HHA Public Hearing: Part III

The first two episodes of the public hearing on the Hudson Housing Authority's proposed redevelopment, which took place on July 21 and August 11, saw a preponderance of support for the project. This past Tuesday, things were a bit different. A group clad in green T-shirts bearing the acronym FoSS (Friends of Second Street) turned out to express their concerns about the project and its impact on the surrounding neighborhood.

The people in the green shirts dominated the public hearing, expressing concerns about the timeline for the project and the impact of construction on the neighborhood; phasing and what happens if no funding is available to demolish the existing buildings; increased population density; changing the landscape of the neighborhood and constructing buildings "not in keeping with Hudson."

Misgivings and opposition to the project were also voiced by people not identifying themselves as Friends of Second Street. Steve Dunn expressed fiscal concerns. Noting that the number of units was increasing from 135 to 276, Dunn commented, "My concern is that if most of these residents are not paying [property] taxes, given the burden on the school system, that it's going to force a tax increase for the city, and once there's a tax increase, then the value of the homes goes down, and then you have to raise taxes even further to close the gap."

Phil Forman, who chairs the Historic Preservation Commission, prefaced his comments by saying, "I would love to advocate for this project . . . but it makes no sense to me." He went on to say: 

It feels to me that we are solving problems at a level of detail on behalf of the builder, and I don't see the flexibility there, since they're sticking to their economic model in terms of number of units that they need to meet their numbers. It does not, in my mind, relate to the urgency of the need to take care of the folks at Bliss, and that should happen within a year not three years. I doesn't relate to a fundamental tragedy about Hudson that needs to be addressed, which is multi-generational poverty.

Forman noted that the project does not include a grocery store or simple amenities that would "make life possible to have some joy." He expressed the opinion that the project needs to be reconsidered and the Planning Board "needs to step back and say, 'Who are we working for?'-- to make the builder wealthy on this project or for the people of the City of Hudson?" 

The public hearing, which was the first item on the agenda for a meeting that started at 6:00 p.m., didn't begin until 7:2o p.m. Prior to that, a series of engineers, consultants, and attorneys for the project made presentations. Of interest from those eighty minutes is the statement by John Madeo, speaking for Mountco, HHA's development partner, acknowledging that "it is critical that we have a certain number of units to make the project economically feasible." Of the "mixed income" status of the project, which isn't all that mixed--82 percent for incomes up to 50 percent of AMI; 15 percent for incomes up to 60 percent; 3 percent for incomes up to 80 percent (extremely low, very low, and low income)--Madeo said, "We need rents that are higher to offset the really low rents." He also admitted the removal of retail space from the first floor of the building proposed for State Street was an "economic decision."

Also of interest, Madeo said they were reducing the number of four-bedroom units and increasing the number of one-bedroom units. Of this he commented, "That's going to have a lesser impact on the community in terms of number of people on the site, impact on the school district and services."

Planning Board member Peter Spear pointed out a change in the number of street-level entrances to the building proposed for State Street. In May, there were several entrances, each supporting a small number of apartments. Somewhere between May and August that changed, and the building is now to have one principal entrance. Spear characterized the change as moving from "small, neighborhood scale" to "institutional scale." Alex Gorlin, principal of the architectural firm working on the project, explained that the change was based "entirely on security" and also on cost and accessibility--multiple entrances would require multiple elevators.

Two decisions of note were made at Tuesday's meeting. First, the board voted to close the public hearing, which means the board has sixty-two days to make a decision about granting site plan approval. The time can be extended by mutual consent, but if there is no agreement to extend the time and a decision is not made within sixty-two days, the project is approved by default. Second, the board agreed to hold a special meeting, devoted solely to this project, on Wednesday, September 30, at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is expected to take up the issues of design and configuration of the project. Madeo indicated a "logistics plan" would be ready for review a week before the meeting.

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This Just In

At its meeting tonight, the Zoning Board of Appeals granted the area variances needed by the Hudson Housing Authority to construct a block of four three-story townhouses at the corner of Second and Columbia streets, on the site of what remains of the community garden.

