A. Colarusso and Sons has been before the Hudson Planning Board on and off for the past six years. It all started in 2016, when the company began seeking approval for a haul road to follow the path of Fred W. Jones's mountain railroad and travel more or less as the crow flies from the dock in Hudson to the quarry in Greenport. Five years and a few lawsuits later, the issue still has not be resolved, but according to an article by Roger Hannigan Gilson that appeared in the Times Union earlier this week, the Planning Board is coming close to making a decision: "Recreation or industry? The battle over Hudson's waterfront is coming to a head."
Update: Gossips just learned from Stephen Steim, chair of the Planning Board, that the next special meeting to consider the Colarusso applications is being scheduled for sometime in September.
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Recreation or industry is a false choice! That's immediately apparent to anyone who's read the City's adopted LWRP (Local Waterfront Revitalization Program) or the LWRP's associated zoning amendments.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the 2011 LWRP is premised on the 2002 Comprehensive Plan, which itself drew upon the 1996 Vision Plan.
The only difference now is that current applicant to the Planning Board who bought the South Bay property in 2014 pretended from the beginning there was no LWRP and no zoning amendments.
This is seen in three different EAFs submitted to the City in 2016, in which the applicant claimed that the proposed action is "a permitted use under the zoning regulations" (April 27 & May 17, 2016), and denied that the use is "permitted or allowed by a special or conditional use permit" (May 3, 2016).
The courts have since shown that all three claims were untrue, but the damage of "disappearing" the LWRP has endured. Today too many residents and city officials - even those who continuously fought to participate in development of the LWRP - fail to contextualize the current application for a conditional use permit within the policies of the LWRP and the attending rationale of the program explained in its own SEQRA review.
Today, each new action or proposal in South Bay must be interpreted wholly through the terms of the 2011 waterfront program. Even the current and ongoing SEQRA review should become "supplemental" to the 2008 - 2011 review, a technical term in SEQRA.
The LWRP struck a difficult balance between recreation and industry. To now present the two as an either/or choice is not only false, it erases what was actually achieved in 2011, an erasure which assists the applicant and furthers sensational journalism.
The LWRP's balanced plan to eventually remove gravel trucks from streets west of 3rd Street while committing a limited number of trucks to use the South Bay causeway in both directions was never completed.
Sadly, neither residents nor city officials really grasp the meaning or intent of the LWRP, and that puts us in danger of wasting the last opportunity to achieve the program.
In fairness to the Planning Board, they may think they're ready to move forward, but not only is the EAF not being completed properly, they're still doing battle with their own misinformed advisors.
At the recent sub-quorum meeting, the members who were present asked their lawyer to remove her claim that the causeway is "one way." She agreed, but without explaining whether or not she thought the members were wrong. (A two-way causeway was critical to the success of the 2011 plan.)
Then, not 10 minutes later, the Planning Board's own engineer referred to "the one-way causeway."
In my opinion, these two disastrous individuals should have been fired a long time ago.
I'm finally reading Gilson's story, and he repeats the fatal misunderstanding I detailed above:
Delete"The commercial dock operation in question ... was bought by Colarusso & Son in 2014.
"The company then proposed constructing a private haul road from its quarries in Greenport to its docks in Hudson that would circumnavigate most of the city."
No! He's left out the all-important fact that a proposed road between the dock and the quarry was the CENTERPIECE of the 2011 waterfront program!
Later, I watched in disbelief when the current landowner presented it's own proposal as a brand new idea. Just about everyone in Hudson then repeated, "Oh, this is a new idea."
As the story itself shows, we're still stuck in the same state of ignorance.
It's this same ignorance which leads to the ridiculous question whether or not an Environmental Impact Statement is an appropriate course before issuing a conditional use permit. Again, this was all covered in the 2011 "Findings Statement" (Findings are the legal "teeth" of SEQRA).
"[The city] identified potential adverse environmental impacts that may need to be addressed in the future through a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) should certain events or actions occur related to the port or use of the South Bay causeway as an alternative truck access route" (p. 10).
"[An SEIS] will assist the Planning Commission in determining whether the action can be approved and if so whether and to what extent mitigation measures and conditions are necessary to address any potential adverse environmental impacts" (p. 16).
