The New York Thruway is closed, man

Peter Applebome has an article in The New York Times about trouble in Woodstock:

If they had decided to pave paradise and put up a parking lot, the issues might have seemed simpler. Instead, a protracted battle over a 53-unit affordable housing project is dividing this still-crunchy town where mellow 1960s vibes and liberal politics coexist uneasily with real estate prices increasingly out of the reach of the humbler classes.
When workers finally began clearing land for the Woodstock Commons project in July, it looked as if the uncomfortable dispute might finally be ending. Instead, new issues kept popping up: the plight of black bears and endangered Indiana bats threatened by the construction; a botched permitting process; uncertainty about water service.
In some ways what is playing out in this Ulster County town is a more colorful microcosm of affordable housing controversies elsewhere. Still, the collision of environmental, neighborhood and social justice issues is making people squirm in a place where the only thing more important than making the world better can be keeping Woodstock the same.
“Nobody would tell you they don’t want these people in our town,” said Jeff Moran, the town supervisor, who has been a conflicted supporter of the rental project. “Instead, they talk about the effect on the quality of life, ramping up the costs of services, and those kind of things. But there’s a joke in town that the reason The Woodstock Times costs a dollar is because people don’t want change. People come here and they think they have an investment in the town being a certain way.”
Opponents, particularly in neighborhoods near the project site, said the issue was not Nimbyism or opposition to public housing but practical objections based on Woodstock’s small size (it has a population of about six thousand), charmingly Brigadoonish downtown (photo), and creaky infrastructure. Among their complaints: the project is too big, it is at a dangerous bend for traffic, and the site should remain green space. They have picked apart particulars, like the nonprofit developer’s claim that residents would be within walking distance of a nearby “grocery store” that is actually a high-priced health food store.
“It’s politically incorrect to oppose an affordable project, so you can’t even look at it,” said Robin Segal, who has a doctorate in energy policy and who moved to town two years ago in search of a garden and peace and quiet. She has since been consumed with writing a detailed blog about the project that has found errors and problems the planning process missed. “But,” she continued, “it’s the wrong project in the wrong place.”
Woodstock’s lack of affordable housing has long been a public concern, though a low-level one, in a place where almost any building project— whether a cellphone tower, the expansion of a Buddhist monastery, or solar panels at an animal sanctuary— can set off a nasty dispute.
Finally, an affordable housing committee selected a wooded site with sensitive wetlands behind the drab strip shopping center leading into Woodstock’s downtown and, in 2003, invited the nonprofit Rural Ulster Preservation Company to design a plan.
Their first proposal called for 81 housing units and a community center. That was later changed to 63 units without the center, and still later reduced to 53. The current plans, with a green design and geothermal heating and cooling, would set aside some units for households making less than thirty percent of the county’s median income of roughly $70,000 for a family of four; other units would have income ceilings of fifty percent and sixty percent of the county median.
Twenty units are designed for senior citizens, half of them for those making thirty percent of the median income that would rent for $325. The most expensive family units, with three bedrooms, would rent for $890. Ten units would be set aside for artists and writers.
For some, the issue is not complicated. Jackie Van Kleeck, 75, had lived her whole life in Woodstock and has been a member of Woodstock Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 for 56 years. But after her husband died three years ago, she lost his septic company to bankruptcy, and then her house to foreclosure. She now rents a second-floor apartment in nearby Saugerties, though she can barely manage the seventeen steps. “Woodstock, oh my God, no, I can’t afford it; I can’t come close,” she said. “What they have now is mostly city people who can afford it. Us little folks can’t. This project would be wonderful for people with no place else to go.”
Proponents of the project say the town has shamefully ducked its obligations on housing. “This is a town where if someone is sick or someone’s house burns down, people will come out of the woodwork to be generous and to help,” said Susan Goldman, a longtime community volunteer. “But we don’t see people who have a need for housing as part of that community. It’s a town full of social progressives, but we don’t look at our own community the way we look at the rest of the country.”
Paul Shultis Jr., chairman of the planning board that has overseen the project approval process, said Woodstock desperately needed housing for town employees and others so it could maintain some economic diversity. He said many critics were genuinely focused on environmental issues in a town where they often trump other concerns. But he was not moved by opponents’ arguments that the housing might go to outsiders and not to needy Woodstock residents. “You move from the city and buy a $1.5 million house, and you’re a Woodstocker,” he said. “You’re at sixty percent of the median income and you’re not a Woodstocker? I never got that.”
Yet, in Woodstock, as elsewhere, others remain unconvinced that building affordable housing should be a major priority, especially since there is less expensive real estate nearby. “It’s like if you can’t afford to live in Aspen, you don’t go to Aspen,” said Iris York, who lives near the project site. “You live where you can afford to live and where the jobs are. Go to Aspen and say: ‘What are you doing to make this affordable?’ They’ll laugh at you.” She and other critics said they would prefer to spend money upgrading existing substandard housing.
Rather than ending the controversies, the beginning of construction has brought attention to existing legal, procedural and environmental issues, and also created new ones. Most prominent are uncertainty over water service and questions over who may have to pay for more than $100,000 in well tests before the project can connect to the water system. Also, neighbors are irate over construction they say is ignoring the project’s permit requirements, an issue that will be aired at a public hearing.
Moran, the town supervisor, said it was very unlikely the project could be derailed. Still, he said, of residents paying attention, perhaps half support it and half do not. “People on both sides just want some resolution,” he said. “But people have different ideas what a perfect resolution would be.”

Rico says the post title, for the children out there, is a line from the movie about Woodstock, the concert, and the first line of the article is from a Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi... (But 'ten units would be set aside for artists and writers'? Unusual, but excellent.)