The Next Step in the “Big Idea” Journey
Thank you again for your input and insights at our first Big Idea workshop where we reaffirmed that housing is the essential tool in making communities vital and vibrant. Quite simply, increasing the supply of housing, in appropriate ways, meeting the needs of each town, city, village and hamletis essential to a successful and livable community. Affordable housing, as part of that mix is the only way to ensure sustainability now and in the future.
Our next step is the selection of specific doable projects that move us towards our goal in a timely and effective manner. To accomplish this, the ACE Board has clustered the workshop ideas into three categories: Livability, Collective Efforts, and Revitalizing Our Housing Systems. ACE Board members have met and distilled the ideas into 9 projects. Further, we felt that creating a “universal planning process” was critical to our overall success and would underlay all efforts. We will whittle these down to 3-4 to be worked on at the BIG IDEA LAB on September 9th.
Our next step is the selection of specific doable projects that move us towards our goal in a timely and effective manner. To accomplish this, the ACE Board has clustered the workshop ideas into three categories: Livability, Collective Efforts, and Revitalizing Our Housing Systems. ACE Board members have met and distilled the ideas into 9 projects. Further, we felt that creating a “universal planning process” was critical to our overall success and would underlay all efforts. We will whittle these down to 3-4 to be worked on at the BIG IDEA LAB on September 9th.
Livability
- New Technologies—how to make housing affordable with new technologies – perhaps (an application to determine savings in energy, building materials and or, a means to quickly determine suitability for new housing options through new zoning, mapping and land use
- Quantify the population of seniors who wish to stay in their homes. Create a plan to provide financial and physical services to enable them to do that safely:i.e. accessory apts., suber (Uber for seniors), concierge services, transportation alternatives, medical assistant services.
- Assess access to non-car transportation across towns — taxis, ride share, walking, biking, buses, trains. Create a transportation plan based on the needs of each town and the region as a whole.
- Sanitary facilities– public or accessible shower, W.C. and locker room in Mount Kisco, Laundromats in other communities
- What makes a town suitable for a specific type of housing, what makes it livable and desirable and why it does not.
Collective efforts
Design and form a coalition or a collaboration to consolidate efforts and services including, but not limited to, town leaders,faith-based community, civic engagement(front porch notion). Appropriate housing for each community within each community. Not one size fits all. Each hamlet is different and each part of the hamlet is different. Diversity is good – a group value.
- How should this be structured?
- How should this look?
Start the work of the coalition on one of the following issue/ideas:
- Quantify need for housing, economic need for housing that is affordable to be used County wide and by community.
- Identify and set priorities for potential new or converted affordable housing sites with each community’s master plans, land use ordinances and zoning .* ( In our planning group discussions we thought that thisis important but needs to be put in the context of civic engagement and work done by a larger group)
- Take a step backand, based solely on the needs for housing and community life and assuming there were no existing municipal, zoning or other constraints, see if there is a completely different way to look at how housing and communities are distributed and organized that would dramatically improve housing and life in the County?
Revitalize Our Housing Systems- expand/increase housing options
- Develop a strategic plan of how to implement and build new housing models: tiny homes, quads, accessory units; homes above stores, a village as an area hub,…how to change zoning and land use.
- Create new model of housing finance with private financing, could be sub-ventures, lending circles, syndicates, crowd sourcing, with stakeholders/investors from religious community and private sources etc.
- Create an app and or computer program that puts information in the hands of citizens. Providing them with simple, easy to understand municipal rules and laws on land use, process and history so that they can find the appropriate channels to expedite zoning and land use rules/laws in their communities, challenging barriers, making progress and using a tool making things easier for citizen and officials to use.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: UNIVERSAL PROCESS for all towns, hamlets and communities