior housing, aging in place, historic buildings, things like that.

So a lot more with two members of the Pittsford Town Board, Stephanie Townsend, the men have never both with us in studio.

We're coming right back on connections.

Coming up in our second hour, a conversation about what could happen to museums and libraries with a new executive order from President Trump.

It targets certain funding, and some staff and some organizations have already had to clean out their desks.

We're going to talk to people who run local libraries and museums about what's going on next.

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This is connections I'm Evan Dawson, so a number of questions to kind of work through here.

First of all, the question on if Airbnbs exist in Pittsford and if that's been an issue at all.

Definitely.

You got a smile on your face there.

Yes.

they are permitted in the town.

we have very few of them.

we have at various points scanned, to try to figure out how many we have.

There has been some discussion about whether or not they need to be regulated.

we occasionally have had some complaints.

but those complaints are largely able to be dealt with by simply enforcing our existing codes.

So if it's a noise complaint, we don't need to ban Airbnbs.

We just need to enforce our noise code.

and things like that.

So, yes, we do have them.

Okay.

are they a are they a problem or a challenge or an issue.

That town government got to deal with it all and anyway.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

In in part though I, I, I think what I really encourage people when they think about short term rentals, which is the technical term for them, is focus on the actual community that you're talking about and don't extrapolate from something you've read in the news about, you know, something that's happened elsewhere.

So one of the things that I hear people concerned about is, oh, short term rentals rise.

you know, they increase housing costs because they're bought up and then people don't have a place to live.

That's very true.

In a city like San Francisco.

It's not true in Pittsford.

last time we scanned, we only found about 15 or 20 registered Airbnbs, most of them.

The owner lives in the house.

so it's it's a very different situation.

So just make sure you're looking at the particular community you're talking about and you're not, you know, extrapolating in a way that doesn't make sense from communities that have very different circumstances.

Charlie emails to say, Evan, I moved to Pittsford from California in 1991.

I bought a house on an acre that backs to Powder Mill Park.

It cost me, in 1991, $165,000.

My, now my house is now worth just north of $500,000.

My son grew up here, has a professional six figure job, but cannot afford to live in the town he grew up in.

I told him I would split a down payment on a house with him and he refused.

He is now moving to Japan with his wife to be able to afford a house.

My daughter gave up and bought a house in the city which she loves, but it's all just not right in my opinion.

I believe the saved farmland is a metaphorical moat around the town.

Also, a neighbor once told me in regards to a proposed apartment complex next to tracks on Monroe Avenue.

I don't want that riffraff moving in.

I was floored.

Where did I move to?

That is from Charlie.

Can I get both of you to.

So there's a number of points there.

Stephanie, I'll start with you, and then we'll move to Naveen and let's take Charlie's points there.

Go ahead.

So, yes, Charlie, housing costs have skyrocketed.

It's great when you want to sell.

Not good when you want to buy.

That's where these codes.

By bringing in this mixed use zone, by making these short, these single family attached homes more available.

and the other apartment buildings that we've approved, in recent years are part of the solution.

So I would say we hear you, we're doing what we can, we need builders to now come and and build what is allowed.

so definitely hear that.

the rent her comment.

Yes.

That's exactly what I was talking about earlier, that I'm very disappointed when I hear, you know, these assumptions that any development that has renters is going to bring property values down in a negative way or bring, you know, people who you don't want living there, who don't to sense they don't belong there completely and totally false.

Okay, Charlie, number one, I want you to stay in Pittsford.

And I think this zoning code allows for that opportunity.

Stuff we mentioned we want developers to come.

Pittsford is open for businesses business.

Please come build nice houses, mix up, mixed up, mixed houses and, opportunity for Charlie to downsize when she decides to.

Could this have been done five, ten, 15 years ago?

And now we could have had that opportunity that a lot of could have, should have.

That's not happened.

We are moving forward.

The, the comment about, comments about having apartment complexes and the reference to coming into town, we cannot focus on individual commons.

We have to look at what the collective feels like.

Right?

What what is the collective coming to looking at these codes?

The collective is saying, listen, I want to keep my property value high or up.

I do not want to lose my property value, by converting into multifamily units.

Okay, sure.

We agreed on that.

We have signed off on that now.

we also have said we are going to provide mixed housing.

Which allows for that.

what do call, bringing, diversity in into Pittsford now one person saying they don't like it doesn't really work.

The collective has, loudly, supported it by, through their public comments and when in our public hearing.

So we have proof, that it's where it's changed a little bit in terms of how it looks at the overall social situations.

So, another listener wants to know why do we still see so little diversity in Pittsford?

Is that a fair observation?

Stephanie Levine I, I can only speak for the Indian American community.

