SamPratt.com: Towns

45 entries categorized "Towns | Greenport"

March 23, 2010

Straightened out?

AFTERNOON UPDATE: The full Stipulation between Scenic Hudson and DEC now can be downloaded by clicking here. An initial reading of the document suggests that many of the settlement’s provisions seem positive as far as the Waterfront planning process goes, as well as any possible future reviews by various agencies (from the Hudson and Greenport planning agencies to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) of a haul road proposal.

However, the document leaves one big question hanging which needs clarification.

On the plus side, the Stipulation states that “the issuance of the Permit was not, and should not be construed to be, an endorsement by DEC of any particular truck route or alternative route to be used by O&G Industries [...] as part of its operations in the Town of Greenport and City of Hudson.” DEC concedes that no coordinated SEQR review occurred related to such a proposal, and that the DEC’s negative declaration “should not be construed to be binding on any other agency with jurisdiction over the activities of the Permittee in or near South Bay, and should not be considered either “a substitute for the permit authority of any other agency.” All of that is excellent.

The one potentially troubling and unclear portion—and this could be a biggie—is a curious statement that the DEC permit “is limited to the pavement of two hundred +/- feet of the causeway in the adjacent area of the South Bay wetland.”

While that provision seems tempered by an acknowledgment that “it does not authorize any other activities in South Bay that would be jurisdictional under the Freshwater Wetlands Act,” it is unclear where this 200-foot stretch of pavement would go, and whether that number refers to the length or the width of the causeway. One assumes it refers to the area near the entrance to Holcim’s desired route off 9G, as evidently was discussed in the original deal with DEC, but that is not spelled out.

(If Scenic Hudson were agreeing to a 200-foot-wide paved area, that would be appalling. But given that such a provision would require extensive filling of the Bay, that seems improbable. The current abandoned railbed is more like 15 feet wide, bordered by some 25-30 or so feet along some stretches of its south side where Holcim carried forth illegal bulldozing, for which it was fined, back in 2004; marshes and open water border much of the remainder.) What’s puzzling is how a 200-foot-length of paving would serve any purpose to either party, as that would extend barely 20% or so across the Bay. Scenic Hudson needs to clarify this matter, as that one line could spoil some very good work on their part to secure an otherwise positive resolution.

The overall effect of the Stipulation would seem to be that the idea of an active industrial haul road is, though not dead, at least on hold pending future decisions and reviews.

ORIGINAL POST: This morning, a State official confirmed a persistent rumor that Scenic Hudson and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation have made a deal concerning the proposed heavy industrial haul road from Becraft Mountain, across routes 9 and 9G, and through the wetlands of South Bay to the Hudson Waterfront.

A representative of the State’s Freshwater Wetlands Appeals Board confirms that the two parties have entered into a “Stipulation of Settlement” which “resolves and terminates the appeal to the Board.” A copy of that document is on its way from the agency.

The big question now is: What were the terms of the settlement?

DEC had issued nebulous “maintenance” permits to O&G and Holcim regarding the proposed haul road. There was little real opportunity for public input, no recognition that there isn’t any pre-existing permitted road in place, and no notice to interested parties that a decision had been reached. Holcim and O&G tried hard to spin this in the press as the final word on the question of bringing hundreds of trucks daily down from the mines and through the Bay.

Scenic Hudson, to its credit, filed an appeal noting that the permits issued were based on false premises and a lack of data about the habitats which would be affected. The DEC tried and failed to have this appeal dismissed.

Now that the mystery Stipulation has been made, it will be fascinating to see the actual terms. Has DEC backed off its hasty and ill-informed decision and voided the permits? Or, have they suspended their endorsement until the resolution of the Hudson waterfront plan contoversy? Or, as happened with the shockingly craven secret deal over the Athens Gemerating plant, have Ned Sullivan and crew sold out the citizenry again?

One hopes that Scenic Hudson learned its well-deserved lesson from Athens, and that this new, quiet agreement will turn out to be a real improvement over the DEC’s reckless behavior up to this point. Word is that the Stipulation will be produced tonight by a Scenic Hudson representative at the Greenport Planning Commission... So stay tuned.

