Huntington Way LLC Partners
Explain Real Estate Plans

More than 50 Rochester residents jammed the Town conference room last Wednesday evening to hear what the owners of Huntington Way LLC had to say about recent real estate acquisitions in the village.

The public meeting was organized by Rochester Selectboard chairman Charlie Biederman in response to requests from a number of residents.

Two of the three principal partners of Huntington Way LLC, Jack McKernon of Brandon and Brooks Barron of Rochester, were on hand to discuss their plans and answer questions. Also present was Foster Heatherington, (an employee of McKernon’s company, the McKernon Group), who was instrumental in the purchases.

The third partner in Huntington Way LLC, Bill Becker, was at his home in Florida.

Last summer, the three partners bought and renovated the Huntington House Inn on the northeast corner of the park in Rochester village. The inn opened for business last month. In recent weeks, Huntington Way LLC has purchased three more buildings in the village—the Kelty building next door to the inn, and the Cole and Delisle properties around the corner on Park Row.

Several other homeowners in the area were also approached about selling their property, but declined to do so, and rumors began circulating about a "buy-out" in Rochester village.

McKernon began the meeting with a brief history of his company, which is heaquartered in Brandon.

"Our intentions are very simple," McKernon said. "We don’t have adequate parking now for the inn and we hope to alleviate that problem by demolishing the garage/barn addition behind the Kelty building and reconfiguring the driveway."

He noted that all three of the property owners were "anxious" to sell, adding "one of our other motivations was to have units available for the staff at the inn." The inn now has a staff of 10 employees, most of whom live in Rochester, Hancock and Granville.

McKernon denied any plans "to throw anyone out" of the nine apartments in the buildings the partners had bought. He said he would restore them "to look as near as can be to the early days of the town." He admitted that the upgrade, which will include the use of energy-efficient materials, would increase rent.

Barron pointed out that there would be almost the same number of apartments as before, but they would be in much better shape. When completed, it’s expected that the Kelty building would go from five apartments to four, and there would be two apartments each in the Cole and Delisle houses.

Many of those attending the meeting voiced concern about the current lack of "affordable" housing and discussed just what that term meant. Several said they were worried that the new apartments would be more than the average worker could afford. They also noted that they were concerned about the character of the village being changed.

Bill Thrailkill of Advanced Illuminations said his company needed more workers to expand, but the housing shortage made it hard to attract them. He also had concerns about the village character, saying "we don’t want an artificial creation here."

Park Row resident Kelly Kelly, complained about the approach used by Heatherington, who asked her about selling her house. She said the implication was that he was looking for a home for his family. She’d told him she wasn’t interested in selling, and later discovered that he worked for the McKernon Group.

When asked why he didn’t tell Kelly who he worked for, Heatherington apologized for any misunderstanding, but said he felt he had done nothing wrong.

Kelly’s neighbor, Bill Zucca, said he thought the company had "not been as forthright as they should have been" and had this advice for Huntington Way LLC: "Be as honest as you can be in your dealings with us here and take the time to develop good relations with your neighbors. We’ll be watching you carefully."

Another Park Row neighbor, Charley Woolley, however, welcomed McKernon, Barron and Heatherington, saying, "I’m pleased to have you here."

McKernon thanked everyone for their candor and invited calls to his office at 247-8500.

"I’m delighted that two out of the three partners in the company responded and came to meet with us," Biederman said after the meeting. "I was also delighted to see how many people came out to talk about this.

"The long-term question for Rochester residents to consider now is whether we’re depleting our supply of reasonable-cost housing and will therefore be changing the character of our village. I’m hoping that the people who live in the village and everyone in the whole town will start thinking about that."

"First we have to decide where we’d like to go and then figure out how to get there," Biederman continued, pointing out that Rochester still didn’t have a developmental review process in place.

"We need to lay out a careful plan for what we want 10 and 20 years down the road. There are a number of ways to build and provide the kind of affordable housing that people at the meeting were concerned about. At the next selectboard meeting, I’m going to strongly suggest that we form a committee of citizens to look into those issues."

By Martha Slater