What's in Store for the Greenport School

Arthur Cusano reports today in the Register-Star on the plan to turn the former Greenport School into an apartment complex: "Greenport School housing project set for some changes." It seems the developer was told by the Greenport Planning Board that pursuing the original plan would require oversight by the Department of Environmental Conservation. To avoid that, the developer decided to alter the plan.

The developer is JMS Collective, which according to Greenport building inspecter, John Florio, is based in Athens but "owns a number of properties in Hudson." A visit to the JMS Collective website reveals that "a number of properties in Hudson" is actually two: 77 North Fifth Street and 816 Warren Street. From this information, it can be concluded that JMS Collective is also known as JMS Construction Services, Inc.  

77 North Fifth Street

816 Warren Street

A year ago, 816 Warren Street was the subject of several posts on The Gossips of Rivertown. It was the building, in a locally designated historic district, on which work commenced without a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission or a building permit from the Code Enforcement Office and continued even after a stop work order had been issued by then code enforcement officer Peter Wurster, and for which a certificate of appropriateness was sought after all the work was completed. Rick Rector, chair of the HPC described this flouting of the law "cowboy action." Wurster called for punitive action, expressing this opinion that the project should be fined. City attorney Cheryl Roberts, then counsel to the HPC, said that the decision to pursue and prosecute those who ignore the laws of the City was the purview of the mayor, and apparently William Hallenbeck decided to give 816 Warren Street a pass.
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