Friday, March 6, 2020

Progress on City DRI Projects

On Wednesday, the DRI Committee met to review the status of the three projects--Promenade Hill, BRIDGE District connectivity, and the Dunn warehouse--and initiate the discussion of the fourth--the Historic Fishing Village, a.k.a. "the Shacks."

On the subject of the restoration and renovation of Promenade Hill, the committee plans a "kick-off site walk" with Starr Whitehouse, the firm hired to oversee the project, on March 23 at some undetermined time. It is anticipated that there will be an eight-month design process, including a "mobile workshop" in mid-April, followed by a series of meetings after a design is developed. The schedule for the project, which appears to have construction beginning in December 2020, can be viewed here.

The BRIDGE District connectivity project is still awaiting a revised contract and a schedule. The project is expected to involve a "publicly focused design exercise," following the tactical urbanism approach to test out ideas by staging temporary improvements. Chris Round, the consultant from the Chazen Companies who is acting as DRI project manager, said this project is likely to be done in two phases: (1) build consensus behind an entire design; (2) match what can be accomplished with the money available. This project is getting the lion's share of DRI funding: $4,232,550.

Regarding the Dunn warehouse, no one at the meeting knew when the contract with Tecta America WeatherGuard LLC to do the short-term stabilization to the roof had been signed, so no one knew when the 21-day period during which the work was guaranteed to be completed had begun. (This is being handled by Commissioner of Public Works Peter Bujanow, who was not present at Wednesday's meeting.) Round reported making minor changes to the request for expressions of interest (REI) and distributed the revised document to the members of the committee. (That document can be found here.) During the meeting, changes were made to the schedule (on page 13 of the REI) to give members of the committee more time to review the proposals, which are due on Friday, April 10.

On the topic of the Furgary Boat Club, a.k.a. "the Shacks," now known as the Historic Fishing Village, Round had prepared a draft RFP (request for proposal) for a landscape architecture firm to design a "historical, cultural, interpretive park." It was proposed that $20,000 of the $191,290 available for the project would go for a master plan that would define the themes for interpretation and "articulate what the vision is, so you have a clear path forward." The plan is to post the draft RFP on the city website for public comment before it is released. That hasn't happened yet.

At the end of the meeting, when public comment was invited, Timothy O'Connor, who was one of the driving forces in getting the DRI money for "the Shacks," spoke of "mission creep." He explained that the original intent was "to take the money and shore up the worthy shacks." He asserted that "the code fixes a limited vision for what can be done."

Joe Gallo, a former Furgarian, asked, "You're going to use tax dollars for what the fishermen did for free?" 

Leo Bower suggested that the site needed a historic marker to commemorate the "hunting, fishing, and trapping community" that used the site. Billy Shannon, who has written about the Shacks for the New York Times, suggested the site should include some kind of museum of river fishing. Dylan Meyer expressed the opinion, "We have so much human capital in Hudson, people willing to donate their time and passion. We just need to gather it together and put it to good use." He went on to suggest that the City needed a "Parks and Land Use Department to deal with this."

Bower asked who would take down the shacks that it was determined would be demolished. Meyer suggested that volunteers could do it. When he was told demolition would involve asbestos removal, he contended that volunteers could be trained to do asbestos removal. "This is something that everyone in Hudson should be a part of," he asserted.

Back in August 2015, the Common Council authorized an expenditure of not more than $11,262 for asbestos and lead-based paint testing on the shacks. The understood reason at the time for doing the testing was to determine which shacks, if any, had no hazardous material issues and could be demolished by the Department of Public Works and which shacks would require demolition by a crew trained to deal with hazardous materials. If there is indeed a group of people "willing to donate their time and passion," it seems this study, done in 2015, could be used to determine which shacks are free of asbestos and lead-based paint and could be demolished by volunteers. Perhaps the study could be made available in the DRI Document Center on the City of Hudson website.

Update: Superintendent of Public Works Rob Perry just informed me that the hazardous materials study is available on the City of Hudson website and has been since 2015, on the DPW page. It can be viewed by clicking here.
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10 comments:

  1. Re: Shacks, initially Mr. Meyers had asked about demolition, but the committee member who replied answered a different question more to his liking. This introduced unnecessary confusion.

    What Messrs. Meyers and Perry didn’t understand was that remediation and demolition were never meant to be conducted by the same contractor. That's why we got different estimates for the different tasks from two different companies.

    In fact, Mr. Meyers never got an answer to his question. The DRI meetings should not be run this way.

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  2. One has to wonder if federal dollars were used to promote the historical use of North Dock through the Works Progress Administration 1936 - 1936, when the historical use became painfully obvious?

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  3. I ran into Mayor Johnson yesterday who easily summed up my own comment to the DRI committee: Why would we pay someone to find out what we already know?

    Exactly. And I'm grateful that someone was paying attention while others sought to confuse matters.

    The "fishing village" project begs for thinking outside the box, but NOT to arrive at some fantastic, theme-park vision.

    Incidentally, Sheena Salvino who had a deeply personal interest in the shacks really understood this "less is more" approach, and was working on specific grants to augment our DRI award at the time her career took her elsewhere. This project owes Sheena's can-do spirit a great debt of gratitude.

    If we may also toot our own horns, unlike many other DRI proposals our award-winning application was conceived on the basis of what the City Code will allow, specifically at Chapters 325 and 148.

