Whose Lot Is It Anyway?

More than once in the recent past, Common Council president Tom DePietro has talked about selling city-owned property to close the revenue gap in the 2020 city budget. He has mentioned the possibility of selling the house at the Churchtown Reservoir in Taghkanic and monetizing the vacant land behind Charles Williams Park as a solar field.

 

At the Public Works and Parks Committee meeting last Wednesday, DPW superintendent Rob Perry, presumably at DePietro's request, reported on the potential income from the sale of four city-owned properties maintained by DPW: 1 North Front Street, the former Washington Hose firehouse now the location of the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce; 10-12 Warren Street, the location of the Hudson Daycare Center; 429 Warren Street, the location of the Code Enforcement Office; and 520 Warren Street, City Hall. He noted that if each of the buildings were sold for the fair market value listed in the tax rolls, the city would realize a profit of $2,560,000. If all the buildings went back on the tax rolls, it would bring in $19,430 annually to the city, based on the current mill rate. Of course, the expense of rehoming City Hall and the Code Enforcement Office did not figure into the discussion.

A property that is not getting mentioned in the current discussion is the vacant lot at the corner of Fourth and State streets. Since 2006 or so, the county has been using the lot as an annex to its two-level parking lot on Columbia Street, across from county office building at 325 Columbia. To Gossips knowledge, the county does not compensate the city in any way for the use of this lot.

Today, a phalanx of county trucks was lined up along Fourth Street, and heavy equipment and workers were busy, it seemed, regrading and resurfacing the lot--upgrading a parking lot on property that doesn't belong to the county.  

In February 2020, the Common Council passed a resolution in support of selling the parcel for the development of affordable housing. Didn't anyone remind that county that the city owns the lot or inform them that the city has other plans for it? Or did the Common Council's resolve to sell it go the way of its resolve to sell it in 2012 and again in 2015?

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