March 8, 2010

Kohl’s comfort

Hudson business owner Stefan Friedemann of Ornamentum has submitted the following letter to the local papers about the latest attempt by Kohl’s and Widewaters to secure a PILOT tax abatement plan from the IDA. Below is a preview of his piece for readers of this site. Their next appearance is this Friday (March 12th ) at 8 am at the County office building, 401 State Street.

MY VIEW
Stefan Friedemann, Hudson

I am a local business owner, and have an apartment that I rent out.

Where my business is concerned, I take for granted that if I don’t invest to make it interesting and appealing, I will lose customers.

The same is true with my rental apartment. I take for granted that if I don’t invest to make it attractive, I either won’t be able to find a tenant, or I will have to lower the rent until someone takes it.

But watching the folks running the Widewaters development, I have come to realize that there is another option.

It seems my business could have been a lot more lucrative if had followed Widewaters’ business plan. If I only I hadn’t built out my business in a unique and attractive manner, investing my own hard-earned capital to grow a customer base from far and wide… If only I hadn’t made the investment to create a cozy and energy-efficient apartment in order to attract a renter to help offset the ridiculously high tax burden of small, locally-owned businesses… If only I had created a generic business plan that made my business look like all the other cookie-cutter retail shops across the country, and kept my rental apartment unappealing to prospective tenants…

Had I only followed that path, I then could have gone to the County powers-that-be and demanded that they help make my business profitable. They would have helped me find a tenant by giving me tax subsidies. They would have increased the burden on other businesses and landlords that have similar products and the landlords that were silly enough to do the work without public assistance. This would have really given my business an edge in this economy.

I realize now that instead of working hard and investing my own money, I should have counted on the wisdom of Roy Brown and Art Baer instead. After all, they have come up with other such great ideas such as moving DSS away from the people who need it, or creating a transitional housing shelter in one of the county’s few historic hotels (in the heart of a growing and steadily developing small business district).

I know now that I should have relied on these leaders to pressure the Industrial Development Agency to divert the public’s tax dollars to making my substandard plan viable, even though it has nothing to do with Industrial Development. I only needed to threaten the County with the potential loss of imaginary career-building jobs and housing stock, and they would have fallen right in line (perhaps after a bit of wining and dining).

Widewaters had the chance to create something interesting – to create a shopping environment that was different from all the vacant mall spaces littering our American landscape. They could have gone the extra mile, as so many small business owners across the countrydo in order to stay afloat. They could have attracted business to sell products that are not already in the county – and in the case of Walmart, were already down the block.

Instead they chose a plan that was devoid of any character, just another strip mall development that will make Greenport look exactly like all the other badly planned towns across the country.

And they want us, the taxpayers and business owners of Columbia County to pay a little extra so that their rental properties are more desirable to prospective tenants, even after they repeatedly lied and threatened their way to the IDA meetings. So now Widewaters comes before the IDA again this Friday to ask once again for the tax breaks that they promised not to ask for. They come for a PILOT for Kohl’s, which they say will lead to another PILOT for TJ Maxx, which we can assume will lead to a third and fourth PILOT to help them fill other vacant properties.

That’s why I join the Chamber of Commerce in asking the IDA to once again reject tax breaks from Widewaters. Send them a message that there will be no further consideration of these applications, whether for 20 years, 15 or 5.

And if they aren’t able to find tenants for their rental properties, they should do what any other business owner in the country does: adjust their business plan to make their properties into something more desirable for tenants, without the benefit of unfair tax advantages taken from the pockets of other business owners and private citizens of Columbia County.

What’s in a name

An article published in the October 22nd, 1893 issue of the New York Times notes that “nearly all” of the names used for towns, creeks and regions along the Hudson River were “corruptions of the Indian or old Dutch titles.”

The Dutch discarded the Native American names of Sha-te-muc and Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, and divided what they instead called the Mauritius or North River (the Delaware being the South River) into “fourteen rocks or reaches.” The Times article states that

“The last of the reaches of which any knowledge is extant is the Hil Klauver Reach, or the Clover Reach. This is the one at Hudson. The bluffs, or termination of the hills there, on the east side of the river, were called by the Dutch the Klauvers, the Clovers, from their resemblance to the clover, but whether to the leaf or the flower opinions differ.”

