Sunday, March 8, 2020
"Historic Fishing Village" Update
The draft RFP (request for proposal) for a master plan for the former Furgary Boat Club, now known as the "Historic Fishing Village," can be viewed online at the City of Hudson website. Click here to access the document.
Comments on the RFP should be emailed to mayor's aide Michael Chameides mayoralaide@cityofhudson.org. Comments must be received by Monday, March 16.
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We're finally talking about this and the project is already in danger of going off the tracks!
ReplyDeleteFortunately the RFP is only a "draft," but it's a shame that the DRI committee didn't review it beforehand along with the site plan our group developed in 2017 and submitted with our DRI application.
I could forgive the fellow from Chazen Companies for not knowing about the shacks' recent history (these consultant services apply the same generic planning template wherever they go), except that our group reached out earlier this year only to be ignored.
Now we see the cookie-cutter template in action, poised to eat up our limited resources with the hiring of trained experts who'll take months to finally explain the obvious.
Piggy-backing on the remark of the one who first welcomed me to the shacks, "You're going to use tax dollars for what the fishermen did for free?" Now apply the same principle to planning.
Another misstep is the holding of more public charrettes. We already did all that in 2018, which is when we floated a basic site plan to work from going forward. (Why hasn't anyone asked us our rationale which already received input from SHPO?)
It's time to work with SHPO to narrow the plan, and not to keep tearing off the scab. Otherwise we all know what the Chazen Companies have yet to learn, that some people, even some on the DRI committee, aim to disrupt the planning of this public park with disinformation and strife (See Gossips below, March 6th, "Progress on City DRI Projects").
We saw this strife-making in action at Wednesday's DRI meeting after one resident asked why the city, along with volunteers, shouldn’t do some of the work? When a committee member answered with a misdirection - that remediation had to be done by a licensed professional - he successfully sided-stepped the actual question and affected a conversational snarl.
Someone who's that cynical probably aims to deplete our limited funding when claiming that any company remediating the shacks will consider the entire site "hot." Besides ignoring the estimate that we-the-applicants already got and then submitted, it would mean ignoring the Common Council's expensive contaminants analysis. That's never going to happen, so why say it?
But back to the question of the more public-spirited resident, any committee member who'd actually read the Draft RFP could easily have quoted its most salutary section:
"Some of the site cleanup/demolition activities may be accomplished through City or volunteer forces."
We can only hope that, in future, a better prepared DRI committee is ready to take a step back each time a colleague starts throwing stink bombs.
Needless to say, the Draft RFP is in dire need of public input.
HELP!!!
DeleteWe need everyone’s help who ever supported the DRI shacks project, and there were so many of you in the past!
Today I made inquiries and nobody can tell me who substituted new project goals in the RFP for the objectives which won the award.
It was possibly done during the last administration, and even by an unelected planning consultant. (But it was not Steve Kearney from Stantec who always, thoughtfully, kept us in the loop.)
However these new features arrived, they’re already static to the newcomers now administering the project grant.
So if you ever cared about the shacks, or even found yourself supporting the project during the DRI public workshops, please write to Michael Chameides, the Mayor’s Aide, and demand that these unaccountable and gratuitous goals be stricken from the RFP.
From Sheena Salvino to Stantec to the troop of Department of State officials who visited Hudson, all knew that the award for the shacks was too small to afford a “Master Plan” for a new park, or “interpretive” signage. That was never in the plan!
Whether it was intended or not, someone along the way inserted these project-killing ideas and now we can’t get rid of them without a concerted effort.
We never knew about any added plans because no one after Sheena and Steve ever let us in. Evidently that’s still the case.
The issue now is the historical continuous USE of the wharf or we go back to court because city attorneys can not be trusted.
ReplyDeleteColumbia Littoral Conservancy, Inc.
From a city lawyer with a lawn jockey trying to rent property the city didn't own, to one who says the "city isn't in the business of renting property" while renting to current members, they are on record as telling any future undisclosed half truth necessary.
ReplyDeleteThe post facto fencing wasn't to dismantle shacks, it was to end shore use for NDTBA, Inc, with Power Boat using city shore 100 yards away on the other side of the tracks.
