Tomorrow at Hudson Hall

Tomorrow at 5:00 p.m., an excerpt of Jeffrey Lependorf's work-in-progress chamber opera American Terror, made from the 1969 Firing Line television debate between William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky about America's involvement in Vietnam, will performed at Hudson Hall.

Today, there is an article about the project in the Times Union: "'American Terror' in Hudson: Composer Jeffrey Lependorf turns 1969 TV debate between William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky into opera."

Admission to the performance is pay what you will. Click here for more information and to make a reservation.

News from the Planning Board

The Planning Board meeting on Tuesday night went on for just shy of four hours. There were several projects considered, and Gossips will report on them one at a time, beginning with Mill Street Lofts, the project being proposed for the playing field on the south side of Mill Street. 

The discussion of the project opened with a presentation by Kearney Realty & Development Group of the amenities they have added to the plan for the site in response to concerns expressed at the August 20 meeting about traffic and transportation. These amenities are described in the letter submitted to the Planning Board on August 26:

1. Bus Shelter. As discussed during the meeting, the Applicant will work with the City and County to provide a bus route to the project. This shelter will be located at the end of the proposed pedestrian connection between the project and Mill Street to maximize the convenience to future residents.
2. Fire Apparatus Turnaround. A hammerhead turnaround has been added that complies with Appendix D of the NYS Fire Code. This turnaround will utilize the existing paper street adjacent to the project which will require construction of a third box culvert to convey flow around the site to the proposed stilling basin and the City drainage infrastructure. The turnaround will be adequate to allow buses associated with the proposed bus route to turnaround.
3. Bicycle Repair Station. A bicycle repair station is proposed along Mill Street to benefit future residents and riders on the Empire State Trail. 
4. Scenic Overlook Station. A sidewalk has been extended to a bench at the western end of the site at the top of the proposed retaining wall where residents can enjoy the undeveloped open space on the subject property and adjacent to it.

It wasn't pointed out that a bicycle repair station is something of a redundancy given that there is already a bicycle repair station about 500 feet away at the Empire State Trail trailhead at the corner of Dock Street and North Second Street.

During the public comment period, Mill Street resident Faith Gilbert expressed concern about the "improper and possibly illegal use of park land," alluding to the deed restrictions that required the land to be used as a park or for recreation. She suggested that the Planning Board was "expediting the project for the sake of the developer" and recalled that at the August 20 special meeting there seemed to be an effort to persuade the members who had voted against making a negative declaration to change their minds. She asserted that the project would result in a 600 percent increase in neighborhood density and told the Planning Board, "Every household on Mill Street agrees this is a bad fit for the site." She concluded, "The Planning Board should honestly assess the project's impact."

Three Hudson elected officials--Linda Mussmann, Fourth Ward Supervisor; Rich Volo, Fourth Ward Councilmember; Margaret Morris, First Ward Councilmember--were present at the meeting and expressed concerns about the project and its negative impacts on the neighborhood. In his comments, Volo pointed out that this project would negatively impact five houses built by Habitat for Humanity, which he described as "housing that works in this city," enabling homeownership and building generational wealth. In her comments, Morris reiterated the suspicion that the project was being expedited, observing, "This project is moving forward more quickly than other projects." Theresa Joyner, who chairs the Planning Board, told Morris, "It's a perception and not a fact." Despite Joyner's denial, Planning Board member Susan Vernovage Foster later asserted, "This project does seem to be fast-tracked."

Six members of the Planning Board were present for the meeting on Tuesday, as compared with five who were present for the special meeting on August 20, when they failed to have enough votes for a negative declaration. On Tuesday, attorneys Victoria Polidoro and Cassondra Britton and engineering consultant Chris Bertram, from Barton & Loguidice, took turns leading the board through the eighteen questions of Part 2 of the Full Environmental Assessment Form, reviewing the answers they had agreed to on August 20. Of interest was the discussion about Question 11: Impact on Open Space and Recreation. Residents of the neighborhood had given ample testimony that the space was regularly used, for close to two decades, as a playing field, but the Planning Board decided that since the City of Hudson had never officially designated it as such during the forty years it owned the field, its informal recreational use and its value as an open space didn't matter. 