For goodness' sake, it's the city's adopted policy! What's the argument? C'mon people, shake yourselves out of it. Incredibly, some who took part in the LWRP are now repeating these same absurd questions. Just unreal.
Here's the 2011 Findings Statement at the City website, of which I have no doubt only the applicant's attorney will read:
https://cms3files.revize.com/hudsonny/document_center/Waterfront/821.pdf
And right on cue Linda Mussman appears in the story to help everyone forget the fact that the solution presented in the 2011 waterfront program was firmly steered by Environmental Justice concerns (EJ).
ReplyDeleteBut ask yourselves, how can a solution to the EJ problem which for so long Ms. Mussman did nothing to promote and everything to suppress now be exploited by her?
Well, it can't. Not after misusing the situation for a decade to her own advantage, and obviously at the expense of the potential EJ neighborhoods she pretends to care so much about.
Supervisor Mussman is a patently cynical and hypocritical politician who must continue to ignore the very solution to the Environmental Justice issue which became city policy a decade ago so she can draw our attention elsewhere.
But what's the journalist's excuse for not knowing this? And why does everyone else in the story equally ignore the city's adopted policy?
Again, it's because the applicant who bought into our 2011 policy in 2014 decided it didn't like being regulated in that way. So a variation of the predecessor's plan was hatched which aimed to supplant everything that came before. And it worked, too, because so few people are paying any attention, and fewer still understand the Code sections and their associated policies.
Notice in the story that Paul Colarusso not only didn't acknowledge the LWRP - the waterfront program which landed on a solution to today's identical problem - he pitches his own solution as if history only began when his company purchased the property three years later:
"The motivation for this whole thing at the very, very beginning [was] to get our trucks out of the city so we’re not exposed to any kind of liabilities that could happen.”
Um, maybe that's true for him but the very, very beginning of this story actually began in 2008, and was solved long before his purchase.
(Only consider the company's 2017 site plan for the proposed road presented itself as the latest revision of its predecessor's 2009 site plan!)
But by misremembering in this way, the owner is understandably acting in his own interest. What's harder to understand is the journalist's error in easing our LWRP down the memory hole. (You should have spoken with more people Roger.)
The solution to the Environmental Justice issue is fully detailed in the city's adopted waterfront program. After our years of work on it, the LWRP can and must be achieved. And if the compromise already worked out for the applicant is inconvenient for a business which bought its way into the city's Zoning Code and other policies, then all we can say is buyer beware.
Why is it Hudson's problem if the company bought a lemon? It should have read the fine print first, all of which was posted at the city website for the last 10 years.
Happily, among the program's negotiated compromises they'll find a silver lining: a one-lane road across the South Bay to be used in two directions of travel for the purpose of removing truck traffic from potential EJ city neighborhoods.
That's the plan. Stick to the plan. Make it a mantra.
Christ almighty, doesn't anyone remember any of this?! How disappointing.
Interesting to see Colarusso grumbling about the fact that they might have to go through a proper review of the their permit application. The 2011 waterfront zoning revision mandated that should any physical alteration be made to their property, it would trigger a Planning Board review. Colarusso bought their land holdings three years later in 2014, so there is no reason for them to be surprised that they will likely be forced to submit a full Environmental Impact Statement. In addition, the NY Department of State designated South Bay as a significant Fish & Wildlife Habitat in 2012, which is two full years before Colarusso bought their property. That special habitat status will come into play should the NY Division of Coastal Resources be called in to make a ruling on the proposed gravel dump and truck route. Any halfway competent land use attorney should have recognized that the company would be facing a very steep climb to secure their permits. Either Colarusso hasn't been paying attention to the most fundamental legal and policy principles at play here, or they assumed that they could just ram their proposal through in good old boy fashion. Apparently they didn't learn anything from the St. Lawrence Cement episode.
ReplyDeleteYer darned tootin', and of your two possibilities they surely opted to "ram the proposal through." The company's attorney is as sly as a fox.
DeleteAmong the hazards faced by our Planning Board members, it's they who lack a competent land use attorney to advise them.
Right now and for the duration, the LWRP should be that attorney's Bible. But I suspect that history began when she arrived too. It's a very bad situation.
