Responding to the Colarusso Decision

On Thursday, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division handed down a ruling in the lawsuit brought by A. Colarusso & Sons against the City of Hudson Planning Board. That decision can be found here. 

Today, David Konigsberg and Donna Streitz, on behalf of Our Hudson Waterfront, sent a letter commenting on the decision to Mayor Kamal Johnson, Council president Tom DePietro and the members of the Common Council, and Planning Board chair Theresa Joyner and the members of the Hudson Planning Board, and shared the letter with Gossips. The text of that letter follows:

As Hudson citizens who support economically productive and environmentally protective development, we are greatly relieved by the ruling last week by the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division that upholds the Planning Board’s right to approve, deny, or modify Colarusso’s plans for the waterfront. 

Hudson, its agencies and citizens, rather than a sole Greenport company, have the duty to determine how to best develop Hudson’s greatest natural asset. This means ensuring that any development preserves the integrity of our South Bay wetlands, creates jobs for our citizens and increases public waterfront access and enjoyment. All of these are threatened by Colarusso’s plan to build a high-volume, two-lane truckway and greatly increase gravel transport and loading at its dock. 

Despite claims made by the company throughout this drawn-out saga, Colarusso’s proposed roadway will neither remove most trucks from city streets nor provide economic benefits of any kind to the City of Hudson. It will, however, threaten every other productive waterfront use and development—this despite efforts over nearly four decades to de-industrialize the Waterfront District. 

Our research shows that on busy days, heavy truck traffic could more than double, increasing noise and pollution and creating new dangers at essential road and rail crossings. Alarmingly, this represents an over 2000% increase in daily average truck volume since 2015. With this volume, potentially 250 days a year, gravel truck traffic and loading would become the main feature of life on the Hudson waterfront and on the River. This would largely derail the waterfront revival now underway, hindering the growth of job-creating businesses, threatening enjoyment of waterfront parks, and increasing environmental hazards to wetlands, public amenities, and the surrounding community. 

Despite Colarusso’s claims to the contrary, the City Planning Board need not abide by Greenport’s 2017 approval of the company’s truckway. In its SEQR review, Greenport’s planning board neither evaluated truck volume nor considered impacts on Hudson’s waterfront, citing a lack of evidence that transportation systems would be adversely affected or that Colarusso planned to expand at the Hudson Dock. The latter claim is easily debunked by a dramatic rise in daily average truck trips from 48 in 2016 to 114 in 2019, and by Colarusso’s own estimates at a potential 284 daily maximum, more than double the 2019 volume. 

In his 2016 letter giving Lead Agency status to the Greenport Planning Board, State DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos makes clear that this status “in no way limits jurisdiction or responsibilities of other involved and interested agencies—particularly the City Planning Board.” 

Year after year, Colarusso has shown an utter disregard for the City’s concerns, refused to turn over critical truck data to the Planning Board, suing twice to prevent review, and steadfastly insisting that no public entity has the right to regulate its volume. We hope this court decision will put an end to such arrogance on the company’s part, and that the Planning Board will make decisions based on what’s best for the City, not best for Colarusso.