    Chapter 148, which is administered by the HCDPA, is so precise as to specify numerical venting specifications per square foot of each "accessory structure" in anticipation of potential hydrostatic pressure.

    Since we who submitted the proposal already accounted for such details, though no one's approached for our ideas since, I'm delighted that our mayor took note of our thorough preparation even if the DRI facilitator did not.

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  4. I hate to say it, but another $20,000 of taxpayer money will be wasted on yet another "master plan", this time for a tiny little corner park next to the sewer plant. What was the result of the multi thousand dollar analysis of the rotting shacks? - you've got a bunch of rotting shacks with old paint and shingles that need to be shoved in a dumpster. That's right folks, for a couple of thousand dollars you can get a few dumpsters, a couple of backhoes and in a day or two shove all those shacks in dumpsters, cart them away, rake it up and plant some grass, it's that simple. But our retarded government will instead spend a decade debating the historical importance of a bunch of rotting shacks built from discards from the dump and doing moronic studies of the content of old roofing shingles, caulk and window glaze. Why is our country trillions in debt? - because the Pentagon will pay $1000 for a pair of scissors and here in Hudson we spend decades and hundreds of thousands to do nothing but analyze, examine and debate a simple task that could have been done in day or two.

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    1. For once we agree. If not used to promote Navigation, they've become an obstruction to the people's "permanent easement" and should be eliminated.

      Going forward these waterfront wizards should also become familiar with the Furgary term "tube fish" for condoms hanging up in the bushes after a high water storm...

      The tourists will just love it.

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  5. We ALL agree for once; another "master plan" is a complete waste of money.

    But our agreement ends when you two start bullshitting everyone.

    There is no "obstruction to the people's 'permanent easement'" at North Bay. That's an excuse, blaming anyone other than yourself for sheer laziness.

    There are two boat launches at North Bay, one that's useless until it's dredged, and the other on railroad property.

    As for maintaining the floating docks which don't require anyone's permission (I checked with the US Army Corps of Engineers before Dennis and I pounded the first poles into railroad property post-eviction), the failure to maintain the docks yourself is your only impediment.

    It's a real shame that the NDTBA lost its adverse possession lawsuit (I'd have argued it differently), but your latest reasons for unhappiness are self-caused.

    P. Winslow is similarly misinformed and equally sour, although no one is obligated to honor history or respect their forebears.

    Previously P. Winslow called the occupants "squatters occupying the public north bay waterfront for their own personal private use on the public dime."

    After 125 years of documented occupation, the NDTBA was in its rights to claim adverse possession. But from whom? Whose property? The case was concluded in 2012, but P. Winslow hasn't a clue as to the answer. Sorry, not good enough.

    And what "public dime" was involved, and how were the occupants "illegally tapping into power lines"? (They had separate utility accounts and paid separate bills.)

    As for the alleged "private use," it was Riparian himself who invited me to participate, a mere passerby. If it satisfies his sour grapes to now remain silent at P. Winslow's fabrications, then that's not the same as agreeing.

    Let's get some facts straight.

    Nobody knew who owned the land until the decision in the NDTBA's court challenge. When the NYS Office of General Services determined that the state had always owned those lands underwater, AND NOT THE CITY, it was immediately apparent that the city had built its wastewater treatment plant on state property!

    Now who was the "squatter"? And what was the real "obstruction to the people's 'permanent easement' at North Bay"?

    P. Winslow asks "the result of the multi thousand dollar analysis" on the shacks, by which she means the contaminants analysis.

    Before anyone shoves anything in a dumpster, though, state law prohibits municipalities from simply discarding the same contaminants which you or I can dump as household items, even when it's asbestos-filled caulk or window glaze.

    So P. Winslow's argument is with state law, and not with the shacks themselves. Whatever's done with individual shacks - save or raze them - their remediation is required by law in either case. Feel free to take it up with Albany.

    Lastly, there's no "debate" whatsoever about the value of the shantytown as a historic resource, nor did it take "a decade" for the state to reach its conclusion. Working with the NYS Museum, SHPO reached its enthusiastic determination in a matter of months.

    Those who hate history are free to do so, but watch carefully as the more unscrupulous among them substitute falsehoods for truths. For some unfathomable reason, the shacks elicit this sort of mendacity from the noisiest of people.

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    1. "as for maintaining the floating docks which don't require anyone's permission (I checked with the US Army Corps"

      Which means we were entitled to the continuous historic use which only ended when an illegal, post facto fencing completely obstructed our path for three long years.

      As I told you beforehand we were paying for use, the fence blocked our members from maintaining our floats.

      City might need a line item for legal fees going forward.

      Letter of intent to follow...

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    2. Just so people understand, you're complaining about something that's years in the past and is no longer the case.

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  6. Good post 'unheimlich'! Set 'em straight.

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    1. I've been waiting for you to get personal.

      City erects a fence, destroying the floats our members paid for then sees you (beautiful) sailboat docked at Rick's Point, with no registration.

      Someone makes a complaint and a drunk Unheimlich shows up on my doorstep accusing me. Lucky I didn't put his foot in his back pocket and throw him over my legal fence.

      No matter how many friends you have your no better than any of the people paying for access.

      Hypocritical freeloader!

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