In the public hearing that preceded the ZBA's deliberation and vote, only three people spoke--all in support of the project--among them Claire Cousin, who serves on the HHA Board of Commissioners, and Lloyd Koedding, who at the Housing Trust Fund Board meeting earlier today disclosed that he may soon be looking for housing. 

Only five of the seven members of the ZBA were present at the meeting. When the vote was taken, four members (Lisa Kenneally, David Giroux, MaryEllen Pierro, Abbie Lazare) voted to approve the variances, and only one (Alan Weaver) was opposed. It is of interest that Weaver chaired the HHA Board of Commissioners during a previous attempt to upgrade and expand HHA's properties.

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Commemorating 9/11

On Friday, the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society will mark the 25th anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001, with a solemn commemoration.

Photo: John Cody

On Friday, September 11, 2026, the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a continuous 77-minute tolling of its original, historic 1874 fog bell across the Hudson River.

The commemoration will begin at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and continue until 10:03 a.m., the time United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The bell will ring across the Hudson River in remembrance of all those who lost their lives that day and in tribute to the first responders, emergency personnel, volunteers, and ordinary citizens who acted with extraordinary courage to help save others.

The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society invites community members to gather along the river at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park in Hudson or Athens Riverfront Park in Athens to listen, reflect, and remember together.

For twenty-five years, the events of September 11 have remained part of our shared national memory. The ringing of the fog bell will offer a solemn reminder of the lives lost, the bravery shown, and the importance of standing together as a community.

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

The autumnal equinox does happen for another two weeks, but, with Labor Day behind us, summer is unofficially over. Time to put away those white shoes. In this unofficial first week of autumn, here is what's happening.

• On Tuesday, September 8, the Planning Board meets at 6:00 p.m. The agenda for the meeting includes the continuation of the public hearing on the Hudson Housing Authority's redevelopment plan and a proposal to replace a trailer used as office space at CraftTech Industries on Dock Street with a larger trailer. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely. 

• On Wednesday, September 9, the Housing Trust Fund Board meets at 5:30 p.m. Gossips has learned that at the last meeting of the HTF Board on August 27, a meeting that was publicized as hybrid but for which a link was never provided, Michelle Tullo said her position, that of Housing Justice Director, would be phased out at the end of the year. Perhaps more about that will be revealed at this meeting. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely. 
• At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9, the Zoning Board of Appeals holds a special meeting for the purpose of having a public hearing on the area variances needed by the Hudson Housing Authority to construct a block of four three-story townhouses at the corner of Columbia and Second streets, on the site of what remains of the Community Garden. At this meeting, the ZBA is also expected to discuss and act on the application for area variances. The meeting takes place in person only at City Hall.

• On Thursday, September 10, the Common Council Legal Committee meets at 6:00 p.m. No agenda for the meeting has yet been published. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here to join the meeting remotely. 

Update: The Legal Committee meeting has been rescheduled and will down take place on Thursday, September 17.

• On Friday, September 11, the Historic Preservation Commission meets at 10:00 a.m. At this meeting, Galvan is expected to present, in the words of Walter Chatham, "an acceptable program that will allow [the commission] to remove the stop-work order even as we negotiate with them and finalize the details." The project in question, of course, is the Hudson Public Hotel, where the terms of the certificate of appropriateness were flouted, most significantly in the removal of original marble in the colonnade. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.  

• On Sunday, September 13, a special launch of the walking tour booklet Hudson: A History of Whaling & Maritime Commerce begins at 11:00 a.m. at Promenade Hill. Members of the Hudson Area Library's History Room Committee will be on hand for this free community tour. To register for the tour, email brenda.shufelt@hudsonarealibrary.org.

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What Is Different Now?

Mid-Hudson first Cable, then Media, now Fiber acquired the building at the corner of Third and Union streets sometime in the late 1990s. They bought it from the Masons. Originally known as St. John's Hall, the building was completed in 1889.

Photo courtesy Historic Hudson

It is not clear when the internally illuminated sign was installed on the south side of the building, but it wasn't long after Mid-Hudson acquired the building. It was very likely before the creation of the Union-Allen-South Front Street Historic District in December 2006, because its installation never came before the Historic Preservation Commission for a certificate of appropriateness. 

The picture below shows the sign in 2023.