Even more interesting was the discussion relating to Question 18: Consistency with Community Character. Although the residents of Mill Street and almost everyone else think this 70-unit apartment project is completely inappropriate for the site and completely out of character with the neighborhood, the Planning Board decided to define things a bit differently. According to Joyner, with the apparent agreement and support of Planning Board member Randall Martin, the "community" with which this project should be compatible is "not just one block but the whole area"--"the high-rise and everything around that lower part of Hudson." 

When the question of making a negative declaration on the project--meaning that the project will not create significant environmental harm or that environmental impact has been mitigated to a less than significant level--came to a vote, five of the members present (Martin, Gini Casasco, Bettina Young, Gene Shetsky, and Joyner) voted in favor, and only one (Vernovage Foster) voted against. Young had voted against making a negative declaration on August 20 but changed her mind. The other dissenter on August 20, Ben Forman, was absent from Tuesday's meeting.

The entire discussion and vote can be viewed here, beginning at 1:22:15 and ending at 3:17:38.

Interestingly, this evening, Gini Casasco, who voted in support of the negative declaration, posted this on the Facebook group "Unfiltered Hudson."

That grassy field where the kids in the picture are playing, informally and unofficially, is certainly reminiscent of the grassy field on Mill Street, the site of this proposed development.

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The Long, Not Winding Road

Work on Colarusso's two-lane, two-way paved road from the quarry to the river moves ahead relentlessly. The picture below was taken this morning, at the intersection of the haul road and Route 9G.

Council Considers Good Cause

At last night's informal meeting, the Common Council took up the issue of the Good Cause Eviction Law. The law was enacted by the New York State Legislature in April. It automatically applies to New York City, but other municipalities in New York can opt in. So far, six have done so: Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Ithaca, and Beacon--all with populations significantly larger than Hudson's. Beacon, which is the smallest of the six, has a population of 15,259 as compared with Hudson's 5,749. There are two parts of the law that can be determined by each individual city: the definition of small landlord and the definition of luxury apartment. How Hudson would define each of these was not discussed at last night's meeting.

Before the discussion began, three councilmembers recused themselves and left the building: Vicky Daskaloudi (Fifth Ward) and Rich Volo (Fourth Ward), both of whom are landlords, and Dominic Merante (Fifth Ward), who is a tenant and said he did not want to be involved in making a decision that might benefit him financially. During the discussion, Jennifer Belton (Fourth Ward) revealed that she was a landlord, but she would be exempt from the law because she rents one apartment in the building where she herself lives. 

Margaret Morris (First Ward) opened the discussion by saying that she was concerned the law would have negative impacts on tenants seeking apartments. She predicted that the law would be an incentive for landlords to set rents at the maximum amount to start with because rent increases are capped. She also predicted there would be no incentive for landlords to take a risk on a tenant because they would be entering into an agreement over which they had no control. For these reasons, she was not in favor of the law.

Morris also pointed out, "We do not know how many buildings [in Hudson] this [law] would apply to." Any building with income restrictions is exempt, as are buildings for which the certificate of occupancy was issued after January 1, 2009. It was suggested that a landlord could evade the law by taking a building off the market and rehabbing it to require a new certificate of occupancy. When asked about this possibility, Crystal Peck, counsel to the Council, said that litigation would define the specifics of this perceived loophole.

The Hudson critic who identifies himself as the Friendly Neighborhood Immigrant opined that "the law clearly is not designed for a city the size of Hudson." He said that Cambridge, Massachusetts, once had a similar law, but it destroyed the rental market, and the law was rescinded. He asked of the Council, "Why do you know better than Cambridge, Massachusetts?" He asserted, "In the long term, rent control harms those it is trying to help."

A representative of For the Many, the advocacy group that endorsed Claire Cousin in her unsuccessful run for State Assembly, maintained there was no evidence that the law would reduce the housing supply. He noted that it allows landlords to raise rents by 5 percent every year. He argued that the law gives tenants the right to ask for repairs and to make long-term plans without having to worry about where they will live. He also denied that the law would perpetually trap landlords in a lease. 

