Students who travel from foreign countries to work on Lake George face a scarcity of affordable, safe housing, according to Mayor Bob Blais.
As a founder of the Student Connection, a group established to help foreign workers resolve issues related to their employment, Blais has promoted initiatives to improve the stock of available housing, from inspecting facilities to posting listings from landlords.
At a March meeting of the Village’s Board of Trustees, Blais said he had received requests for 75 rooms from four Lake George businesses alone.
An appeal to landlords for notifications of all and any vacancies yielded only one response, from a property owner in Bolton Landing, who said he could house 25 workers.
“We can’t find enough housing for these kids,” said Blais. “In years past, students were found sleeping in Shepard Park.”
Seeking a definitive solution to the perennial problem, Blais has proposed building a dormitory on vacant land or, if possible, purchasing and rehabilitating an aging lodging property.
The ideal property would be a motel on Route 9, along the trolley line, removed from residential neighborhoods and able to house at least one hundred people.
“There’s no value in purchasing property or buying a motel that can handle only thirty students,” said Blais.
According to Blais, he and members of the board of the Student Connection, which has endorsed his idea for a dormitory, have identified four suitable properties, one of which would be especially desirable.
Blais said the property in question is large enough to accommodate event parking, which would not only service Festival Commons but generate revenues to offset the costs of the purchase.
Thanks to a generous offer of land from an adjoining property owner, the buildings and parking lot would be surrounded by a park, helping to protect West Brook from urban runoff.
When not housing students, the dormitory could be used by other transient workers, such as construction crews or health care providers, said Blais.
Lake George Village hosted a similar facility in the 1950s, Blais recalled.
Earlier proposals to use SUNY Adirondack’s student dorms to house workers and to build a dormitory on town-owned land ultimately proved to be infeasible, he said.
Blais said he expected the dormitory would be financed in part by grants and private sector investments. He said he felt certain a dormitory would open in Lake George by 2024.
“I’ve taken on many big projects and I hope this project will be my last great accomplishment as Mayor of Lake George Village,” said Blais, who will retire in 2023 after 53 years in office.
Blais wrote in a press release that a dormitory was necessary for the long-term economic health of Lake George.
“We must develop housing if we are to continue to be a first-class resort. We need the students to offer a level of services that encourages people to return to Lake George,” Blais stated.
A version of this article first appeared on the Lake George Mirror, America’s oldest resort paper, covering Lake George and its surrounding environs. You can subscribe to the Mirror HERE.
I’m not a resident of the Village but do visit often patronizing restaurants and shops. Affordable housing for supporting staff to business is getting harder in many of our resort communities. The success of the Mayor’s proposal seems to be a viable plan for other areas.