On Wednesday, the day before the Planning Board's special "working meeting," posters appeared around town, warning of a "Traffic/Safety Nightmare" if the Planning Board approved the haul road proposed by Colarusso and summoning people to an "Urgent Meeting," at which the Planning Board was expected to begin it deliberations on the proposal.
The discussion of the Colarusso proposal started with Randall Martin mentioning the posters, one of which was tacked to a utility pole across the street from his home. He was concerned the poster mischaracterized the situation by suggesting that approving the haul road would lead to an increase in the number of trucks going to and from the waterfront. Ryan Weitz, consulting engineer for the Planning Board, clarified that 284, the number cited on the poster, was the maximum number of trips to and from the waterfront Colarusso had agreed to if the haul road were approved. He pointed out that there was no limit to the number of truck trips if Colarusso used city streets. This was reiterated by JR Heffner, vice president of operations for Colarusso, who told the board, "The haul road is not needed to maximize activity," and said it is an economic benefit to Colarusso to use the haul road. To which John Privatera, Colarusso's attorney, added, "That's why we're building it."
The conversation then turned to the Planning Board's request to extend the time they need to make a decision. Colarusso's attorneys maintained that they could not grant an extension. Privatera cited the court ruling which states "a decision on the haul road application is directed to issue forthwith," commenting, "It's already been five months." He asserted that granting an extension would impair "forthwith." Victoria Polidoro, legal counsel to the Planning Board, disagreed, maintaining that they could grant an extension. She also told Privatera there was no automatic approval if the Planning Board doesn't render a decision within the time frame, which is sixty days from the close of the public hearing
They then returned to the question of defining the public safety reasons that would allow Colarusso to use city streets even if the haul road were built. Privatera essentially told the board that the situations could not be defined beyond "acts of God" (flooding and tornadoes were mentioned) and "blasting." Polidoro finally told Privatera, "The intention was that you come back with ideas of how conditions can be workable. Instead you came back saying they cannot be workable and claiming you have unfettered discretion to use city streets."
Before the meeting adjourned, Theresa Joyner, who chairs the Planning Board, declared, "We are not going to be forced into a decision." Although Polidoro asked if they wanted to schedule a special meeting before the regularly scheduled meeting on December 12, Joyner indicated there would be no special meeting.
The video of Thursday's meeting can be found here.
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It's amazing how much bother and disruption and expense Colarusso has caused in our community in the past seven years. Given that there is zero upside for Hudson in having a lot of dump trucks in town, why is our civic leadership putting up with this nonsense?
ReplyDeleteDonna Streitz resubmitted this two-part comment by email:
ReplyDeletePart 1
At both November Planning Board meetings, the Board has been given mistaken information about gravel truck volume considered by Greenport in its 2017 haul road SEQRA decision, and by NYS DOT in Colarusso permit approval (issued in 2016, renewed 2019). The Greenport Planning Board and the DOT did NOT consider 284 truck trips as max daily condition, as that number was not known until 2020, when consulting engineer for Colarusso--Creighton Manning (CM)-- conducted truck studies for them; 3 to 4 years after Greenport SEQRA and DOT decisions!
In fact, Greenport’s SEQRA deliberations relied on earlier CM reports issued in 2016 that estimated much lower volume based on barge deliveries. The numbers considered by Greenport were 20 trips (10 loads) per day and 4,000 trips per year, with the Board assuming no future increase. Similarly, the DOT relied on an earlier 2016 CM report that showed peak of 24 trips per day. History has since shown rapidly rising intensification to the dock. Indeed, CM’s updated 2020 studies (based on actual load tickets) showed a more than double jump in daily truck trips from 48 in 2016 to 114 in 2019. From 2015 to 2019, annual truck trips almost tripled from 5,460 to 15,180.
And it’s about to get much worse.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteIn its application for proposed two-lane haul road, Colarusso proposes a max of 284 truck trips per day, as many as 250 days per year – worse case potential. This means as many as 71,000 annual trips, or 26 trips per hour and more than two trips to/from the dock every 5 minutes. If not bad enough, Colarusso will also encourage diversion of retail gravel trucks - up to 24,000 trips/year - to haul road. This is the reality that the Board must consider as it tries to determine impacts on Hudson, including not just noise, diesel fumes, dust and disruption, traffic congestion, etc., but dangerous crossings at Route 9 and 9G, at Amtrak's line, and Waterfront pedestrian and vehicle access points.
Bottom line, as history has proven, heavy truck traffic is already greater than it used to be and this is just the jumping off point. While Colarusso is concerned foremost about its business—as any business would be—the issue here is not its business, but impacts on Hudson. And as it struggles with these complex deliberations, it does not help that the Board is being mis-informed about truck numbers and the intensification threat.
I think it's clear to some (or many) that Colarusso plans to scale up volume of its gravel shipments and will plan on using both the haul road, if approved, as well as the city streets and do not want to make any commitments about limits. From my uneducated opinion it seemed like that Planning Board suspects this as well and wanted Colarusso to admit to this on the record so that they can't accuse the board of speculation around this subject if the decision doesn't go their way, and in the almost certain Article 78 lawsuit that will be immediately filed thereafter. It was entertaining watching the cat and mouse line of questioning between the board and the lawyers trying to get any inkling of committal that, if granted the haul road, they won't use the city streets anymore, even outside of rare emergencies and acts of god. I have a feeling this will be fought in court for years to come. They say that in business, the second best thing to succeeding is to fail fast and the worst thing is to fail slow. Something to think about...
ReplyDeleteI am not convinced that the hinted at scaling up is really as certain as some make it out to be.
DeleteOn the Nov 14 meeting, Colarusso explicitly stated they were exclusively going to use the haul road and would only use the designated truck route at times when the haul road wasn't passable, either through "acts of God" or blasting operations of the quarry (of which as of Nov 14, only 22 as I recalled have happened through 2023). Additionally, they agreed to only use the city route after notifying Code Enforcement.
This would put an implicit ceiling of 284 trips per day on their operation which is not subject to any such limitation so long as they are using the State-designed truck routes.
Seeing this as a clandestine attempt at expanding their operations is only plausible if one assumes that Colarusso is acting in bad faith here. They would have to synthesize scenarios where the haul road isn't passable at which point they are no better off than now where they are exclusively using the truck route through the city.
That said, I agree that this will soon be in front of courts once again. The Planning Board has been adversarial in matters of this application for a while and I believe it has shown a bias (or at least some members have) that can be challenged in front of a court.