We all know that parking at Columbia Memorial Hospital has been a problem for people living in the surrounding neighborhoods, so much so that it inspired Mayor William Hallenbeck, back in 2014, to come up with a parking permit plan intended to prevent hospital workers and visitors to the hospital from taking the onstreet parking places used by neighborhood residents. That plan evolved into Local Law No. 1 for 2015.
It's been months since anything has been heard about this legislation, which was withdrawn from the Common Council's consideration by Council president Don Moore on November 2015, and which current Council president Claudia DeStefano suggested in March 2016 should be resurrected. Meanwhile, it seems CMH may be contemplating its own solution to the parking problems: constructing another parking garage on the site of the former Eden Park Nursing Home with an enclosed walkway passing over Prospect Avenue, connecting the parking structure with the main hospital building.
Will the new parking area be for employees only and will they have to pay to park?
ReplyDeleteShould it be a park and pay for CMH employees I dare say the present parking issue will continue into the future.
Is the City of Hudson planning a parking garage on the present parking lot of the 500 block of Columbia Street with a covered walkway to Warren?
I live on one of the streets affected by this issue, so unsurprisingly I have a strong opinion about it, which is, simply:
ReplyDelete1) Limited resident permit parking on the side streets near CMH should be adopted regardless, and hopefully very soon, by our at-least-occasionally reasonable elected representatives.
2) As a related, but separate discussion, if the hospital truly wishes to be a good neighbor, then it should provide adequate and FREE onsite or nearby parking for its employees, preferably without destroying historic landmarks or creating some big new eyesore of a garage.
Is that really such an unreasonable request? Hopefully not.