Those Seven Acres
The seven acres of waterfront south of the dock, which the City of Hudson must possess before the Department of State will approve the LWRP, have been the topic of discussion by the Common Council in executive session on several occasions. Tonight it appears the acquisition will be considered in a special meeting of the Common Council at 6:30 p.m., preceding the informal meeting.
It is shameful that no one has been paying attention to this issue.
ReplyDeleteIf you are someone who pretends to care about the South Bay, then SHAME ON YOU! for not paying attention to this.
If you pretended to care about irregularities in the LWRP, then SHAME ON YOU! for not knowing what the city is up to now.
Should the issue of the Seven Acres even be addressed before the outcome of the city's dishonest BOA grant application is known? (It was equally shameful that nobody took any interest in that.)
The BOA grant will have everything to do with the future of this site, but local officials would rather no questions were asked, and that the manipulated momentum of events will decide issues for us as if by default.
Too bad for Mother Nature that we're all so busy preening over our fine environmental feelings.
What a bunch of deadbeat hypocrites we are (not that that would effect anyone's self-regard ... not in Hudson anyway!).
Isn't there anyone curious about how this issue might impact the environment?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to make one last appeal to you to PLEASE contact me today.
My own aldermen? The Register Star? Anyone?!!
I'm very easy to find.
With the exception of one thoughtful alderman from the 1st Ward who abstained, the council has agreed to enter into an agreement with Holcim on the matter of the transfer of the acreage south of the Holcim port.
ReplyDeleteMy principle reason for raising questions - and I do represent others who choose not to comment - concerns the LWRP's ill-conceived plan for a parking lot and a marina at the site, something both the South Bay Task Force and the Valley Alliance have opposed. The DEC also questioned that plan in their comments on the GEIS, but as we've seen the Region 4 office is easily gotten around.
But aside from the city's plans for the site, whether for good or for ill, was the land transfer ever discussed outside of Common Council executive sessions? The public was never involved after the occasion of the LWRP itself, which as we all know - or should know - excluded the public in every substantive way.
This is how deals get done in Hudson, but from a democratic standpoint it's not very admirable. There is plenty more to this deal than meets the eye, and possibly much to gratify Holcim, but how can a public which has not been invited to the table know what is really going on?
We did learn one thing tonight which bears repeating and repeating and repeating: that the eccentric zoning scheme for the Core Riverfront District shall not exceed the width of the causeway road, which was effective the moment the new zoning was enacted in December 2012.
The fact that the landowner has already expanded the width of the road (and without planning permission) is nothing compared to the Common Council president's admission tonight that the company MAY NOT exceed the limit in future.
Short of the creation of an official Zoning Map (which the city is required by law to accomplish), it has taken years to get this statement on the record - actually since 2010.
I could have wished that Cheryl Roberts - the author of the LWRP and GEIS who was seated beside the president tonight - had concurred with the president's statement, but I did not wish to be seen questioning the authority of the president's pronouncement.
This means that we must all remember what was said: that the Core Riverfront District does not exceed the width of the current causeway road. The claim has never been recorded before, and from a SEQRA standpoint should have been understood by the council AND the public before tonight's vote.
Better late than never I suppose, but don't forget!