Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Regional Grants And Housing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Regional partners outline grants, meat-processing support and $5 million for workforce housing in Washington County
Summary
Regional economic-development partners told Washington County supervisors about state grant rounds for meat-processing expansion and dairy modernization, an EPA brownfields grant, and $5 million in federal funding to design a county workforce-housing program; planners said an additional $750,000 is designated for a modular housing factory feasibility study.
Regional partners briefed Washington County supervisors on a string of grant programs, technical-assistance offerings and infrastructure efforts intended to support local farms, food processors and housing development.
Todd Erling, representing a regional nonprofit network (HVADC), said the group helped administer a meat-processing expansion program that drew “more than $7,000,000 in requests statewide for about 4,250,000 in actual funding,” and that Locust Grove in Washington County received one of the awards. He said the state will run a second round in 2026 and that HVADC will again administer the competitive process, with about $5,000,000 expected to be available statewide.
Erling also described a dairy modernization program included in the state budget, saying roughly $21,000,000 was allocated statewide for bulk-storage upgrades at farms with awards near $250,000 per farm; he said six Washington County dairy farms received funding for storage and equipment upgrades.
Kirsten McCain of the regional planning board reviewed the board’s 2025 year-in-review and highlighted several county-specific grants: $2,000,000 to the county DPW for roadside-erosion work and $500,000 awarded to the Village of Whitehall for the water-treatment plant. McCain said the regional planning board submitted 61 grant applications in 2025, was awarded 21 awards totaling $16,416,899, and still had eight pending announcements.
McCain said the board received an EPA Brownfields Coalition Assessment Grant and has engaged engineers (Weston & Sampson) to solicit candidate sites across the five-county region. She asked supervisors to identify small parcels that might benefit from brownfields planning and remediation work.
On housing, McCain said the planning board secured $5,000,000 through Rep. Elise Stefanik’s office to design a workforce-housing program and an additional $750,000 in federal funds for a feasibility study on a modular-housing factory in the Adirondacks. “We’re gonna be working with our partners over the next 6 months to craft the full program of what that’s gonna look like,” she said.
The presentations emphasized coordination: speakers urged supervisors to route businesses and project ideas to the appropriate agency—HVADC for business-technical assistance and grant-writing support, the regional planning board for intermunicipal planning and brownfields work, and the LDC for gap financing and counseling.
Next steps include a second round of meat-processing funding expected in early 2026, the regional engineers’ root-cause analysis for cell-service gaps, ongoing solicitation of brownfield sites, and joint program design for the workforce-housing funds.