Morris took issue with the statement that the law does not lock landlords into a lease in perpetuity and reiterated that it would make it very difficult for someone to get into an apartment. Lola Roberts (Third Ward) defended the law, saying that it protects people already in apartments, alleging that "landlords kick people out for no reason."

The Friendly Neighborhood Immigrant suggested the law might harm older people and disabled people. Morris elaborated, saying landlords could reclaim a unit for personal use or for a family member unless the tenant is elderly or disabled. This, she suggested, would make people unwilling to rent to the elderly or disabled.

Peck commented, "It's going to take time for issues not clarified in the law to be clarified in the court."

Supervisor Linda Mussmann (Fourth Ward), who owns rental properties in Hudson, commented, "We don't know how many small landlords there are in Hudson." She further opined that the law "would certainly discourage people from being a landlord."

The meeting was adjourned before there was any discussion of what might constitute a "small landlord" or what percentage of fair market rent would exempt an apartment as "luxury"--the two aspects of the law that can be determined by individual municipalities opting in to the law. 

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Before the Planning Board Tonight

The agenda for tonight's Planning Board meeting is now available on the City of Hudson website. It includes the continuation of the public hearings on five projects currently before the Planning Board:

• The subdivision proposed for Hudson Avenue
• The new location of Lil' Deb's Oasis at 735 Columbia Street
• The apartment building proposed for Fairview Avenue between Parkwood and Oakwood boulevards--It is expected that at this meeting the applicant will respond to the Planning Board's requests that they reduce the number of units from 30 to 15; provide 26 assigned offstreet parking spaces for tenants, workers in the commercial space, and visitors; create ADA compliant sidewalks and crosswalks at Parkwood and Oakwood and along Fairview Avenue as far as Aldi's.
• The 70-unit apartment project proposed for Mill Street known as Mill Street Lofts--The Planning Board may return to its consideration of the Full Environmental Assessment Form (FEAF). At a special meeting on August 20, the five members of the Planning Board in attendance failed to agree on issuing a negative declaration, which would indicate the project would not have a significant adverse impact on the environment and hence does not require an Environmental Impact Report.
• The subdivision of a large tract of land in North Bay, on either side of North Second Street, ownership of which is being transferred from the Hudson Industrial Development Agency (IDA) to the Columbia Land Conservancy. The subdivision, or lot line adjustment, would carve out a small area on the west side of the street, just beyond the entrance to the dog park, that would become the property of the City of Hudson. There is currently a DPW garage there, and it is the site where the City dumps snow removed from the streets in winter.

New on the agenda for tonight's meeting is a proposal from Return Brewing to renovate the remaining 9,850 square feet of the building where they are located to create a theater, event space, and restaurant. 

The Planning Board meeting starts at 6:30 p.m., and it doesn't seem likely it will be over before the debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump begins at 9:00 p.m. The Planning Board meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Zoom. Click here to join the meeting remotely.

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Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

It's a big meeting week, and Monday seems to be on overload, with public hearings and meetings scheduled back to back from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.--most hybrid, one in person only.

• At 4:00 p.m. on Monday, September 9, Mayor Kamal Johnson holds a public hearing on two new laws: one meant to protect dogs who are tied outside and the other reducing the speed limit throughout the city to 25 mph. The hearing takes place in person only at City Hall.
• At 5:00 p.m. on Monday, September 9, the Common Council holds a special meeting to consider three resolutions. The first resolution authorizes the mayor to enter into a contract with Assemblage Landscape Architecture for a waterfront resiliency project. The second resolution authorizes the mayor to sign an agreement with Christ Church Episcopal for the Youth Department to use space in the church's Fellowship Hall as an afterschool childcare facility. The third resolution authorizes the mayor to enter into an agreement with Columbia County Recovery Kitchen to supply meals--sixty each day--for children at the Hudson Youth Department. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

