To learn what transpired in the past seven years, you could search "Colarusso" on Gossips and read all the relevant posts in chronological order, or you could study two documents prepared by Donna Streitz and David Konigsberg of Our Hudson Waterfront. Earlier this week, they introduced their work with this letter:
Dear Fellow Citizens of Hudson:
Unless you've been living in a cave the past six years, or you're relatively new to Hudson, you must be aware of Colarusso's push to build a two-lane truckway across the South Bay, accelerate gravel trucking between mine and dock, and--despite six years of claims to the contrary--exponentially increase gravel loading on the Hudson Waterfront.
What you've never had is a full and factual picture of how dangerous this is to Hudson's future--and how it completely undermines the vision of the waterfront the City has been working toward for more than four decades.
The first document, Vision, will bring you up to speed quickly. It shows you how hard many citizens have been working for years for turn the waterfront into a natural and economic treasure--but also what they've been up against: a succession of corporate interests seeking only economic gain, while undermining the development of a waterfront that will benefit the whole city.
In that context, the second document, Neglect, will blow your mind.
As some may know, in 2017, the Greenport Planning Board, as lead agency, approved Colarusso's two-lane truckway after finding no significant potential impacts. While that ruling doesn't prevent Hudson's own review, it has been used for years to pressure the City to take it as a matter of faith and approve the Colarusso project. The problem is that, in reaching its decision, the Greenport Board minimized or sidestepped numerous impacts, basing its opinions on incorrect data and erroneous projections of future truck traffic that showed little, if any, growth in volume. As actual numbers show, however, these projections had nothing to do with reality. In fact, between 2015 and 2019, Colarusso's daily truck volume jumped by more than 800 percent--and the company's own applications to the Board show even bigger increases ahead.
In 2017, while working for the City, the consulting firm Barton & Loguidice (B&L) wrote two letters to the Greenport Planning Board's Chair expressing major concerns and seeking more information. What did the Greenport Planning Board do? Ignore most of the inquiries. And, without addressing real impacts on Hudson, they rendered their approval.
The document Neglect paints a painfully clear picture of this high-handed neglect. It lays out questions asked by B&L, how the Greenport Planning Board responded (or didn't), and why we believe the Hudson Planning Board has not only the right but the obligation to explore these applications with fresh eyes and the well-being of our city at heart. . . .
In the next couple months, the Planning Board will be under immense pressure to come to a decision, and an informed citizenry is out best defense against the city's making a major--and irreversible--mistake.
The Colarusso company has acknowledged that the upper limit of truck traffic on the proposed two-lane truckway will be determined by the number of barges it can service at the port. The latter number, as reported by Colarusso to the Greenport Planning Board, was taken at face value even by Hudson officials.
ReplyDeleteAs to how many barges the dock will ultimately service, among Colarusso's biggest breaks was when Hudson's building inspector exempted the new revetment when citing the company for its unpermitted bulkhead. Why did he do that if not to appease Colarusso?
(For only one idea how the revetment can be improved, see how the City's floating docks are attached at the waterfront park's rip-rap. But there are other ways to use that revetment towards a barge parking lot.)
Inexplicably the public pulled its own punches regarding the critical revetment. To wit, ownership of the land beneath the revetment - along with most of the Colarusso dock! - is and will remain in question. There's simply no evidence that the state ever granted these underwater lands to anyone, and indeed much evidence against it. There's no Statute of Limitations on the illegal occupation of lands owned by the People of the State of New York.
Yet despite the amazing likelihood that Colarusso doesn't even own the dock, only one Chair of the Hudson Planning Board (/Commission) ever took an interest, and that was Betsy Gramkow whom the NYS Office of General Services simply waited out. The OGS responded with months of misdirections piled on excuses until Betsy resigned from the post. But if that was the end of any official inquiry from Hudson, why didn't residents express any curiosity whatsoever?
Here it bears repeating that in the company's own words the barge numbers will determine the truck numbers. And that revetment which should have been cited by CEO Craig Haigh along with the bulkhead, and has never been a subject of review - SEQRA or otherwise - may be key to future barge volumes.
Now extrapolate to the next property owner after Colarusso, or even further in the future when the gravel is finished and the real prize - the Portland limestone - is the principal product. By then the state mining permit will include the "haulage road," so that the mine itself will extend to the future owner's Hudson waterfront, a waterfront and dock likely owned by New York taxpayers.