So, here's the curious thing. In recent months, people have been noticing the sign as if for the first time. At an HPC meeting in June, Jan Egan, the HPC clerk, brought up the sign on the Mid-Hudson building, wondering how this sign could exist when the HPC had denied a certificate of appropriateness to an internally illuminated sign a block away, on the side of 251 Allen Street. Egan seemed not to realize the Mid-Hudson sign had been there for twenty years. Although she lives not far from the sign, Egan said she had only noticed it recently.

A few days ago, a reader sent Gossips this picture, taken that evening.

He, too, wanted to know what a sign like this was doing in a historic district. When I informed him that the sign, although the image has changed many times over the years, has been there since before the Union-Allen-South Front Street Historic District was created, he responded, "You mean it's old?! I have never seen it before."

This raises a couple of questions. First: What is it about the sign that makes it more noticeable now than it has been in the past? Has the brightness of the sign--the number of lumens emitted--increased? If so, what caused that increase? 

Second: Were the HPC ever to grant a certificate of appropriateness to an internally illuminated sign such as the one on the Mid-Hudson building, would they need to make it a condition that the applicant had to return to the HPC to renew the certificate every time they wanted to change the image?

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Unrelentingly Moving Forward

We don't like it, but it is happening nonetheless. Today, voters in the First, Second, and Third Wards received a post card notifying them that their polling place has changed. Formerly and for decades St. Mary's Academy, it is now 11 Warren Street, Suite 1, the new office of the Board of Elections.

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Ask the Superintendent: Episode 3

The third and final episode of "Ask the Superintendent" just dropped. The topic is "Technology." In this episode, Todd Hilgendorff, a.k.a. "Mr. H," is wearing a Bluehawk polo shirt and no bowtie. The video can be viewed here.

The Time Has Come . . . or Rather Returned

In July, Gossips reported on a plan to make the clock in the pediment of the historic Montgomery C. Smith School, originally known as Chancellor Livingston High School, tell the time again--something it has not done in decades.

It seems that, without any fanfare, the goal of making the clock work again was accomplished.

Tonight, while driving on Harry Howard Avenue, heading for Greenport, I glanced at the clock. The little hand was on VI; the big hand was on II. Then I looked at the clock in my car to see 6:10. I don't know how long it's been the case, but the clock is working again!

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Portraits at a Gathering

In the first week of August, Chronogram brought its pop-up photo studio to Waterfront Wednesdays. This week, the photos taken that day by David McIntyre were published. You can view them all here. 

Oakdale Update

It's been confirmed. There is a harmful algal bloom in Oakdale Lake, and the lake is closed for swimming and all water-contact recreation. People are also advised to keep dogs away from the water. 

The Superintendent Responds

Last month, Gossips shared the news that Todd Hilgendorff, the new Superintendent of Schools at the Hudson City School District, had launched an "Ask the Superintendent" program. Students, parents/guardians, staff members, and community members were invited to submit questions, and Hilgendorff would provide answers. Bad news for those who fear we may now be in a post-literate era, Hilgendorff has chosen to respond to the questions in videos, two of which have already been published.

The first, which deals with the issues of "Academics and Vision," can be viewed here.

The second episode, dealing with "Facilities Improvements," can be viewed here.

Eye on the Street

This sign, appended to the stop sign at Park Place, came to Gossips' attention recently. How long it's been there is not known, nor it is known how it came to be there. But it is a sentiment Gossips can endorse.

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Happening in the Vicinity of Mill Street

In the past few days, residents of Mill Street and the north end of Third Street received letters from the Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC) informing them that work was soon to begin on trails to connect Third Street with Mill Street and Charles Williams Park. The following is quoted from those letters:

In a few short weeks, CLC will be in your neighborhood, working with Tahawus Trails LP, a professional trail design and construction company, to create a new trail system in Hudson. These trails will connect North Third Street to Mill Street and beyond to the Empire State Trail.

Building this trail is the beginning of a three-phase project that also includes revitalizing Charles Williams Park and creating a trail connecting downtown Hudson to CLC's Greenport property and the thousands of acres nearby. 

