New York Adirondacks village converting WWI factory into housing

A World War I-era former factory in New York’s Adirondacks is getting new life as affordable housing. Developers broke ground on the former Oval Wood Dish Factory on Monday to create 80 units of needed affordable and workforce apartments in the Village of Tupper Lake, which in the middle of the Adirondack Park. Resort towns across the country have long struggled to house the workers who keep them running. Second homes and short-term rentals often push prices beyond what service-sector wages can cover. Local officials have tried various fixes, with mixed results. Voters have sometimes stood in the way. Last November, ballot measures in ski-resort Telluride and Estes Park, Colorado, at the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park both failed. Each would have eased the path to more affordable housing. Fears over density and small-town character drove the opposition. But Tupper Lake is within a state park, and the lakefront development faced little to no pushback from residents. Local and state officials took the lead. That resulted in $23.8 million in state Low-Income Housing Tax credits through the New York State Homes and Community Renewal and Empire State Development. “Oval Wood Di...