To the Editor:
Before anyone tries to accuse me of not wanting to house grandma in a tiny home in my backyard as The Altamont Enterprise waxed on as a key benefit of accessory dwelling units [“Guilderland needs affordable, accessible housing for its elderly residents,” Jan. 18, 2024] let’s truly talk about the likelihood of ADU harm to the town of Guilderland particularly in Westmere, McKownville, Guilderland Center, and Altamont, where we already live nose-to-toes.
We do not have the room in our town to get rid of single-family housing to alter small lot sizes for the purpose of changing residential, R-15 neighborhoods into multi-residential housing known as “accessory dwelling units.”
We see the plan in motion: Guilderland, through the zoning board of appeals, is actively reducing setbacks that were designed to give us quality of life from living on top of our neighbors ….
The governor’s Accessory Dwelling Unit Grant initiative will likely be approved by the town board in my opinion, but make no mistake this is not a let’s-house-grandma-in-the-backyard in a home that was likely hers to begin with because this ADU initiative is about changing the setback buffers to allow rentals under the disguise as family cohabitation.
Grandma will die, the ADU will live on. Properties will sell, the ADU will live on. There is no possible way that a zoning board is going into the ancestry business and enforcement — like what goes on in Westmere — will be nonexistent or a bad joke.
Downstate called a spade a spade and told the governor no to her ADU grants. I attended a Guilderland comprehensive planning meeting on housing and neighborhoods; they seemed onboard to the ADU grant.
The town board named the town’s grant writer, also the chief executive officer of the Guilderland Industrial Development Agency, Don Csaposs, to the subcommittee. Don Csaposs under the town’s IDA umbrella helped choose and gave town monies to fund the selected comprehensive plan consultant.
Laurel Bohl was there and she has a family member seeking to build. Elizabeth Lot, the zoning board chairwoman, was in attendance and she is actively approving setback takings, it was a lot to unpack at the meeting. Sausage was being made in my opinion.
I left the meeting hearing their laughter when I stated the people of Westmere need protection. I stated the town, in my opinion, is giving it up the arse to the people of Westmere without a safe word.
Once [Guilderland Supervisor] Peter Barber gets his hands on rewriting town laws if the town board comes around to ADU approvals it is my opinion, you too may get to share the overcrowding fun and loss of a residential neighborhood that I have come to see.
Do you think there will be a voter referendum on ADUs? Come on, now …
It is well known that I am the person saying the emperors are naked. Community say in the comprehensive plan? Haha.
Christine Duffy
Guilderland