Ellenville residents can get ready to greet some new neighbors — though, it may be a while before they arrive. The Rural Ulster Preservation Company (RUPCO), an affordable housing developer located in Kingston, has begun preparations for a new development on Broadhead Street. The development will feature fifteen townhouses, composed of three buildings, with five units in each building.

"This is going to be affordable workforce housing," says Brian Schug, Ellenville's Building Code Enforcement Officer, who was on-site for the construction's kickoff last Monday, August 11 at 10 a.m. "That means it's going to be affordable for the average working couple, not... Section 8 housing."

Chuck Snyder, RUPCO's Director of Real Estate and Construction, elaborates on Schug's description of the new development and at whom their sale will be aimed.

"They will be marketed, eleven of the fifteen houses, to individuals at 80% of the area's median income, and the balance, the other four, will be marketed to individuals at 100% of the area's median income," explains Snyder. "For a family of four in Ulster County, I believe the area median income right now is $63,500, so we're targeting eleven families that will be at 80% of that figure, and four at that figure. And they slide based on family size — three people, four people in a family, that kind of thing. All the homes are three-bedrooms, so we based our model on a four-individual family."

Though the project is seeing its groundbreaking now, it's actually been in development for a while. "I've been with RUPCO now for just about two years, and it preceded me in our portfolio in getting here, so it was probably conceived the better part of three years ago at this point," reveals Snyder.

Snyder says that the eleven lower-income homes will be priced at "just about $130,000, post-subsidy," and that the other four "will be marketed, post-subsidy, at about $155,000." The total cost of the project is $3.2 million, though some of the costs of building have been defrayed by grants and other funding.

"We have money from the Home Initiative Program, which is through the Department of Housing in Albany," says Snyder. "We have money from the AHC, which is the Affordable Housing Corporation, and some other lower-level grant sources, but those are the main funders."

The homes will also be the latest and greatest in terms of environmental-friendliness. "All these homes will have an energy star home rating. They will be as energy-efficient as practicable," says Snyder.

Snyder predicts the project to be completed by late-spring or early-summer of 2009. "I would expect to be fully complete June 1," he says.

As to whether or not the homes will see new arrivals into the village, Snyder says that the development will be open to anyone who wants to live there, so long as they meet the aforementioned criteria.

"We certainly expect that there is a market in Ellenville, however it's not restricted to Ellenville," he says. "We wouldn't be building in Ellenville if we didn't think there was an available market."

"It'll be a very attractive enhancement to that section of the city," concludes Snyder. "It's a nice site, and we're going to do a nice job."

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