The comments submitted during the "official public comment period," it will be remembered, were categorized and responded to by city attorney Cheryl Roberts and Frank Fish of BFJ Planning. A comment made on Gossips recently suggests that, in some instances, their knowledge of the waterfront may not have been equal to the task. For example, as the Gossips commenter pointed out, they responded to a comment about the historic railroad trestle south of Broad Street as if the comment had been about the Ferry Street bridge.
The planners' misinformation and lack of response when errors are pointed out goes back to the beginning. In 2006-2007, when this writer was an alderman and a member of the Waterfront Advisory Steering Committee, the planners had to be told four times--twice in steering committee meetings and twice in public meetings--that Allen Street below Third was not a truck route before they finally changed the map, and they had to be told twice--most emphatically--that the Dr. Oliver Bronson house and grounds was a National Historic Landmark before they abandoned the notion of zoning that area of the city to allow the site to be developed as a condo community with the Bronson House as its "clubhouse."
There is one error that persists in the LWRP maps, even though it has been pointed out many times.
As the satellite photograph shows--and as anyone who has spent any time there knows--there are four slips along the shoreline of Henry Hudson Riverfront Park, but the map in the LWRP shows only three. This error was pointed to the planners at a public meeting early in 2007, and Paul Buckhurst of BFJ said it would be corrected. When the person who pointed out the error asked Buckhurst after the meeting how many embayments there were at the waterfront, Buckhurst is reported to have replied, "I don't know, and I don't care." Apparently so, since the map in the LWRP still shows only three.
The January, 2007 LWRP workshops (4) were the last ones held, and almost everything has changed about the LWRP since then except for these bad maps!
ReplyDeleteIt was at the last of those workshops that the Mayor's attorney, Cheryl Roberts, recommended that the City execute an Environmental Impact Statement, under SEQRA.
"There would be a scoping meeting in which the public is asked what options should be studied" (quoted from penultimate page of LWRP Appendix B).
Exactly one year later in the Mayor's office, with no SEQR Lead Agency representation present, it was decided that not only would there be no public "scoping," but that Roberts and BFJ Planners would scope the impact statement, the "GEIS," for the aldermen too.
At the following Common Council meeting on Feb. 17, 2009, Roberts presented the outline of the already prepared scope, and that was that.
"LWRP Attorney stated the Scope of the GEIS would be completed by the Planners and herself" (CC Minutes).
Not only has the Common Council/Lead Agency never been able to gain control of that document since then, its subsequent stages were intentionally designed to circumvent public review.
The public comments' widespread praise of the then-proposed zoning was finally presented 14 months later in the FGEIS, along with brand new zoning re-designed by O&G.
(The new zoning was O&G's idea, which they presented in their own "public comments." Thereafter, the new zoning proposal was always defended as being "based on the public comments"! A classic bait-and-switch.)
The painstaking analysis and critiques in the public comments about "the alternative" routes were a wasted effort, because the alternatives which we commented on were not the correct ones. This was later explained as "simply a misunderstanding on the part of BFJ staff" (3.1.46).
The whole point of a GEIS is to analyze alternatives.
But O&G paid for the analysis of the fake alternatives, and Roberts and BFJ ensured that the public comment process was circumvented in yet another bait-and switch.
New York is a "Home Rule" state, which, in the opinion of some, is an unfortunate leftover from the progressive era of the 1920s.
It is unfortunate because it is wide open to the kinds of abuses we've endured in Hudson, and anywhere citizens don't stand up and say "No!" to special interests. Frankly, it requires too much of us to be able to prevent our interests from being commandeered by the O&Gs, the BFJs, the Scaleras, the Robertses and the Moores of this world.
Throughout the years, the state has been prevented from weighing in, or even from reflecting back any of our public concerns (we relinquished our voice on Feb. 17, 2009 to the Mayor's office).
The state's hands have been tied, until now that is.
Now they must make their own decision on whether to underwrite a product so contemptuous of our concerns, and obviously tailor-made for a huge mining corporation.
If we don't speak up now, there is no reason why the overburdened bureaucrats at the DOS shouldn't rubber-stamp this mess and move on.
Please confirm the above claims for yourselves, and then write to the Division of Coastal Resources and tell them that you are watching:
George Stafford
(518) 474-6000
george.stafford@dos.state.ny.us
Director of the Division of Coastal Resources
NYS Department of State
99 Washington Avenue, Suite 1010
Albany, NY 12231-0001