Planning Board Chair Betsy Gramkow to NYS OGS Commissioner RoAnn Destito in a letter dated September 14, 2020:
https://cms3.revize.com/revize/hudsonny/Boards%20and%20Committees/Planning%20Board/2020%20Applications/175%20South%20Front%20St%20(Colarusso)/NYS%20OGS%209.14.2020.pdf
The chain of deeds presented by P.B. Chair Betsy Gramkow to NYS OGS in a letter dated March 18, 2021:
https://cms3.revize.com/revize/hudsonny/Boards%20and%20Committees/Planning%20Board/2020%20Applications/175%20South%20Front%20St%20(Colarusso)/OGS%20Letter%20and%20Exhibits%203.18.21.pdf
This has gone on so long at this point it's kind of like beating your head against the wall. Seems to me taking the property over by eminent domain and converting it to a park is the only solution. If the city can't afford to buy it, perhaps NYS could take it over an make it into a waterfront park?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that one. I suggested that to the Waterfront Committee in 2006 or 2007 to be met with gales of laughter that the City could never afford it. I suggested finding a millionaire which was also thought not feasible. And then Holcim sold its waterfront property to Colarusso for around $1.4 million, 14 acres if I remember correctly.
DeleteThe state gives away a lot of grant money for parks and development, the city should apply for grant funding to take the property by eminent domain. Seems a lot easier and direct that slogging away in court for decades arguing over docks etc. It benefits the city to get rid of the trucking and expand the park for public use. It's seems like a simple and flawless solution. People argue that this is America and you can't take private property, but the reality is government takes property by eminent domain all the time, for parks, railroads, roads, etc.
DeleteThe big challenge at the moment is to change the conversation away from the 'haul road' proposition being advanced by Colarusso to the more fundamental issue; are we going to permit ANY kind of gravel operation on the Hudson waterfront? Not everyone is aware, but the company needs two separate permits-- one to operate a gravel dump, and another for construction of a new road connecting the quarry to the dock. From the beginning, Colarusso and their attorney recognized that the good ol' boys in Greenport would approve the portion of the road that lies in that town, so they made a big push to create the illusion that it's all about the 'haul road.' But from a logical standpoint, this is ass-backward; why are we talking about a new road, when the very existence of a gravel operation on the waterfront is still in question? Procedurally, it would have made far more sense to address the permit for operation of the gravel dump FIRST, because without that permit the 'haul road' is moot.
ReplyDeleteFor years I've believed that the ass-backwardness you're complaining about was the intended outcome of Colarusso's long campaign.
DeleteIn the first Colarusso lawsuit, filed September 15, 2017, the question was whether or not the replacement of Colarusso's bulkhead in November 2016 circumvented the City's conditional use permitting process (CUP).
In 2019, Judge Melkonian concurred that any such project should have triggered a CUP review (proof positive that the CUP should be today's permit number 1.)
But shortly before the bulkhead (and revetment!) work, DEC Commissioner Seggos ruled on a different Colarusso issue. On October 31, 2016 Seggos determined that the Greenport Planning Board would be the SEQRA lead agency for Colarusso's "haul road" proposal.
In December 2016, Colarusso would complete its Haul Road "Narrative" (although I don't believe the City saw it until 2017).
The two stories now braid together in a highly suspicious timeline.
On January 24, 2017 the City issued its Order to Remedy (OTR) concerning the required CUP.
On February 15, 2017 Colarusso Appealed the OTR to the ZBA.
On May 9, 2017 the ZBA upheld the OTR and required Colarusso to submit a CUP application to the Planning Board.
On June 17, 2017 Colarusso submitted a CUP application to the Planning Board.
On June 26, 2017 the statute ran out on Colarusso's opportunity to sue the ZBA.
On July 25, 2017 the Greenport Planning Board issued a SEQRA negative declaration on the "haul road" proposal.
On September 15, 2017, and before the Hudson Planning Board could complete its review, Colarusso sued, contesting whether or not the required CUP was for all conditional uses on the property (as had been explained repeatedly), or for the mere "dock repairs" the company claimed.
The lawsuit about the CUP was decided in Hudson's favor in 2019, the delay having reversed the proper sequence of permit acquisitions you noted. (Only consider that the lawsuit should have been directed at the ZBA, a challenge Colarusso allowed to expire.)
Considering the timeline, Colarusso probably cut its losses sometime between June 26 and July 25, then engaged Plan B: with Greenport's negative declaration in the bag, Colarusso likely sought to reverse the order of permits with its nonsensical court challenge in September, the point of which was to delay any judgement about the CUP requirement until long after the haul road was approved.
Fortunately, it was the Planning Board's own natural delay which put the applicant's Plan B at risk.