The North Elba-Lake Placid Development Commission’s Joint Community Housing Committee, or JCHC, is hosting an informal open house at the Conference Center next Tuesday, Nov. 19 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. At this event, the JCHC hopes to gather a lot of feedback related to housing and the overall character of the community.

The open house is one piece of an ongoing study that seeks to assess Lake Placid’s existing housing stock, identify gaps in the market and look for ways to improve the availability of affordable and workforce housing.

Residents, and people who work in Lake Placid but don’t live there, are invited to drop in at any point during the open house and offer their feedback. Multiple posterboards will be on display at the Conference Center, and those who attend will be asked to share their opinions in an informal dot poll.

At 6 p.m., a team from Saratoga Springs-based consulting firm Camoin 310, which was commissioned to do the housing study, will present the study’s findings thus far, according to Kilburn-Politi. Light refreshments will be served.

Democratic North Elba town council candidate Emily Kilburn Politi, her husband Nicholas Politi and their two children leave the polling station after voting at the North Elba Town Hall Tuesday morning. (Enterprise photo — Elizabeth Izzo)

–

Housing study

–

The three-month, $20,000 housing study is being put together by Camoin 310 with an eye toward the possibility of recycling athlete housing built for the 2023 World University Games into affordable residential housing after the games are over. The study is also taking into account the “anticipated creation of a short-term rental registration program,” according to a news release from the JCHC. A short-term vacation rental registration requirement was included in the most recent draft of a joint local law proposed by the village of Lake Placid and town of North Elba earlier this year.

This will be the only time for locals to weigh in on housing needs in the town and village before the study concludes in mid-January, according to Emily Kilburn-Politi, a member of the JCHC who was elected to the North Elba town council last week. After the study is finished, there will be a public meeting to present the results, on which people will have the opportunity to offer comments.

“We want to know what type of housing people are looking for, and where,” said Kilburn-Politi. “Is it single people looking for housing? Is it families?”

The committee is also looking for broader input on the future of Lake Placid, and what kind of a community the Olympic Village should either remain as, or seek to become, in the future.

Do residents want the number of short-term vacation rentals in the village to remain at current levels, return to levels seen during the 1980 Winter Olympics — when many residents rented out their homes to visitors — or should the industry be allowed to grow? According to Kilburn-Politi, this is an example of the kind of questions the committee will solicit feedback on.

“It’s about the character of the community, and why you want to live in Lake Placid,” she said.

Kilburn-Politi said the feedback the committee and its consultants receive next week will be a “key element” in their quest to assess the village’s housing needs.

–

Hot topic

–

The committee’s open house comes after a packed public hearing at the Conference Center in August on proposed short-term rental regulations. Among many full-time, long-term Lake Placid residents, there’s some resentment for short-term rental owners that stems what they see as a diminishing sense of community and the rental industry’s impact on affordable and workforce housing.

In Lake Placid, the shortage of affordable housing is a hot topic because it touches so many aspects of the community.

–

Affordable housing impact

–

The Lake Placid Central School District has seen declining enrollment over the last decade. Ten years ago, the district’s student body was more than 16% larger than it is today. The district’s enrollment as of the start of this school year was 606, down from 725 in 2009.

Administrators say that declining enrollment trend, though shared by other local school districts, is exacerbated here by a lack of long-term housing that would be considered affordable to young families with children.

The village’s labor force has grown, and a greater share of the population is working now than before, but the size of the workforce is still not enough to fulfill local business needs. In 2000, 70.9% of the population, or 1,475 people, were considered part of the labor force, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2017, 77.5% of the population, or 1,685 people, were in the workforce.

Many business owners throughout the Tri-Lakes region, but particularly in Lake Placid, say staffing shortages are forcing them to pare down their hours or shutter their doors on certain days altogether.

And overall — though there are countless factors that could be contributing to this — the village’s year-round population has been declining over the last few years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As of the 2010 census, the village alone had 2,521 residents. That declined by more than 5% to an estimated 2,386 last year.