What Is the Benefit?
During the years of the City's consideration and accommodation of Stewart's Shops' proposal to expand its convenience store and gas station at Green Street and Fairview Avenue, a project that involves demolishing two houses and losing at least six affordable apartments, the question was often asked by skeptics of the project: "How does this benefit Hudson?" Last night, we got the answer.
Libby Coreno, attorney for Stewart's Shops, appeared at the Common Council Legal Committee meeting last night to present the terms of the host community benefit agreement. The City would receive $200,000 from Stewart's to compensate for the impacts of the project on the community: $135,000 to $140,000 to be used for improvements to the intersection to enhance pedestrian access; the remainder--$60,000 to $65,000--to be used for planning and zoning studies.
The article that appeared on Tuesday in HudsonValley360 suggested that members of the Common Council would be meeting with representatives of Stewart's Shops to "hash out" a community host benefit agreement, but if there was any hashing out, it didn't take place at last night's Legal Committee meeting. When Gossips asked how it was determined that $135,000 to $140,000 would be adequate to remedy the perceived problems at the intersection, city attorney Andy Howard said that the cost had been determined by the Planning Board and Stewart's.
The Legal Committee asked Howard to prepare the host community benefit agreement document and unanimously voted to move the agreement on to the full Council for approval.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CAROLE OSTERINK
I remain skeptical.
ReplyDeleteTo be accurate, all of the money could have been used for "planning and zoning." Using much of it to improve the intersection was our choice, "hashed out" among ourselves in conversations at the Planning Board.
ReplyDeleteI suppose this Gossips post is really about how HudsonValley360 got the story wrong, which makes it an informative post.