Last night, the Planning Board adjourned its public meeting at 7:26 p.m. and went into an attorney/client session. The subject of the session was not disclosed, but it was assumed, now that there has been a ruling in Colarusso's latest lawsuit against the Planning Board, the import of that ruling was discussed. The Valley Alliance and Our Hudson Waterfront consider the decision a win for the waterfront. Paul Colarusso, on the other hand, has maintained the decision "couldn't have worked out better for us."
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| Photo: Our Hudson Waterfront |
Sam Pratt and Peter Jung of The Valley Alliance have described the letter as "outlining the powerful tools and clear path by which the [Planning] Board can deny Colarusso's attempts to spoil the City's waterfront with a dusty, noisy, and polluting gravel operation." The letter, which is recommended reading, concludes with this adjuration to the Planning Board:
As you move forward with your review of the conditional use permit, we ask that you remember your duties and obligations to the neighbors surrounding the project. You are tasked to "protect the health, safety and welfare of residents living in close proximity to commercial docks and the public while recreating and using public facilities adjacent to commercial docks as authorized in the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan." These are complex issues that deserve a thorough and comprehensive review of the project, as a whole. We urge you to consider all the resources available to you that describe and discuss Hudson's vision for this area, and to ensure that these visions are properly protected during the course of your review.
COPYRIGHT 2023 CAROLE OSTERINK
1.
ReplyDeleteIt's salutary that Grant & Lyons is emphasizing faithfulness to the 2011 waterfront program (LWRP).
The letter recognizes that (1) "the LWRP was reviewed and approved with the existing one-lane haul road intact," and goes on to warn that (2) "without limits placed on the project from conditional use permits, the other parts of the vision for the waterfront as stated in the 'District purpose' cannot be realized" [p. 3].
But is the Planning Board aware of the special connection between these two statements as devised by the LWRP's authors? The operative word is "limit."
The idea originated with William Sharp, the Principal Attorney for the NYS Department of State. Anticipating being sued were the City to set limits on truck numbers, the extant one-lane road was embraced as a limitation in itself.
Despite some public clamor that the road wasn't a road at all, the Common Council officially acknowledged that a "private road" already existed, and one which would henceforth serve as a physical limitation on the runaway growth nearly everyone feared.
Grant & Lyons: "The Planning Board must consider this purpose [i.e. the stated purpose of the C-R Zoning District] and assess whether this project is in compliance with the C-R District’s objectives" [p. 4].
Planning Board members must understand that by approving a two-lane "haul road" with the consequent intensification of the use, they will thereby jettison the LWRP's only devised limitation on runaway growth at the waterfront. (Remember Colarusso's admission to the Greenport lead agency that barge traffic alone will set the limit on truck numbers, and not vice versa.)
2.
ReplyDeleteBeginning in 2014, the dishonest campaign of the next owner, Colarusso, was a claim that the company was prohibited from using its private road in two directions of travel. This was argued despite the previous owner's two-way practice; the fact that there's no mention of it in the City Code; and the company's specious references to NYS DOT turning regulations notwithstanding.
Colarusso enforced this narrative by running its empty trucks back to the mine through city neighborhoods, thus holding the city hostage to the same unreasonable demands the company has made ever since.
This was a wholly a political failure, however, and had nothing to do with the 2011 zoning amendments or the waterfront program. The Planning Board can and should correct almost a decade of City Hall's lassitude by stating, unequivocally, the two-way potential of the existing private road.
Perhaps the brainiest of the Planning Board members should confer with the brainiest Aldermen to close city streets (other than 3rd St) to incidental truck traffic before the Board renders its decision on the "haul road" proposal.