Tonight, at the end of a meeting that lasted three and a half hours, the Planning Board voted to approve the Colarusso haul road, which will go from the quarry on Newman Road to the dock on the Hudson waterfront. The vote was 5 to 1, with Valerie Wray being the only member of the Planning Board to vote against approval. Wray cited concern for the future of the waterfront as the reason for her negative vote. Surprisingly, John Cody, who in 1984 headed up a community group called SHOW (Save Hudson's Only Waterfront), which succeeded in preventing an oil refinery from being built on our shore, voted in favor of the haul road.
The approval comes with some conditions:
- Movement on the haul road will be restricted to the hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday. There will be no activity on weekends or on major holidays--major holidays being defined as New Year's Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
- The maximum number trips on the haul road is 284 trips a day--142 trips to the dock and 142 trips back to the quarry.
- Only two conditions will allow Colarusso gravel trucks to use city streets:
- if the haul road is, for any catastrophic reason, impassable;
- when blasting is occurring in the part of the quarry west of Newman Road. Such blasting events are limited to a maximum of forty a year, and the duration of each is estimated to be one hour. During blasting events, gravel trucks will follow their current route through the city, shown on the map below.
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ReplyDeleteNot a win for the waterfront, but a big win for other parts of the city, primarily Columbia Street, where Colarusso's trucks will no longer be seen, felt and heard or doing any more damage to infrastructure, streets, houses and our lungs. It's long past time for this.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why the haul road was approved was that this majority of public comments that you cited were in fact off-topic. Peter Jung himself pointed out that there are two separate applications: the one for the haul road (approved yesterday) and a follow-up one for the conditional use-permit of the docks.
ReplyDeleteThe Colarusso opposition has been conflating these two and has been arguing the entire time exclusively against the use of the dock which wasn't subject of this application.
The negative declaration that was drawn up yesterday made it pretty clear that the haul road doesn't affect the water front. It's physically not anywhere near it.
As an additional note: You are editorializing quite heavily by posting this photo and implying that there are exactly only two people celebrating the Planning Board's decision, one of which being a member of the Colarusso family.
You know this isn't true. You lifted this photo off a thread that I had created specifically for an audience that is heavily in favor of the haul road and cares a great deal about preserving those few well-paying jobs that still exist in Columbia County.
Despite the phrase "dock operations," it's precisely because the conditional use permit is for "the entire property" (Judge Melkonian) and not a permit "of the docks" alone (your words) that the Planning Board should have, and was arguably obliged to, consider the two permissions side by side.
DeleteThis common misunderstanding was advanced relentlessly by Colarusso's attorney, John Privitera, just as you are pushing it now. Indeed it's been so effective that even the city's lawyers embraced it, or at least most of them did for a very long time (free of consequence, too).
In fact, each of the decisions will impact so much of the property that their overlapping is extensive.
It helps to revisit Melkonian's simultaneous conclusions for two lawsuits (Colarusso v. Hudson & Hudson v. Greenport) to appreciate the usefulness of a parallel approach.
Arguably, Melkonian struck a balance between Colarusso's losing argument - that the conditional use permit is "of the docks" alone (your words) - and his cursory rationale for dismissing the City's segmentation complaint. He alone would have understood his own trade-off, but it was the example of a parallel analysis which the Planning Board ought to have emulated.
Under Ms. Polidoro's disappointing guidance, the Board members (other than Ms. Wray) only divided where wiser heads might have distinguished.
The "toast" photo says it all. If the planning board is acting to favor a corporation against the majority interest of the people it appears now is the time for the city government to step up and take action. After all, it is their job to represent their constituents. The only obvious solution to protect the waterfront and get the trucks off city streets is to take over the property by eminent domain and convert it into parkland. The longer they wait, the more it will cost.
ReplyDeleteThis does not appear to be a reconcilable conflict. The development of Hudson's recreational, tourist based economy and its past as a rural industrial one simply don't mix. It's like a pair of tight shoes, no matter how much you can clean and polish them, they still won't fit.
Define "catastrophic reasons." When the company first acknowledged it would continue its use of the state truck route (ca. 2019), the only reason offered was "icy conditions" on the Greenport slopes. So is it "catastrophic" when water freezes? And who decides?
ReplyDeleteYears from now, and surely under different ownership, the Planning Board's conditions will have proved temporary in retrospect.
Truly, the entire City government has betrayed its own LWRP and LWRP zoning.
Did the Office of the Mayor or the Common Council honor the LWRP by aggressively seeking a political solution? No, they let the Planning Board work that out. While the DOT is in a better position to answer the City's level of interest, city leadership has finally acquiesced to the Environmental Justice argument originally invented by St. Lawrence Cement as a ploy.
More recently, the ZBA took a pass when it reached the brilliant conclusion that the Zoning Map is, well, just what it is. Subsequently, the City showed no interest in delineating the South Bay zoning boundaries despite the plan's obvious need of a use variance in the Recreational-Conservation District. As further evidence of its negligence, the ZBA deliberately refused a part in Greenport's SEQRA review, thus side-stepping even an inquiry into the possibility that a use variance is needed which would otherwise trigger its own SEQRA review.