Hudson’s shore today is artificially regular, a slightly curved line created by Vanderbilt’s railroad and other industrial infill. But at the time of its founding in 1785 what became known as Promenade Park was a spit of land jutting well out into the river, with spurs on either side leading down to large, open inlets—the North and South Bays. One can imagine that when drawn on a map, someone might liken this resulting shape to a cloverleaf.

(Warren Street itself began as a series of ledges and gulleys, the latter of which were filled in to make a mile-long continuous slope down toward the river. There was apparently a particularly large drop-off around 3rd Street.)

The name Claverack is thus a bastardization of the Dutch for Clover Reach, and Hudson prior to its acquisition by the Proprietors was known as Claverack Landing.

The City of Hudson sold off the lands which now comprise much of Stockport in 1833, with another vast chunk of acreage carved away to form Greenport in 1837; the mayor responisble promptly became the head of that new town. Those who stayed behind in Hudson figured that they wouldn’t suffer any consquences from these sales, since these new neighboring towns would still be dependent on Hudson’s port for imports and exports, and thus deemed what now looks like a shortsighted sale as a windfall for the City without any downside.

Neither the invention of railroads nor the advent of Fairview Avenue shopping centers were developments they anticipated—demonstrating how one cannot plan far enough ahead and for enough eventualities when creating a vision for a community.

March 7, 2010

Winter Wetlands

North side of Mt. Merino Road, abutting Hudson’s South Bay. Photo: LAETITIA HUSSAIN

March 5, 2010

ShopRite does it wrong

Photo: LAETITIA HUSSAIN

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Virtual graffiti: Greenport

A copyrighted feature of this website. Photosimulation: Fairview Avenue, Greenport (NY)

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March 3, 2010

March madness

Many 12534 residents have noted how lately it feels like everything’s happening at once:

There’s Kohl’s and Widewaters coming back again to the IDA for another tax deal on the 12th;

There’s the Hudson Waterfront mess;

There’s the demolition of historic structures uptown (7th and State) and downtown (Front Street);

There’s the rumored proposal at 5th and Warren—possibly the most prime commercial site in town—of a 30-unit housing development by T. Eric Galloway (who already has a bunch of warehoused empty units spread around the City;

There’s another rumor circulating about an alleged scandal at the Columbia County Board of Elections, involving payments and vouchers;

There’s the dismantling by Rick Scalera of popular yoga and garden programs at the Boys & Girls Club, just to spite Carole Clark;

Meanwhile, everyone’s been besieged by blizzards and all the attendant shoveling, plowing and digging out of cars;

Likewise at the State level, we’re witnessing the meltdown of yet another Governor;

Nationally, a yearlong healthcare reform debate is coming to a head, while people are still reeling from a hobbled economy;

And internationally, Chileans and Haitians are still reeling from natural disasters, while reports continue to roll in almost daily of continued suicide bomb attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan;

If April is said to be the cruelest month, this is quite a warm-up...

January 29, 2010

Blog ping-pong: South Bay tournament

Below are some points I’m volleying back at Carole Osterink’s Gossips of Rivertown blog, specifically in response to her informative post on the recent Greenport Planning Board meeting about truck traffic to the Hudson Waterfront...

Carole, here are several additional points to consider:

1. Anyone who has lived more than a couple of seasons in Hudson knows that 9G routinely floods just north of Mount Merino, which is precisely where this unnecessary and (I believe) unpermitted truck traffic is proposed. I've seen no mention of the flooding problem in published reports; maybe it was discussed and not reported. This raises the more general issue of emergency conditions: What happens if the road, crossings, or causeway are impassable for days, weeks or months? You can bet that in the absence of requirements from Hudson and Greenport, the trucks would resume their trips through downtown.

2. Speed is another non-trivial issue at the proposed 9G crossing. Even with one’s foot riding the brakes downhill, it is easy to arrive at the entrance to South Bay at double the posted speed limit due to the preceding long, steep incline. Warning signs and flashing lights would not prevent an eventual fatality. Hudson is already the Bermuda Quadrangle of traffic danger, with no route into or out of the City which isn't fraught with riskily-designed intersections.

