As Scotia officials continue to eye future economic development, housing has emerged as a major priority.
Village lawmakers unanimously approved a resolution Wednesday declaring Scotia a “pro-housing community,” a major step in achieving certification under that state’s Pro-Housing Communities Program.
The program, created by Gov. Kathy Hochul last year, aims to address the state’s housing shortage by giving priority for certain grant opportunities to municipalities committed to housing growth.
Mayor David Bucciferro said bringing additional housing to the village has long been a priority for the village, which has a population of around 8,000 and around 3,100 households, according to recent census data.
“It’s something we have been talking about for a long time — to work on our housing opportunities and provide a larger array of opportunities that people can come in and have a choice of that’s more than just apartments. That’s more than just single-family and more than just multi-family residents,” he said.
To achieve the certification, the village must still submit documentation to the state containing information on its zoning code and housing permits for the past five years, which Bucciferro said is currently being collected and will be submitted in the near future.
The push to become a pro-housing community comes as the village wraps up work on the Envision Scotia initiative, a yearlong effort to achieve a Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) designation through the state. The designation, which once focused on environmental pollution, has shifted to underdeveloped communities.
A stakeholder group made up of village residents, business owners and elected officials has been working to develop the plan, which has been informed by public input collected at special events and a series of public workshop meetings.
Once the BOA designation is achieved, the village will have an edge in applying for grant funding for projects that could cover everything from streetscape and sidewalk improvements to major grants like the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, which provides municipalities a $10 million grant to redevelop downtown areas.
“It’s a big plus for us to be a BOA-designated municipality,” Buccifero said.
The Envision Scotia initiative is near completion and will be made available at a community-wide meeting next month, according to the mayor, who said much of the focus will be on mixed-use development moving forward.
In the meantime, the village lawmakers hired LaBella Associates, an Albany-based engineering firm, to develop future grant applications that Bucciferro hopes will allow the village to obtain funding to enhance existing features of the village and bring in new development.
The goal, he said, is to create a mixture of housing and business opportunities that will allow people to work where they live.
“We want to keep a balance between housing, the walkability of our village — which would include streetscape and things like that — and additional opportunities for businesses to remodel, restore, rebuild and build new,” Bucciferro said.