What If Your Home Becomes Unaffordable?  

Mary Thomson lived happily in a rented Wassaic condo for 23 years. But when the rent jumped from $885 a month to $1,350, she began to look for a new place to live where her monthly disability payments might stretch further.   

Pine Plains seemed a natural option. She had spent most of her life in the town, with family living both there and in nearby Milan. Her network of friends eventually led her to Towne Centre, a condo community on the western edge of the village, where a tenant, Eddie Casazza, said a place had recently become vacant.  

The rent was close to what she was leaving behind in Wassaic. Still, it felt like the right move. Thomson remembers being shown around the grounds, which included access to what agents called “a lovely gazebo.” In April 2020, she moved in.   

Just over a year later, she was dismayed to receive a letter telling her the condo was going to be sold. She was given a stark choice — either buy her home or move out.   

Dashed Hopes

Towne Centre began promisingly as a real-estate project that aimed to fill a gap in Pine Plains by providing additional housing options, including affordable homes for seniors. In 2005, the developers, — Stissing Farms, Inc. – began work on the community, which envisaged 48 condominiums for older residents.  

In 2021, Reynolds Asset Management, a development company based in New Jersey, purchased the Towne Centre property with the stated aim of completing construction on dozens more units. But Reynolds, which operates locally as Stissing Farms Townhomes, intended to market the properties as condos, with selling prices – ranging from $300,000 to $400,000 – that were beyond the means of Thomson and other Towne Centre residents.  

Hudson River Housing (HRH), a nonprofit organization supporting affordable housing in the Hudson Valley, then stepped in with an offer to purchase, together with Dutchess County, the original 10 units and maintain them as affordable rentals for seniors. But relief was short-lived: The purchase agreement between Reynolds and HRH dissolved in 2022.   

Christa Hines, the executive director of HRH, says she doesn’t know why the deal fell through, and that she was disappointed her agency couldn’t work with Reynolds to find a resolution. Reynolds Asset Management did not respond to a request for comment.   

HRH is now considering another location in Pine Plains for an affordable or workplace housing site, Hines said.   

Members of the business community in Pine Plains say the housing shortage is a chronic roadblock to growth, with young families and workers unable to find affordable places to live. And the Poughkeepsie Journal recently reported that of more than 8,800 new residential projects envisaged in Dutchess County, only 175 were considered affordable housing for seniors.  

There’s Nothing Out There 

For the moment, Towne Centre residents are not being asked to leave. But as Stissing Farm Townhomes continues round-the-clock construction of additional units, renters have seen their payments start to increase by between $300 and $700 a month.   

Casazza faced one of the steeper price hikes but said his initial rent payments had remained consistently low through most of his time there. Casazza, who owns land in Pine Plains, plans to move to a new house soon.  

Others are less fortunate. Harry Holleufer, a 99-year-old military veteran, depends on a free meal service and has been forced to dip into his saving to cover a $475 monthly increase in rent. Another tenant, Michelle Francese, said that when she moved in, “We were told we were going to live here for the rest of our lives.” Now, with the homes possibly becoming unaffordable, she says she’s worried about having to move.   

Thomson, meanwhile, has been considering her options since seeing her rent raised to $1,600 a month. “I can’t do much more than that,” she says. With fears the rent may rise to $2,400 or higher, the possibility of moving yet again is a constant concern, she adds. “There’s nothing out there.”