I notice Linda Mussman pontificating in that article. Given that she serves the City as a Columbia County Supervisor, Mussman might want to clear up her position on the Colarusso application. Here she is, speaking in front of the Hudson Planning Board:
ReplyDelete“I never ever endorsed the idea of having trucks through, or use, the haul road. Just to clear up any confusion about what people think about what I think about the Waterfront. I do not think the trucks belong on the Waterfront. Period.”
Unbelievable. Glad Peter and Unheimlich are still around - I remember the hard-fought LWRP and 2011. Too bad the lawyer and engineer didn't study the whole subject. It's not for want of Unheimlich pointing it out. I trust the Planning Board will pay attention even if the lawyer doesn't.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jennifer. After everyone's years of efforts, our lack of attention of late is troubling.
DeleteNew people in Hudson need better accounts than generalized newspaper stories can offer, although Roger did crunch several of the complex parallel developments into manageable images.
To repeat, the central image which somehow never makes it into these accounts is the city's adopted LWRP, a hard won set of policies and laws that should act as a governor over every constituent decision. What's unbelievable to me is that everyone's lost or forgotten the waterfront program as the organizing principle throughout.
In large part, mightn't this be due to the fact that nearly half the Planning Board members, all of whom are the Board's most active members, arrived in Hudson after the LWRP had concluded?
Granted they've been swamped with other work, and I do appreciate their enthusiasm, many (most? all?) of Planning Board members wait until the day before - or even hours before - a PB meeting to refresh their knowledge on their assigned topic.
I realize I'm burning every last bridge here, but I'm ever committed to Meg's mantra that "the best idea wins." It's a matter of ideas first, and not who you did or didn't make happy this week (the reason I'm shunned by city government, and even kept off the CAC for years).
So yes, thank goodness for the last few of us who remember the standing-room-only crowds of residents arguing LWRP policies at City Hall, and thank goodness that TGOR continues as a venue for airing our collective recall.
Colarusso is doing a lot of whining about the length of the review process. Apparently they have forgotten that it was their frivolous and failed lawsuit that set the process back for a year-and-a-half.
ReplyDeleteConsidering how many Planning Board members are new to this topic - which for Hudson dates to the 19th century - it's concerning that this group is leaving out key details which will prove invaluable in any court defense.
ReplyDeleteThere's no advantage in failing to establish a complete record, the applicant's preferences and your own incompetent advisors notwithstanding.
Under PB Chairman Gramkow, it was a good idea to assign individual EAF topics to individual board members (EAF = Environmental Assessment Form).
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't solve the next problem, though, when members wait until just before the next meeting to work on their assignments. This leaves no time to understand other member's topics, which in turn undermines the holistic intent of SEQRA (the State Environmental Quality Review Act).
The worst example thus far, which occurred fortunately during August's "sub-quorum" meeting, came from the member whose assignment was to assess potentially negative impacts to significant species and habitats. Though an excellent job was done correcting the applicant's pathetic effort to list the property's state-listed species and habitats, the same member who'd compiled the exhaustive list failed to take into account another member's excellent analysis of the culverts.
The member who'd compiled the species list mistakenly concluded there'd be no significant impact to the listed species and habitats when the hazard presented by the aged culverts is likely a significant threat to everything listed.
To place this in a different context, by answering "No significant impacts" where species and habitats are concerned, the Planning Board would commit an unforced error if the matter should ever end up in court.
If the Planning Board wishes to avoid such unforced errors, its members must make an effort to coordinate their EAF answers according to the expectations of SEQRA.
It is still unclear to the public whether or not every member comprehends the board's previous category error, one which took years to get beyond. Think about that: entire years in which every member of the Planning Board failed to understand precisely what it was they were supposed to be reviewing!
Of course most of the blame for that is thanks to a parade of incompetent lawyers (none of them named Ken Dow), and an incompetent engineering consultant.
But great blame also goes to the applicant's attorney, for always steering our dimwitted advisors in the wrong direction.
To be clear, the applicant is not obligated to supply the deficiencies of the Planning Board's idiot advisors, but then it cannot complain, as Mr. Colarusso did in the Times Union article, that the Planning Board is taking too long thanks to the inconvenience of its learning curve.