POTSDAM – The Village of Potsdam has officially been certified as a Pro-Housing Community by the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal. As a certified Pro-Housing Community, the Village is now eligible to apply for various discretionary funding programs with up to $650 million in funding available. 

“The Village of Potsdam is committed to a ground-up approach to increase the availability of housing in our community and across the state. It’s going to take collective effort, hard work and ingenuity—but I believe we have what it takes to spark incremental small-scale development on a local level and bring together major projects at the same time, with the promise to revitalize our community through smart growth,” said Mayor Alexandra Jacobs Wilke. 

The Village passed a resolution adopting the Pro-Housing Communities pledge on April 1, 2024, and has since gathered data on the municipality’s existing zoning map and regulations, as well as its residential housing renovation and construction permit requests for recent years, in order to qualify for the program. 

The Mayor and village staff will meet with the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals to discuss next steps that the municipality can take to reduce red tape and encourage community renewal. Listening sessions will also be planned with local homebuilders, small-scale developers and real estate agents, to better understand barriers in the local marketplace, as the village takes steps to better encourage a broad range of housing development. 

The Village received its letter of certification on Sept. 26 and will now join the list of more than 180 municipalities across the state which have been designated as Pro-Housing Communities through the new program, launched by Governor Kathy Hochul in 2023.