Fully Engaged: New Paltz

By   |  Photos by David McIntyre  |     |  Community Spotlight

For the third time in two decades, the village and town of New Paltz are considering consolidation. The town occupies 34.3 square miles; the village packs much of the commercial and historic core and about half the population into less than two, and was incorporated two centuries after the town’s founding. Fire and police coverage are handled by single entities; both town and village are Climate Smart, Housing Smart, and share many other concerns. To an unversed observer, it might seem that merging governing boards and departments would be a simple way to save a few dollars.

Village Mayor Tim Rogers thinks it might be simpler now that new facilities have been constructed for the police and fire departments, resolving issues that drew ire during the previous attempt back in 2013. But the devil’s in the details, from budget lines and tax codes to the precise terminology involved. The merger concept, every time it’s come up since the 1970s, has flopped; none of the people working on the proposal will really know until the planned referendum in 2025 whether they’ve found the secret sauce.

“This town is not without its issues,” says educator Bianca Tanis, who arrived in 1994 to attend SUNY New Paltz and never left. “We have all of the same social and economic issues as anywhere else. But there’s a lot of intelligent conversation around them, which is one of many things I deeply love. And having a young adult child here, watching him grow up and engage, become active and aware of the community, is really heartening.”

Tanis, whose older son just graduated from her alma mater, still recalls her very first impressions of the place. “I grew up in the downstate suburbs, and when I was 15, my parents took us to Mohonk to see the leaves and we drove through. I saw kids hanging out on the street, playing guitars in doorways, people dressed, you know, however. I was enthralled.”

One of her fondest memories just turned 20. “I remember when Jason West performed the gay marriages—I was there, with my son in his stroller—and the Westboro Baptist Church came to town. Jason had put the word out—don’t engage, don’t counter-demonstrate, just ignore them. The town was of one mind on that, and it was beautiful—their screams of hatred just fell into the empty air. A community that’s active and engaged isn’t always easy. Sometimes it gets heated. But I’d never want to live somewhere where people weren’t engaged.”

The New Paltz Scene

As you’d expect in a college town, New Paltz is well supplied with pizza shops and bars, well-blended with other cuisines and recreational options. Many people, Tanis included, are here for the great outdoors—and a great outdoors it is, with the Shawangunk Ridge at the far end of a six-mile loop trail that connects the edge of the village to the Mohonk Preserve. “Whether you’re walking or driving, you have the ability to escape to a beautiful spot in the woods,” she says. One of the things I love is that ease of access seems to be increasing. And if some people don’t like that, well, it’s New Paltz. There are going to be people who don’t like anything.”

Walter Marquez grew up just half an hour away and has spent the last quarter-century working here, first running a small independent shop, then running the Antiques Barn and Antiques on Main at Water Street Market, where he manages the overall operation of 20 or so indie shops and eateries for owner Harry Tabak. “When I started here 20 years ago, we didn’t get a lot of traffic,” he says, “but the property owner and I got together on a promotional campaign, and now the weekends are mob scenes. We don’t really do outdoor movies anymore—we have the Denizen Theater now, and they just had a whole film festival—but we do our Fourth Friday celebrations, bring in a band and vendors. We have a magician who comes and performs for the kids, and people come whenever they feel like it and just start playing music.”

Melissa Scheibner, community manager at Tweenfontein Herb Farm.

Marquez says he enjoys managing both the 35-vendor Antique Barn and the total of 60 stakeholders and is never bored with his work. “It’s a fascinating place, because everyone involved brings something a little different to the game,” he says. “And so do the visitors—we have people from the other side of the planet, we have locals who are here every day, show up in the morning for their coffee and breakfast and then just hang out, cruise the shops.”

“I love walking down the street and running into people I know,” says Tanis. “And I love living in the kind of town where you go for an evening stroll and a total stranger might walk up to you and recite a Ferlinghetti poem.”

New Paltz Real Estate Market

Matt Eyler’s firm, New Paltz Properties, handles mostly commercial real estate, but he handles a few houses and keeps his eye on the big picture. “There’s still a tight supply,” he says. “I think a lot of it has to do with interest rates; people don’t want to give up their low-interest mortgages. It feels like there’s a bit of “wait and see” involved, with buyers hoping interest rates will come down. But there are people who have to move, so there’s still a strong market, although not at the kind of fever pitch we saw before.”

Eyler says that if things aren’t quite cooling off, they are getting a bit more rational. “Price point matters; middle-range stuff is selling really well, whereas some of the more expensive places take time to find a buyer. And sellers who overestimate, who expect the market to just keep hitting new highs, might need to pivot to a strategy where the property is clearly a good value, at least by today’s metrics.”

At press time, Realtor.com had a total of 80 listings in New Paltz, ranging from a three-bedroom mobile home at $125,900 to the 88-acre Bontecou Farm, with historic stone farmhouse, greenhouse, fruit orchards, and views of the Shawangunk Ridge and the Wallkill River, on the market for 82 days at $3.4 million. In between, condos and three-bedroom ranches and colonials were listing between $250,000 to $500,000.

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