• At 5:30 p.m. on Monday, September 9, the Common Council holds a public hearing on the amendments to Chapter 325, Articles V and XIV of the city code, meant to protect community character by prohibiting chain stores and formula businesses in Hudson. The hearing is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the hearing remotely.
• At 6:00 p.m. on Monday September 9, the Common Council holds its informal meeting. It is likely there will be much discussion of Hudson's possible adoption of the Good Cause Eviction Law at this meeting. In addition to that, of interest on the agenda is a lengthy communication from the Planning Board arguing that the City should reinstate offstreet parking requirements for new development in Hudson. Ironically, it was the Planning Board that recommended eliminating offstreet parking requirements back in 2019. That issue, too, may be discussed at the meeting or perhaps just referred to the Council's ad hoc Parking Study Committee. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.
• On Tuesday, September 10, the Planning Board meets at 6:30 p.m. The agenda for the meeting has not yet been published, but it is certain to include the apartment building proposed for Fairview Avenue, which the Planning Board seems to be threatening with a positive declaration in the SEQR process if the applicant doesn't reduce the number of units from 30 to 15, and the 70-unit Mill Street Lofts, for which the Planning Board seems inclined to make a negative declaration. (A negative declaration is a determination that a project will not have a significant adverse impact on the environment and does not require an Environmental Impact Report.) The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Zoom. Click here to join the meeting remotely.

• On Friday. September 13, the Historic Preservation Commission meets at 10:00 a.m. The meeting will include public hearings on the preservation and restoration of the Robert Taylor House and on the adaptive reuse of 601 Union Street as a boutique hotel. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

• On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, September 13 through 15, Friends of the Hudson Area Library holds a book and bake sale to benefit the library. The sale takes place from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 1:00 t0 3:30 p.m. on Sunday in the Community Room at the library, 501 North Fifth Street.

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Good Cause Eviction and Hudson

In April, New York State enacted the Good Cause Eviction Law, which not only limits a landlord's ability to remove a tenant from a residential unit but also caps rent increases. The law automatically applies to New York City, but other municipalities in the state can opt in to the law. So far, six municipalities have done so: Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Ithaca, and Beacon. Hudson is now considering opting in to the law.

At the Common Council meeting on August 20, advocates for the law showed up in force to urge the Council to adopt the law. Council president Tom DePietro responded by saying, "I'd like to think you're preaching to the choir." 

On Wednesday, the issue was taken up by the Legal Committee. There are two aspects of the law that can be tailored to the specific municipality: the percentage of fair market rate that qualifies a unit as "luxury" and hence exempt from the law (in the original law, it is 245 percent); and the number of units that exempts a landlord from the law (in the original law it is 10 or fewer). At the Legal Committee meeting, there seemed to be some consensus that only landlords with just one rental unit should be exempt from the law. It was agreed that the two issues should be left to the full Council to decide. An exchange between DePietro and Councilmember Vicky Daskaloudi (Fifth Ward), however, raised a whole new issue--possibly one unique to Hudson.

When Councilmember Margaret Morris (First Ward), who chairs the Legal Committee, wanted to recognize Daskaloudi, who was attending the meeting virtually, for a comment, DePietro interrupted, asserting that Daskaloudi should not be part of the discussion because she is a landlord. Daskaloudi reacted by telling DePietro, "I wasn't planning to say something against your law that you love so much." Gossips has since learned that at some time prior to the committee meeting, Daskaloudi had made it known that she was considering recusing herself from this issue. The recusal had not been made officially or publicly, but DePietro was apparently aware of it. Recusal would require that Daskaloudi not participate in the discussion.

The exchange raised an interesting question for the Common Council: Should councilmembers who have tenants or who are tenants recuse themselves from deciding on opting in to the Good Cause Eviction Law? If the answer to that question is yes, it would leave, according to Gossips' calculation, only four members of the Council who are unaffected. Four is not enough to take any action.

Crystal Peck, legal counsel to the Common Council, said she would look into the situation. The committee, meanwhile, agreed to move the issue to the full Council. The informal meeting of the Common Council takes place on Monday, September 9, at 6:00 p.m.

