PRESS RELEASE
Mayor’s Proposed UDO Amendments Would Gut Decades of Protections to Benefit Developers and Corporate Interests — Not Saratoga’s Working Families
The Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee today called on Mayor John Safford to immediately withdraw his proposed amendments to the City’s Unified Development Ordinance, which preservation experts, community leaders, state agencies, and hundreds of Saratoga Springs residents have condemned as the most serious threat to historic preservation in the City’s modern history.
Mayor Safford has attempted to sell these sweeping changes to the public as a measure to promote housing affordability for middle-income families. The Democratic Committee calls that claim what it is: a political cover story for an agenda driven by corporate and developer interests — the same interests that stand to profit most from weakening the authority of the City’s Design Review Board and demolishing the architectural and historic fabric that makes Saratoga Springs one of the most treasured communities in New York State.
The evidence is damning. The Times Union has reported that Stewart’s Shops Director of Real Estate Chuck Marshall — a former City Commissioner and Planning Board Chair who has an active and unresolved matter before the Design Review Board — sent a detailed email to the City recommending specific amendments to the UDO, including weakening demolition protections and removing the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation as a consultant on demolitions. Mayor Safford has acknowledged that Marshall was among those he initially consulted. The pattern is unmistakable: a corporate real estate executive with a pending development interest helps draft regulatory changes that would benefit that very interest, and those changes are then presented to the public as a gift to struggling homeowners.
The mayor’s “affordable housing” rationale does not withstand scrutiny. In fifteen years, the Design Review Board has faced only a single Article 78 proceeding. More than 96 percent of applications that come before the Board are approved. These are not the statistics of an out-of-control bureaucracy “abusing” homeowners. They are the record of a board that has done its job — the job that has protected Saratoga Springs’ irreplaceable character and sustained the tourism economy that employs thousands of our neighbors.
That is not leadership. That is the voice of someone who is not answering to the people of Saratoga Springs.
The State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the Preservation League of New York, and four independent preservation organizations have all warned that Mayor Safford’s amendments conflict with state and federal preservation standards and would cause irreversible harm. The City’s own Design Review Board has called these changes “radical.” Saratoga Springs residents showed up in standing-room-only crowds to express their opposition. The mayor’s response to all of this was to declare himself “adamant” and announce he will proceed regardless of public opposition.
That is not leadership. That is the voice of someone who is not answering to the people of Saratoga Springs.
If Mayor Safford is genuinely concerned about housing affordability in Saratoga Springs — and not merely using working families as a shield for a developer-driven agenda — he has a straightforward way to prove it. At the very next City Council meeting, he should propose and seek passage of mandatory inclusionary zoning for Saratoga Springs. Mandatory inclusionary zoning is the proven, direct, and honest policy tool for creating affordable housing in communities like ours. It requires developers to include a meaningful percentage of affordable units in new residential projects, ensuring that growth in Saratoga Springs benefits everyone — not just those who can afford market-rate housing or the corporate interests seeking to profit from demolishing our historic neighborhoods. If the mayor will not bring mandatory inclusionary zoning to a vote, then the Democratic Committee submits that his professed concern for affordability is not a policy position — it is a pretext.
The Democratic Committee stands with the hundreds of residents, preservation professionals, architects, and community advocates who have raised their voices against this proposal. The historic and architectural districts of Saratoga Springs do not belong to Stewart’s Shops. They do not belong to developers seeking to add building height or demolish century-old structures for parking and patios. They belong to the people of this City — the people who live here, raise their families here, and have trusted for nearly fifty years that Saratoga Springs would protect what makes it unique.
We call on the City Council to reject Mayor Safford’s amendments in their current form, to slow this process, and to honor the advisory opinions of the state and the voices of the community.
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