At the Common Council Legal Committee meeting last Wednesday, Jeff Baker, counsel to the Council, said the drafts of two new laws proposed by the committee would be posted on the City of Hudson website the next day. They finally appeared sometime today. They are the current draft of the law regulating short-term rentals and an amendment to the law regarding standards for sidewalks. Both are now available on the City of Hudson website, and the public is invited to submit comments on either or both laws to Alderman John Rosenthal (Fourth Ward), who chairs the Legal Committee: john.rosenthal@cityofhudson.org.
It was decided at the Legal Committee meeting that the sidewalk law would be introduced to the full Council at the next informal meeting on Monday, July 13. The short-term rental law would stay in committee, subject to revision based on public input, until August.
Interestingly, the proposed sidewalk law takes away from the Historic Preservation Commission an authority it never realized it had: to require a certificate of appropriateness for new sidewalk installed in historic districts. Had the HPC and code enforcement only known, the replacement of blue stone sidewalks with characterless concrete in historic districts might have been avoided.
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Under the proposed sidewalk law residents will no longer shoulder liability for either repairs or pedestrian injuries.
ReplyDeleteLast week I attempted to stop a surveyor hammering a spike through a diagonal crack in the middle of my sidewalk. I explained that I was responsible for the sidewalk and that his action was further damaging it.
The brute looked at me, shook his head, spat, and continued hammering.
When I phoned Crawford & Associates Engineering to complain, “Dan” informed me that his company does the same thing all over Hudson so what’s the problem?
I explained the Code, but his haughty reply was “I’m not going to read the Code.”
Under the proposed sidewalk law, Crawford engineering’s infamous arrogance towards city residents will be less of an issue for individual homeowners who must otherwise look to the police in such circumstances.
I decided not to bother the HPD despite the surveyor’s ill manner and intimation of violence. Result: today the spike is removed and I am a convert to the proposed sidewalk law.
(Note to City: please use a different company than Crawford & Associates.)