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Mark Your Calendars

As most readers have heard, the City of Hudson is working on a new comprehensive plan. The work has been proceeding in "internal meetings" with Public Works Partners, the consultants commissioned for the project; "the City," represented by Mayor Kamal Johnson, Common Council president Tom DePietro, and housing justice manager Michelle Tullo; and a steering committee made up of thirteen members of the community, chosen by Johnson, DePietro, and Tullo--Alex Elmasri, Alex Petraglia, Javed Iqbal, Jayden Cross, Jess Wallen, Joshua Cohen, Kali Michael, Kim Hunt, Lisa Dolan, Pat Malloy, Piper Olf, Shaina Marron, and Sonja Okun. 

On June 3, the first Community Visioning Workshop was held at The Spark of Hudson. It was a drop-in event that took place over a period of two hours. Today, the City announced the second Community Visioning Workshop, to happen on Saturday, September 21, from 10:00 a.m. until noon. The location is the Hudson High School Cafeteria, 215 Harry Howard Avenue. This time, the workshop is not a drop-in event. People are expected to arrive at 10:00 am. and stay for the whole two hours. 

Here is the official announcement of the event:

The City of Hudson is hosting its second Community Visioning Workshop to inform its new Comprehensive Plan.

During the first workshop, the project team shared initial research findings and heard from residents about the values they most want to see reflected in the final plan. This second workshop will seek to align participants around a guiding vision for Hudson's future and types of actions the City should prioritize in the coming years.

The workshop will start with a presentation summarizing the project and its progress to date, including results from the Community Preference Survey. After that, attendees will break up into smaller groups to go deeper into a community visioning exercise and begin identifying potential recommendations for the Comprehensive Plan.

This will be a two-hour workshop beginning promptly at 10:00 a.m. Please arrive on time in order to fully participate in the program. The event will include activities for kids and light refreshments. Advanced registration is not required.

When: Saturday, September 21st--10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon

Where: Hudson Sr. High School Cafeteria (215 Harry Howard Ave)

To learn more about the comprehensive planning process, please visit the project webpage by clicking here. If you have any questions, please email comprehensiveplan@cityofhudson.org.

Of Interest

Chronogram has published its most recent article about Hudson: "Kaleidoscopic City: A Photo Essay of Hudson." The photographs are by David McIntyre. and the article includes the eighty-two portraits taken at the Waterfront Wednesdays event on August 7. 

Photo: David McIntyre

Somber News

Gossips has received word that Paul Czajka has died.

Photo: Lori Van Buren|Times Union

In January 2023, Czajka, then 68, announced he would not be seeking a sixth term as Columbia County district attorney. Czajka served a total of thirty-five years in elected office in Columbia County, both as district attorney (1988-1994 and 2011-2023) and as county judge (1995-2011). 

On December 8, 2023, county notables gathered in the Ceremonial Courtroom in the Columbia County courthouse to honor Czajka on the occasion of his retirement and celebrate his years of service. The video recording of the event, by Lance Wheeler, can be viewed here.

Meetings of Interest in the Week Ahead

With Labor Day behind us, summer is unofficially over, but the actual end of summer doesn't happen until September 22. In the prelude to autumn, here is what's happening.

• On Tuesday, September 3, the Conservation Advisory Council meets at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.
• On Wednesday, September 4, the Hudson Industrial Development Agency meets at 10:30 a.m. Updates on a number of projects are on the agenda for the meeting, including Galvan's revised proposal for 75 North Seventh Street. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at One City Centre, Suite 301, and on Zoom. Click here to join the meeting remotely.

Update: The IDA meeting has been canceled because, as it was explained to Gossips, there were "no pressing issues needing a vote."

• At 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 4, the Common Council Legal Committee holds its monthly meeting. It appears that opting in to the Good Cause Eviction Law is the main item on the agenda for the meeting. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely. 
• On Thursday, September 5, the first meeting of the Stuyvesant Falls Bridge Committee takes place at 6:00 p.m. The Bridge Committee was formed in response to the opposition and concern about plans to demolish the historic Stuyvesant Falls Bridge and replace it with a modern bridge. The meeting takes place at the Stuyvesant Town Hall, 5 Sunset Drive, in Stuyvesant.  

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