3. Even those critical of the road plan and LWRP seem to be missing the big picture and allowing themselves to get bogged down in the minutiae of the issue. The root problem is not whether Hudson can get some picturesque piece of industrial wreckage landmarked, or even which “alternative” route is less horrible than the rest. No: The bigger picture is that waterfront plans are supposed to proceed from a long-range vision (articulated via the mundane terms of zoning law). It is not supposed to address short-term transitory conditions and demands of present-day developers, such as the owners of L&B in Queens or Holcim execs in Switzerland. Yet the current document is driven by and obsessed with those narrow, short-term pressures—rather than the broad and positive vision for a greener, more humane and more economically productive Waterfront for which the public asked. This version of what an LWRP should contain was espoused by none other than City attorney Cheryl Roberts and State Coastal expert Bonnie Devine at the outset of the process, before certain Hudson “leaders” caved to defeatist and small-minded political concerns. Those backing this plan want residents to get diverted into obscure arguments about minute details, rather than demanding that the big picture make sense. So we anatomize the finer details of O&G’s plans, rather than demanding that all truck traffic be barred from both the Bay and Downtown... They want us chasing fantasies about railroad relics, rather than demanding a far-reaching plan (one that will stand up long after the names Scalera, Mussmann, Osterink or Pratt are forgotten).

4. Speaking of history, my comments posted here last week highlighted a 1977 Federally-funded County Planning report. That report identified an irreconcilable “use conflict” in South Bay—a conflict between heavy industry and ecological restoration. It advised that Hudson needed to choose one or the other; that at such a unique and sensitive location, the two could not coexist peacefully. Yet that conflict was not tackled in either 1977, or even in 2005, when the Secretary of State issued a clear road map for ending it “immediately.” And still even some progressive voices who should know better bandy about empty buzzwords about “mixed use” and “working waterfronts.” The bottom line is people won’t have picnics, toss frisbees, or open small businesses if waves of noise and diesel exhaust are cascading over the Waterfront.

5. Speaking of Chris Reed, how come there is no notice of the LWRP comment period, meeting times, or a run-down of these pressing Waterfront issues on the front page of Friends of Hudson website? For an organization that claims to be still active— rather than just 2-3 people with a listserve—this seems like a glaring omission. The point of a citizens’ group is first and foremost to mobilize and empower citizens, giving them the tools to participate in a meaningful fashion.

6. In my consulting to citizens’ groups, I encourage discussion of such projects to use the verb “would” instead of “will.” (“The road through the wetlands would be 12 feet wide,” etc.) These projects are potential, not inevitable.

January 26, 2010

Kohl’s to Newcastle

The Register-Star issues yet another poorly-reasoned editorial pronouncement, this time on the question of giving tax breaks to the giant Kohl’s corporation, in the form of a PILOT plan.

Every poker player eventually learns that if the rest of the table knows you never call a bluff, you’re sure to leave the game with lighter pockets.

Yet the Register dismisses out of hand the idea of calling Kohl’s bluff. Nevermind that this is a deep-pocketed company. Nevermind that they are expanding all over the country. Nevermind that companies like Kohl’s will always run up a trial balloon to see if they can get towns to give away some tax breaks, whether they need it or not. Nevermind that if you show some backbone now, they’re likely to come back later with a better offer. Nevermind that the much-touted employment will likely be McJobs that don’t pay many if any benefits, and require people to take two other jobs to survive. Nevermind that Kohl’s wouldn’t even be bothering with doing market research and making time investments here if a PILOT were necessary to be viable.

No, says the paper: Let’s ignore Negotiation 101. Worse than that: Let’s negotiate from a position of weakness. Let’s sit down at the table quaking with fear that Kohl’s might walk away. Let’s not put on our own poker faces, and insist that they use local labor for construction of the store. Let’s not talk about inflation-adjusted payments. And let’s skirt the legalities that say you can’t give away tax dollars to a business which may steal customers from others who aren’t given the same breaks. Instead, let’s pretend this will have zero effect on existing businesses from Peebles to Steiner’s to de Marchin.

Heck, they might even cut into some of Wal-Mart’s business—though you won’t catch me crying for the Walton billionnaires...

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