DeleteI’m looking forward to finding documentation of a previously agreed upon master plan for the Historic Fishing Village. I’ve only been on the committee since January 1, so I can’t speak to prior meetings. No one seems to be aware of a document that outlines the master plan for the site. At the meeting, Timothy O'Connor offered that he has a plan, which is great. But he also stated that it is not written down. Hopefully some research will identify an already created master plan. If there is not a written plan, I am in favor of creating one. Once we have a draft written plan, the public will then have an opportunity to comment on the draft plan prior to the DRI Committee making a decision.
ReplyDeleteI encourage the public to be involved throughout the city’s DRI implementation process. The meetings (including the discussion and workshopping of ideas) are public. For this RFP, one member of the committee offered a draft RFP. The draft, like other documents discussed at DRI Committee meetings, is publicly available. In addition to making comments at the DRI meeting, the public can offer comments between meetings.
-Michael Chameides
DRI Committee Member
Michael, our Master Plan was our award-winning site plan submitted to the Department of State with our DRI application.
DeleteAfterwards, we modified the concept following a site visit and the subsequent recommendations by SHPO (the State Historic Preservation Office).
Despite reaching out to Chris Round many times, no one asked us anything until after the draft RFP was produced. I can think of more efficient ways to tackle the challenge, but let's leave it at that.
This is going to be a small park, and considering the small grant we got the motto we adopted at the beginning is still the wisest one: "less is more."
My message to the DRI Committee would be, let's not overdo it.
Also, please have some consideration for the pile of documents we've already submitted over the years. It was only because we submitted them that we're having this conversation at all.
Riverfront Park, dog park, furgary, I hope there will be a commensurate increase in Mr Perry's pay and staff to allow for the continuous historical use. All issues eliminated by the Colonial Ordinance of 1640.
Delete"remediation had to be done by a licensed professional - he successfully sided-stepped the actual question"
ReplyDeleteEspecially when licensed locals offered to do the work. Our guys (still living) had asbestos for breakfast in the 60s.
Ten years ago we could have added users without lawyers, swat, fencing, permits or funding.
ReplyDeleteAll the Mayor need do was wink.
Same use, more cost and different users, hypocrites. We could have added users.
Master plan:
ReplyDelete1. Bulldoze rotten shacks.
2. Throw in dumpster.
3. Rake and plant grass.
4. Fix up one or two shacks for a boat house / museum, if you want to.
5. Make a spot to park a couple of cars.
6. Get some picnic tables and grills.
7. Fix up the ramp to put in boats.
There you go, you want to pay $20,000 for that? You are out of your minds.
Bingo! Now floats for county fishermen to dock. Volunteers doing Grant free maintenance.
DeleteThe shack in the foreground of the picture has fallen into the water, and the stilts on the shack and the rest of the shack in the background likely will soon, too. All the shacks are in horrible condition and we are going to save some, rehab them, continually maintain them and hope they don't get vandalized? For what? Nostalgia? Historical significance? Put a nice big sign up with a picture of Furgary telling us the story in a simple paragraph, remove all these eyesore shacks and the dangers they pose and leave it at that. Use all the money you didn't spend foolishly and fix a few blocks worth of sidewalks which WE CAN ALL USE. This is so absurd.
ReplyDeleteThere's no accounting for taste, but at least the critics should get the facts right. That's not exactly their first concern though.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, they already missed their chance to sink the project by pursuading the rather large number of residents who supported the DRI proposal that they were wrong, or had bad taste, or whatever the problem is.
As for wasting the precious resources the proposal has been given, it's a shame that whoever drafted that RFP has substituted a different project for the one that won the award.
Please help those of us who toiled for so many years towards a very different plan by telling the DRI Committee that using the scant funds alotted to this project in order to make a "Master Plan" including "interpretive" resources will bankrupt the original, award-winning idea to preserve and seal the select shacks indicated by NYS SHPO.
The question really is, who changed the project on us?
Also, why didn't anyone speak to us? We certainly reached out to the committee but were ignored.
Obviously this was bad from the start and it's just rotting quickly now.
DeleteLet's get the Historical Commission involved. They will set you straight,...no pun intended..Then nothing will ever get done and all that will be left are photographs " and what a great time we had " stories.
ReplyDelete