Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Ear to the Ground

On the agenda for the next 
Greenport Planning Board meeting, which takes place on Tuesday, November 23, is a proposal to construct a 161-unit apartment building on Healy Boulevard. The "For Sale" sign suggests that this lot, between the old ShopRite and Town Hall Drive, may be the site in question.

Gossips' intel suggested that the project was being proposed by Redburn Development Partners, the creators of The Wick Hotel here in Hudson. An email to Tom Rossi, one of the partners, confirmed that this indeed is their project. What's being proposed is workforce housing, with rents that target households with incomes from 80 to 120 percent of AMI (area median income). 

Redburn has an impressive portfolio of multi-family buildings in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, mostly former industrial, institutional, or commercial buildings that have been adapted into apartment buildings. The project in Greenport, of course, would be new construction.
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11 comments:

  1. I'd be very interested to see what Redburn does with a blank slate.

    Didn't they have a proposal before HDC for the KAZ site in 2017? Did that ever make it as far as a proposed design stage?

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    1. It was 2018, and this was as far as things got: https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2018/04/hints-about-future.html

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  2. If the truck route ever gets diverted from downtown Hudson, Healy will be part of it.

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  3. Great idea for Greenport and good developer.

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  4. Wow, there’s actually land available for affordable housing just outside of the postage stamp, two square miles in Hudson? If you listen to some of the people here you would think Hudson is an island in the middle of an ocean and we must cram as much middle & low income housing in as possible; ignoring the fact we probably have the highest proportion of it than any other municipality in the county and probably the Hudson Valley. They say it’s so needed that we in fact must give sweetheart tax breaks to get it. Yet, to my shock, we’re actually part of a larger county and we can build workforce housing that’s only 2 minutes from Hudson via car. Heck, it’s even a pleasant walk if they’d put in a half mile of sidewalks. It’s a great way to utilize an underused area that’s still very close to the hospital and hospitality jobs that make up a lot of the local workforce.

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    1. Because it's not about housing, don't you get it? It's about developers making a buck by manipulating naïve, uneducated local politicians who are motivated by social-economic resentment. Check back in 15 years and see the result.

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    2. It was, I think, the case when Redburn was going to develop in partner with HDC on the KAZ site that they generally go for market rate (which may, in this case, be workforce housing) with no PILOT.

      This is when Tom DePietro tried to dissolve the HDC and a bunch of board members quit.

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  5. Every mature tree Redburn destroys should be replaced with a native sapling that will grow to the size of the uprooted tree. But this is Greenport, which will be fully covered in cement and asphalt within a decade, so I'm not holding my breath.

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    1. I don't see many mature trees on the lot in the picture. Do you?

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  6. looks like there are some on the margins

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  7. Greenport solves Hudson's housing issue. When do they start ?

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