It's one of the fastest growing community within Pittsford.

The Asian American community is also interested.

the Asian and Indian American communities usually have, higher paying jobs, which allows for our ability to purchase homes in Pittsford.

now I can like I said, I can only speak for that.

we would love more diversity.

And hopefully when the new developers come in and build these houses, they there is an affordable component to them.

They're not.

Right.

So which allows for more diversity to come into Pittsford.

If if the average that's the medium income right now is 140,000.

I think somewhere around that, as soon as we bring that down to 175, I think there will be more opportunity for more diversity to come into Pittsburgh.

And that would be the goal.

Okay.

You want to add to that, Stephanie?

Agree with that.

yeah, I would say that that when you look at census data over the last 20 years, you know, we are increasingly diversifying in terms of of culture, race, ethnicity, you know, the what we have done, if developers will build what we have a vision for, that will, I think, bring some more economic diversity as well.

so I would say we're, we're doing what we can, and, and trying to, to demonstrate that Pittsford is a welcome and inclusive community.

I mean, you're starting from I mean, not starting time moves on, but you're operating from in a place that has a history that for decades had pretty significantly racist policies in regards to housing and how it operates.

Fair.

I mean, I would disagree with that.

I actually I wouldn't disagree with that.

I would ask a question of what policy are you talking?

Covenants.

Who can buy houses?

Who can live where?

That is not about that was not town policy village?

it was not village policy.

So really, really important when people talk about inclusionary and exclusionary zoning to really focus on what is the policy and who controls it.

So covenants and deed restrictions, town governments had no role in.

Those were.

Restrictions that a property owner attached to their deed that is filed with the county that is between the property owner and the county.

But I had a lot of those, didn't there?

Yeah, yeah, there definitely were some.

Most of them were based on income, not based on race.

the home that I live in now, the the deed from 1938, I think, had a restriction that the owner had to, you know, make at least $10,000 or something also important to remember, though, those restrictions, were thrown out by federal law back in the 1960s.

So they are invalid and have been invalid for decades.

We still live with the consequences of that.

Absolutely.

And that's where our job is to figure out how do we move forward.

and these codes are, a way of doing that.

Okay.

And you want to add there, Navin?

No, I think I think she hit the nail on the head.

Right.

There is an acknowledgment of policies, right?

Bad things happened in the past.

Now, I think, those are not enforceable.

That's the key here.

Right.

And luckily, because if those were enforceable, some of those are enforceable, I probably could not get a house.

And but for myself I but we have move forward as a, as a society and I think we just have to look for it.

Well yeah.

I think another point I again of the it's all about the details.

And that's why it's so important that people look at the details.

So one thing that I still hear all the time, heard right after our public hearing when we voted on these, is about this myth that in Pittsford, there are minimum lot sizes.

We have five residential zones, and minimum lot sizes are only in one of them.

So this idea, it's not the town that is creating one acre lots and then three quarter acre lots and 3000 square foot homes.

It's the developers saying I can build it and people will buy it.

the codes don't require that.

The only residential zone where we do have some kind of lot requirement, that is in what's called our, our, suburban, our residential rural zone, that is those are a very small part, of Pittsford, that border on our farmland.

And it makes sense that you don't want an apartment building surrounding farmland.

So, that's the only place.

But this idea that that the codes, restrict it, you know, require large lot sizes.

No.

And they never have.

Are we going to try to move faster?

Because we got a lot to cover.

Still, John and Pittsford says, can the panelists help me understand what happened with commuter tax breaks for Pittsford Oaks apartments?

That won't include set asides for middle or lower income residents?

I don't totally understand what happened.

It would be helpful to hear if I misunderstood the process.

John and Pittsford.

Great question John.

so yeah, he's referring to, apartment building that that is in the planning process right now.

They applied to commuter, for some tax breaks.

Canada granted those tax breaks, but did not require a set aside the set aside.

When we talk about subsidized housing, it is a subsidy given to the developer in exchange for them setting aside a certain percentage of units so that people who earn under a certain amount don't pay more than 30% of their income on their rent.

what happened on that?

That's commuters decision.

Again, towns do not have any control over those tax breaks.

That is a decision by the commuter board.

The committee board members are appointed by the Monroe County Legislature.

towns have no say.

I saw it as a missed opportunity.

but yeah, yeah, it wasn't it wasn't my call.

Yeah.

At the same time, a commuter has certain goals for creating housing.

I think that's what their role in our community, what went behind the scenes?

We do not know what their personal goals as a board were.

We don't know.

But, like Stephanie said, it's a missed opportunity.

We could have had some affordable housing there and did not happen.

Let me try to cover everything else that's on the list that we haven't gotten to yet.

backyard chickens and bees.

