Are Saugerties rents too expensive?

O’Connor said the numbers show the vacancy rate is very low.

“Just look at the market,” he said. The county planning department lists vacancy rates and they show that the rate is under 5 percent, he said. “It’s difficult to find places.”

Another landlord, attorney Erica Guerin, said the more important question was, what was the town doing to improve the local economy so that a growing need for affordable housing wouldn’t be a problem.

“I have a mixed feeling about this housing development,” Guerin said. “There seems to be a problem of Saugerties trying to figure out what it wants to be.”

“What we really need to do is increase our tax base, by bringing in companies to create jobs,” she added, “then people will make enough money to afford to rent apartments, and continue to keep their homes.”

“I’m not hearing of a clamoring for more housing,” Guerin said. “People who are here want better jobs. We are so ideally located right off the Thruway, close to New York City and Albany and only four hours from Montreal. I’m not anti-affordable housing, but pro-Saugerties, and we need to give our residents a chance to stay here.” Guerin said she thinks the best way to do that is by more and better jobs rather than more apartments.

Next up for Hubbard: try to convince the Town Board not to approve a PILOT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes) agreement with the developer. Such agreements are important for developers seeking state funding because they indicate local support. Local projects are frequently turned down even with PILOT agreements, and Premier Development was passed over several times for a senior-only development at the same location.

According to village Mayor Bill Murphy, the terms of the agreement are already complete, and call for payments of $400 per unit per year. In addition, the developer has agreed to pay for sidewalks from the development to Cantine Field, a block away.

Defining affordable

Hubbard’s units range from $650 to $750 monthly, plus utilities. Guerin said her units go for $700 to $800 for a one-bedroom unit and $800 to $1,000 for a two-bedroom unit. Last week’s Saugerties Times classifieds section listed four apartments for rent. One listing is from Hubbard (with the added description of “charming and rustic” with exposed beams and wood floors) and starts at $650/mo. Another is an upstairs apartment in the village for $750/mo with some utilities included and the third is a one-bedroom house in the village for $750/mo plus utilities. The fourth listing is for a two-bedroom apartment for $800/mo plus utilities.

Estimating utilities at about $125 a month on a unit at $650/mo, a single person would need to take home about $645 per week; around $45,000 per year to pay less than 30 percent of their income for housing. That’s not possible for a large share of the single people in Saugerties: the median income in Saugerties is about $39,600 for men and $27,200 for women. But if those same people share a two-bedroom or cohabitate in a one-bedroom, the income needs drop precipitously and these units become very affordable; just over $380 apiece per month. For children, three-bedroom apartments are less common, but assuming $1,100 per month, with utilities, it works out to about $460 per adult; roughly the weekly take-home pay of someone who earns $30,000 a year.

Based on this admittedly ad hoc number crunching, local rentals are reasonably affordable for gainfully employed couples and small families, but not for many single people (or single-income households), the unemployed or disabled — to say nothing of supply and location, which would require more than a calculator, tax-rate table and classified ad page.

-Robert Ford and Will Dendis contributed to this article.