One of the recipients of the letter shared it with her councilmember, Rich Volo, who, in addition to representing the Fourth Ward on the Common Council, chairs the Conservation Advisory Council. Volo contacted Patrick Knapp, Director of Public Lands at CLC, seeking to learn more about the location of the trail and about possible loss of trees. Volo shared the information provided by Knapp with Gossips.

The plan is for two trails from North Third Street to Mill Street: a direct one that involves stairs and a longer one that involves switchbacks. The paths of both trails are shown on this map: the direct route in purple; the switchback route in orange. 

  

Knapp indicated it was likely the only trees that might need to be removed are Norway Maple and Tree of Heaven, both of which are Tier 4 invasive species. He acknowledged this could change but offered the assurance, "CLC will aim to balance the site's recreational and ecological opportunities through this project."

In 2024, CLC acquired a large parcel of land in North Bay from the Hudson Industrial Development Agency, the area outlined in black on this map.

CLC plans to build trails on the land to connect Charles Williams Park with the Greenport Conservation Area and the network of trails that go all the way north to Harrier Hill. 

CLC has also taken over the renovation of Charles Williams Park, and, in December 2025, CLC was awarded $675,000 for that purpose in New York State's Regional Economic Development Council initiative.

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Chatham on the Missing Marble

The Register-Star about the stop-work order at 402-404 Warren Street: "Historic preservation violations stop Galvan hotel construction."

In it, Walter Chatham, who describes his role with the project as "advising architect," has this to say about the original marble that was removed from the building:

"[T]hat marble was removed because steel beams installed during a 20th-century renovation cracked it," Chatham said. Construction workers still have the original, removed marble and can incorporate it into another part of the hotel while covering the part of the building where the marble was supposed to be with a real marble veneer, Chatham said.

"We left the steel beams that were put in front of the brick, so we have to bring new marble forward in order to cover that steel," Chatham said.

"It is not like the cracked marble removed by construction workers was "carved by Michelangelo."

"It was three fairly crude pieces of marble over around the doorway and then a fourth up at the corner, and all of them had deteriorated over time. Acid rain is not kind to marble," Chatham added. "I think the best we can offer is a real marble colonnade that, I don't want to use the word imitates, but I guess that's the right word, imitates what we think was on the building originally."

Removed marble pillar and lintel--Photo: Matt McGhee

The issue of the hotel and its violations is expected to be taken up by the Historic Preservation Commission at its next meeting, on September 11. Regarding that meeting, Chatham is further quoted in the article as saying:

"We hope to present an acceptable program that will allow (the commission) to remove the stop-work order even as we negotiate with them and finalize details," Chatham said. "They (the contractors) were right in the middle of installing an elevator, so we were hoping to get the stop-work order removed fairly quickly."

According to Chatham, "Galvan hopes to open the hotel by the holiday season and get permission from the commission to work on the hotel's interior by its next meeting."

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Charter Revision Elsewhere

Some folks critical of the manner in which Council President Margaret Morris is approaching the task of assembling a charter revision commission have pointed to the City of Kingston as a model for how charter revision should be approached. For those curious to know how Kingston is doing it, the following is quoted from the City of Kingston website.  

Local Law 6 of 2025 established the Kingston Charter Review Commission and a timeline for its work. The Commission will be composed of 18 members. Of these, 3 will be appointed by the mayor, 3 will be appointed by the common council, and 12 will be drawn from the public at random. The task of the Commission is to review the city's charter and propose changes to it. Any changes to the charter would be submitted to Kingston voters during the general election in November 2027.

The city of Kingston has partnered with the National Civic League to facilitate the work of the Charter Review Commission, including the selection of its 12 public members and 2 alternate members, who will meet monthly over the next year to discuss possible changes. The National Civic League will use a specialized civic lottery to select these members. This process will ensure that Kingston's population is well reflected in the Commission.

The following information is provided about applying for the commission:

Residents of all backgrounds and perspectives are encouraged to apply, including youth over the age of 18. No prior experience or specialized knowledge is required.

The deadline for submitting an application to be on the commission was August 17. There is no indication of how long the "specialized civic lottery" process of selecting the "public members" will take.

The charter review process in Kingston also includes a survey and a public forum, which is to take place this fall. There is no indication if the monthly meetings of the commission will be open to the public.