By John Sullivan
July 12, 2007Times Herald-Record
Central Valley — The owner of a Route 32 Japanese restaurant where food is served with blazing displays of cutlery wants to provide Woodbury senior citizens with an affordable place to live.
Gasho of Japan owner Taku Aoki and his family are proposing to build as many as 60 affordable rental homes for seniors who can no longer pay the high costs of owning homes in town.
A small number of the units would also provide affordable housing for public workers, including municipal staff, firefighters and police, he added.
The project, which is still in its preliminary stages, would be the first development of its kind in the town.
Gasho of Japan is an iconic landmark in the community, where it got its start.
The family business has three other restaurants: two on Long Island and one in Westchester.
Aoki, 38, who took over his father Shiro's 37-year-old business about 15 years ago, said the senior housing project is his way of giving back to a community that embraced him and his family when they were among a few minorities in town.
"Maybe 90 percent of the people around here treated me like a regular person, and that affected the way I grew up," he said. "I never felt like an outsider. I'm a townie, just like everyone else."
The project would be built on 12 acres, where Gasho's three-story office building — a former conference hall — and closed hotel are located.
Still uncertain, Aoki said, are such details as the cost of the rentals, the number of units — a variance is needed to raise the allowable number from 48 to 60 — and water and sewer access.
Aoki said he's looking into government grants to help keep rents affordable.
The upscale Woodbury Junction located on Dunderberg Road is the only other development proposal with a senior-housing component in Woodbury, which is witnessing the same flight of seniors and working-class residents as elsewhere in Orange County.
"They take care of us when we're little, and we're supposed to take care of them when we get older," Aoki said of the seniors in his community. "It's not some ancient Japanese secret, it's just common sense."
5 comments:
It seems on the surface to be a great idea, but let's scratch the surface and see what we find.
1. I was told,when plan was first proposed to the town board it was for units that the seniors could own. Now they change the plan, present it to the village board as rentals only to make more of a profit.
2. The law already allows for more units for senior housing, why do they need a zone change?
3. Will there be improvements to Rt. 32? After all it's very dangerous going in and out of the Gasho. We don't need anybody getting hurt.
I have more questions, but I will save them for another time.
A couple of other thoughts:
1)The owner is proposing to build as many as 60 affordable rental homes for seniors who can no longer pay the high costs of owning homes in town.
Where did he get the idea that the seniors want to rent? The Senior Housing survey conducted a few years ago resulted in seniors wanting to OWN their own homes.
2) A small number of the units would also provide affordable housing for public workers, including municipal staff, firefighters and police.
Is the owner proposing 60 rental units for seniors or some for seniors and some for public workers? If they happen to be seniors, that would satisfy both concepts.
3)Fair Housing Act would dictate that these units cannot be exclusively for "Town" residents.
Is there a way for OUR residents to get first dibs on these units?
4)Would these units truly be affordable? As in the case of Woodbury Heights that was 'billed' as affordable and were until the first unit was sold. There was no provision for keeping them at a certain cap.
All in all, this is a concept worth looking at.
Most of the public workers in this town make a good wage. And Yes, they do a good job. This is just another one of those money making deals. People can't give the houses away.
Maybe he just wants to have his restrauant workers live their legally ??? as they have been their "illegally" for the past 36 yrs...........( check out the THR archives ) for the arrests of his retrauant workers back in the early 70's
If they were rentals how would it be controlled who he was renting them to?
Who's to say he won't rent some of those units to the millions of Japenese that visit the Woodbury Commons every year. He could have the lease under one of his senior family members and then turn around and rent it out on weekends to visitors shopping at the Commons.
I think senior housing is great, but have them own the units.
Why did he change his proposal when he presented it to the Village?
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