The Hudson Planning Board met on March 12 to discuss implementation strategies related to the population and housing chapter of Hudson’s Master Plan, allowing the town to take now-obsolete data into account.
“This was made prior to the town receiving the HOP grant, which was going to shift the focus and allow us to do a more major housing related initiative. All of the data you see in the chapter is dated,” explained Interim Town Planner Jay Minkarah. “What I would do is just move forward and update the date. There’s two years in here of significance.”
He highlighted other outdated issues, such as the use of the 2010 US census, the need for accurate building permit statistics, and 2018 community survey data, although the Town Planner did not recommend using a more recent community survey for the update.
“That data has become increasingly unreliable. It is typically based on a small sample size,” said Minkarah. “The only way to use it is to put a big asterisk around it.”
He outlined what he considered mostly minor changes, saying the town was unlikely to see “a major change” in any trends related to regular population growth over the past two decades. Main highlights included continued growth of the 65 and older population, along with a decline in the 35 to 54 age group.
“In that section, we may want to talk about when the bubble will burst, as it were, because that should be in around 15 to 20 years,” said Vice-Chair Jordan Ulery, who noted demographics will almost certainly continue to shift. “After that, we’ll have a more youthful population.”
Currently, there has been a growing focus on issues like accessibility for public buildings and more infrastructure aimed at helping residents age in place. Between an older population, fewer families in town, and younger residents, the Planning Board indicated that the Master Plan should reconsider its priorities with any new housing.
“When we’re looking at new developments, instead of three- and four-bedroom homes, some consideration must be given to one- and two-bedroom starter homes, with a small living room, small kitchen-type structures,” said Ulery, who added there was likely to be a greater focus on housing density, at least to some extent.
“I think it would be fair to say that if we’re talking about small lot sizes and more density on lots, then affordable housing would be a recommendation,” said alternate Todd Boyer. “We also might want to look at what we need to do to get the 35 generation into the town.”
He worried property tax revenue would eventually fall off a cliff without more working residents or a greater influx of commercial growth.
Minkarah agreed to take Planning Board remarks into consideration when making his updates.
“I’ll go ahead and update this data and get it back to you,” he promised. “I’ll try to get it back as soon as possible.”
