Cloey Callahan reports in the Times Union that while the affordable housing crisis continues throughout the Hudson Valley a developer want to put a luxury 36-condo high-end residential housing development in Rhinebeck. Local opposition, though, is not about affordability or lack of housing for locals. “The main concern about Rock Ledge is that dumping 36 private condominium developments along a rural road that is zoned to have houses built only on five acres destroys the rural character of the area,” said David Weiner, a member of the Rhinebeck Coalition, formed to oppose the project. Charles Blaichman, a developer behind several luxury hotels in the region, including Hotel Kinsley, a boutique hotel in Kingston, and Inness, a resort and golf course in Accord, wants to build the 36-condominium project called Rock Ledge at 492 Ackert Hook Road in Rhinebeck. His argument to the opposition is that without his development the building would otherwise remain vacant and vulnerable to decay, and condos would create less traffic there than when it was as a drug rehabilitation facility decades ago. The Daytop Village Foundation, Inc. opened that facility in 1987 as a substance-abuse treatment center with 50 residents, staff offices, and a gym., but closed in 2009. The new proposal is for eight of the 36 condos within existing buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the remaining 28 condos would be brand-new construction on the 135-acre site. So far the opposition says they have a petition with 600 signatures. Read more about this story in the Times Union.