The town should also collaborate with SUNY Adirondack to develop housing, Crane said.

“They have the land, they have the demand, the market coming to their campus every day,” he said. “They’re just missing the private infusion of funding.”

If students lived near campus, it would get traffic off the roads and would help the town’s commercial base by providing more shoppers, Carr said.

He also appealed to the Town Board’s environmentalism by noting that if employees can’t live in town, developers are more likely to build apartments on open space in cheaper areas. Allowing more units in town would protect open space, he said.

But he acknowledged that the town is taking on a huge task. He encouraged the board to create an advisory committee to oversee workforce housing policies. That committee could help develop zoning code changes, meet with developers and do other background work to coordinate the effort.

The consultants were hired through the federal Community Development Block Grant to study the town’s housing for a new affordable housing strategy. Town officials are calling it a “workforce housing” study, to emphasize that they want to find ways for employees to affordably live in the town in which they work.

The draft of the plan is on the town’s website, www.queensbury.net. It is expected to be finalized by Christmas.

You can reach Kathleen Moore at 518-742-3247 or kmoore@poststar.com. Follow her on Twitter @ByKathleenMoore or at her blog on www.poststar.com.

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