William J. Kemble reports in the Daily Freeman that the Woodstock Town Board approved $175,000 for affordable housing loans and $199,000 for engineering fees for potential affordable housing projects on town-owned properties. The vote was 3-to-2, and was accompanied by heated and angry discussion. Councilperson Bennet Ratcliff the Woodstock Housing Alliance was “self-dealing” by both helping to draft affordable loan guidelines and potentially also being recipients of the loans for the projects. Ratcliff said, “I am…for a community land trust and I am for and have been a Woodstock Housing Alliance supporter, but I believe this is self-dealing that (some) members…actually wrote the proposed code changes and they are now going to benefit from the $175,000." Ratcliff and Maria-Elena Conte voted against the funding, and Supervisor Bill McKenna, and Laura Ricci and Reginald Earls voted for the funding. Ratcliff is also accusing Kirk Ritchey and Jeff Collins, who are members of both the land trust and housing task force, of benefiting from being involved in drafting the law while overseeing land acquisitions. Ritchey and Collins said they were not receiving any money personally and they are only trying to bring more affordable housing to Woodstock. “(Ratcliff) is incorrect,” Collins said. “We’re not relying on any code changes for this to be effective for our housing alliance. The existing code allows a single (accessory dwelling unit) per residence in Woodstock. That’s the code we need, that’s the code that’s going to be there that we’re going to use.” Read more about this story in the Daily Freeman.