If you live in the town of Milo or the village of Penn Yan you are being invited to a public hearing on Wednesday night regarding the proposed annexation of property at 2442 Old Route 14A, the former McFetridge farm that is located out back of Tractor Supply.
The public hearing relates to a proposed draft plan for developing this land into mixed affordable housing. Steve Griffin with the Finger Lakes Economic Development Center said there is some misinformation being shared about the proposed project.
“I’m getting some emails about concerns that this is going to be a low-income development,” said Griffin on WFLR’s Open Mic program. “I’ll continue just to try and reiterate that the plan for Phase One of this project is to add roughly 200 residential units on roughly a third of the property.”
“Right now, the plan for the 200 units is that roughly 39 will be single-family homes, bungalows, roughly 1,400 to 1,500 square foot homes. There will be a series of townhomes, much like you see at Keuka Shores and there will be senior-living apartments, all of which are market-rate apartments.”
Steve said one of the apartment units will have its rents set at a rate that entry-level wages can afford.
“That’s the one thing we can’t lose sight of, I don’t care what title you give it, every community is fighting this affordable housing challenge and crisis we’ve got. Some of these units, roughly 50 of the first 200 units will have apartments that can be affordable by people who are making entry-level wages and we have to have that,” continued Griffin.
“I don’t know how else to state it that Coach and Equipment, Kan Pak, Finger Lakes Premiere Properties, a lot of the businesses right there in that park can’t grow unless they get additional workforce. You get the people started at an entry-level position and then can continue to move up in the chain. By the way, this housing development will have those next-level accommodations for them as they continue to earn more.”
Griffin said he didn’t know where the rumors started that illegal immigrants would be coming in and filling up all of the apartments but he is hopeful residents who might have questions or concerns will attend the public hearing to clear up any misinformation that might be out there.
Wednesday night’s public hearing will be held at six o’clock at the Penn Yan village hall.
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