If affordable housing is just a handshake, how long will it stay affordable?
March 17, 2025.
The Student.
On January 16, the Town Board had a short but significant conversation about affordable housing. It happened near the end of the meeting, just after a public hearing on road weight limits and before appointments were finalized.
Councilwoman Esi Lewis brought it up: “We’ve been talking about affordable housing agreements,” she said. “But I think we need an actual law — something enforceable, not just negotiated on a project-by-project basis.”
No one disagreed. But the meeting moved on. There was no vote. No request to draft language. Just the idea — hanging in the air.
And for those of us living in rented rooms across New Paltz, that hanging idea matters more than most people realize.
I’ve lived here for three years. My rent has gone up twice. I’ve watched other students move out because they couldn’t keep up. I've heard landlords say “we’ll keep it affordable” while increasing rent double digits year over year.
When developers promise “affordable housing,” they usually mean at the start — when the units are new, or when there's state funding attached. But once that funding expires, or the tax credits run out, there's nothing to stop them from raising rents — unless there’s local law that says otherwise.
Right now, New Paltz has affordable housing agreements, but no formal ordinance. That means:
No standardized definitions of affordability
No enforcement mechanisms
No long-term guarantees that a unit stays affordable after it's rented once
And it means students — who make up a huge portion of renters in this town — are invisible in the policy.
Councilwoman Lewis is right. We need more than good intentions. We need a law — with enforcement, transparency, and a mechanism for public input.
If we don’t create that, then “affordable housing” is just a phrase used to get projects approved.
And for students, that means housing that looks affordable on paper but drifts out of reach — one lease at a time.