I know a surprising amount of people who are very invested in this issue.

So what's changing in Pittsburgh?

Absolutely.

So, unfortunately, we we probably heard more about backyard chickens than we did about affordable housing.

we did with that.

And, we really did.

But what it comes down to is now you can if you have, lot of less than three acres, you can have up to six chickens.

so long as the coop is set, at least 50ft back from the property line.

and, there's some other regulations related to to health and not infringing on your neighbor's that are in there.

If you have a, property of three acres or more, you can have up to 12 chickens.

At no place can there be roosters.

And what a perfect time for that.

Now what a perfect time.

And the eggs prices are going up.

But hey, you have opportunity to.

I think that price peaked at the end of February.

I think they're actually back down but not down to anything that's low.

I think that they just maxed out and the stratosphere at the end of February, and they're now just really high.

But yes, I take the point.

So people are very interested.

Now, what about bees?

the bees was not at all controversial, but it had come to our, our attention.

There was some ambiguity, probably in every town's code, around bees.

And are they livestock or not?

So, we put in, some code that allows beekeeping to make clear that they are not livestock or agricultural.

Okay.

And do you agree, by the way, that the the chickens thing is at least partially because of the timing of the egg prices right now?

Is that part of it, you think?

I don't know, you say it's been growing for a long time.

I think they've been we've been cheeky.

You was being cheeky and and part of that they're we had to reassure people.

Look there have been backyard chickens in Pittsburgh for ages.

they just weren't, were under the radar.

the house I used to live in, we had three neighbors who had chickens.

so we just said, let's let's put in reasonable and sensible regulations and make sure that it's health and safety and doesn't infringe on the neighbor and also protect the neighbors.

If a neighbor is not happy with their neighbor keeping chickens, let's give them some protection.

50ft from the lot line is great.

All right.

We got to go fast.

I bet you we can do this in 30s.

What is dark sky compliant lighting and environmentally responsible parking standards?

So dark sky compliant lighting is basically making less light pollution.

dark sky compliant.

You can Google it.

You'll you'll find that there's all sorts of standards about the light.

And can it shoot up in the sky versus down to the ground.

so our codes, our dark sky compliant parking regulations, every green infrastructure you can imagine, certainly that I've ever run across are now in our parking lot codes.

so that has to do with water runoff, planting lots of trees.

So there's a good tree canopy around it, things like that, allowing for solar panels on some of.

Yeah.

me panels and accessory structures on parking.

the, the the pavement itself, we're incentivizing what's called pervious pavement, which allows the stormwater to go through the pavement instead of running off.

that's been incentivized in our new code and micro brewing coming to Pittsford.

Yeah.

Microbreweries and micro distilleries we now have codes for.

So, in the, the Monroe Avenue mixed used, corridor.

So, if you're interested in opening up a microbrewery or micro distillery, check out the new codes.

They'll be online shortly.

Let me close with this, Joel Rose to say he says the town can argue for income based housing.

The town of Pittsford is not necessarily innocent.

Class based actions have been in play for as long as my parents have lived in Pittsford.

That's Joel.

can the town argue for income based housing?

We can, The best way we can do it is that we can support, any applications that come to, and then requiring it.

so, you know, we don't part of it.

We don't have the infrastructure to be auditing, developers and and checking to make sure they're in compliance.

Committed does.

Okay.

And and that is the office set up for specifically that allowing more housing opportunities for that and also giving developers opportunities to create those housing lots.

So, Naveen, as we close here about 30s, do you think one of the headlines in 3 to 5 years from now, when we look back at the impact of this, will be a more inclusive Pittsford I think so I, I'm hoping that developers come in and build houses, based on the, layouts that we have proposed in this code and that, are more affordable, allows for new families and allows for our seniors to stay in Pittsford.

And that is a very, very important topic for me personally, because I see a lot of neighbors wanting to move in.

It's definitely we're going to hear the music soon.

But affordable means different things to different people.

I understand it does, but but some final thoughts from you on that.

Yeah, I to me, I think that we made progress in these codes and just as important possibly more is how we did it.

We engage the community, we found common ground, we built consensus.

And it shows that Democrats and bipartisan government can work.

Thank you for coming in and talking about that at length for answering every question.

No preconditions.

Your colleagues on the board, the supervisor, hey, the village government, town boards and villages, you ought to be in here more often because this is a Pittsford story today.

But as you can hear, the reason that there's all this interest is this is a story that affects people in their own towns, and they want to know how government works.

And the transparency here really matters.

So I want to thank our guest, Stephanie Townsend, council member for the Pittsford Town Board.

Thank you for being here.

And also, council member Levine have never thank you for being here as well.

Thank you for having us more connections coming up in a moment.

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