The Planning Board meeting this afternoon lasted for only about half an hour, but in that time, the five members present--Theresa Joyner, Valerie Wray, Dustin Duncan, Gene Shetsky, and John Cody--accomplished a fair amount of business. They made a negative declaration, approved the merging of parcels, and granted site plan approval to Hudson Public, the hotel the Galvan Foundation plans to develop from the buildings at northeast corner of Warren and Fourth streets.
Other items on the agenda--the public hearing on the proposal to create a kind of subdivision on Hudson Avenue and the public hearing on the redevelopment by the Galvan Foundation of the former Community Theater into a theater to be called Hudson Forum--were postponed until the Planning Board's next meeting, which takes place on October 11.
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GALVAN'S unwise hotel proposal at 4th and Warren passed muster in part because the PB found that there would be "little to no impact on parking and traffic based on the traffic and parking study by our engineer." This is absurd.
ReplyDeleteThe PB hired a company from Troy to vet GALVAN'S very flawed and full of nonsense traffic and parking assessment which showed there was plenty of parking for the guests of the 30-room hotel and bar WITHIN A 5 MINUTE WALK OF THE HOTEL. (Whenever I go to a hotel, I love to have to park 5 minutes from my room!) The engineering firm found no problems with GALVAN'S assessment and offered nothing more than a rubber stamp. Their conclusion was like all of 2 sentences long, basically saying "We found nothing of concern." Of course there was nothing to correct about GALVAN'S take on the parking situation, the firm didn't actually visit Hudson and walk around the area to see the lack of available parking near the proposed hotel, say on a Saturday afternoon. Just stamp it approved. And the PB had to accept this so called "parking study." It's embarrassing how poorly things are done in terms of planning in this city, especially when it comes to the largest landowner in town, Dan Kent and our pals at Galvan. This site plan approval is beyond regrettable, but the PB had to do it. Legally bound to accept it
A 30-room hotel at that corner WITH NO PARKING set aside for guests? On Warren? On 4th? This will have little to no "impact?" You aren't serious, are you? You don't really believe that, do you?
Bill Huston