As to the unenforceability of the Board's conditions, for years the same CEO who will police these new conditions misidentified improvements to the property as "maintenance," improvements which in hindsight everyone acknowledges should have triggered a CUP review ages ago. The road work east of Rte. 9G conducted eight years ago was deemed maintenance, though we know now the work was entirely in preparation for last night's decision. It was another failure of political imagination not to have exploited that incident in furtherance of the City's stated goals in the waterfront program. Colarusso got a pass, instead, just as it got a pass when the revetment was omitted from the same CEO's Order to Remedy in 2017. As further evidence of the City's political indolence, with the exception of former Planning Board Chairman Gramkow's considerable pressure on the NYS OGS to investigate whether or not the revetment was actually built on state-owned land, NYS's patent unwillingness to address the facts of the case garnered no curiosity or support from any other City official. (There's zero evidence that the lands beneath Colarusso's dock and yard ever passed out of state ownership.)
Even those who opposed the haul road felt a need to rise above an LWRP they still find too distasteful for words. Rather than engage the ugly details of the 2011 C-R Zoning District (e.g., variances vis-a-vis updated DOT-crossing requirements at a vague District boundary rejected since Day 1), it wasn't too long ago when popular opinion opposed any plan that would use the woodland route to the mine. Today they can congratulate themselves that the LWRP's grand compromise is officially dead - and replaced by something far worse. Will such people ever learn that in order to get something you have to give something? Perhaps they got what they needed.
Lastly, never forget the parade of city lawyers who FOR YEARS insisted that the Planning Board had no business reviewing anything east of the railroad tracks. Never mind that property-wide requirement for a CUP! (h/t Ken Dow). Talk about lost time and misdirected energies. With the exception of Mr. Dow, the sheer incompetence of Hudson's lawyers arguably did more damage to the city's long-term interests than the cowardice and stupidity of those who did the actual voting. Which is to say, those who always depend on experts to do their thinking for them. Which is to say nearly everyone in Hudson.
For the umpteenth time, what a ship of fools.
Clearly, the pundits, for and against, anything to do with ACS are as polarized (and polarizing) as national politics.
ReplyDeleteTVP is half-right: there are 2 proceedings regarding ACS before the PB. But to say that the haul road is "nowhere near the waterfront" is a laugh or a cry (depending on your emotional bent): the haul road cuts across and through the south bay -- an integral part of the waterfront. To argue otherwise is foolish and weakens the main thrust of the statements made by whomever s/he is. You don't have to be right about everything to be right in the main.
On the flip side, SlowArt is so off the mark as to be solely laughable: there is no way under the blue sky that the City of Hudson with or without any government assistance, can afford either the litigation surrounding eminent domain nor the purchase price even that flawed and under-valuing process demands. Eminent domain -- good gravy, Marie! And the lack of understanding regarding how rights of citizens (including corporate citizens) interact is an indictment of civics education in the US generally.
And then, as always (like the tides), there's Unheimlich, forever forecasting the end of days if ACS is allowed to remain operating at the waterfront. Though the end of days may well be nigh (though I tend to focus on the twin threats of AI and the PRC, not ACS), barring societal collapse it's likely that aggregate transiting the City of Hudson will be a large cause of it. And, take heart: so long as the City continues to ignore maintaining the streets, they will soon be in too shabby a shape to support ACS's trucks -- so problem solved.
Myself, I'm more impressed that the PB could make an actual decision than dismayed or pleased by the result. I take heart that Mr. Cody voted for the haul road. It exemplifies the type of pragmatic, balanced decisionmaking that our elected and appointed "leaders" are charged with making.
You are incorrect. I was ALWAYS supportive of Colarusso's continued operations, though strictly within the legal framework of the City Code. I was always supportive of the Becraft mining operation. I support all kinds of mining, but only to be conducted lawfully.
DeleteNo, for my years of complaints about the company's behaviors you'll find no words of mine in any Gossips threads looking to banish Colarusso.
Quite the opposite in fact. Since 2010 I consistently challenged my uncompromising neighbors who only argued for total solutions, such as eminent domain. It's always all-or-nothing for the type - "If I can't be Caesar I'll be nobody."
Last night they got that nothing, and here come the excuses.
Even in the above thread it's argued that short of eminent domain the situation was always hopeless; precisely what a losing side would say after refusing all compromise as impurity and dirtiness.
I know you mean to irk me to associate me with lackadaisical idealism, but the record shows that I despise political idealism and always have. This is a key difference between environmentalism and conservationism.
The really odd thing about this review is that during the course of seven years, not one Planning Board member has asked the obvious question. There are considerable downside impacts associated with the Colarusso operation, but what's the upside for Hudson? We're getting dangerous heavy truck traffic, noise, dust, diesel fumes and industrial blight next to the waterfront park. Yet there is one guy pushing gravel around with a front-end loader, and I doubt that he lives in Hudson. So what's the good news for the citizens and taxpayers in our community? WTF???
ReplyDeleteI disagree, if the people want the trucks off the streets and they want the gravel operation off the waterfront, it's the absolute right of the government to take it. What is it worth? I don't know, but the value of a degraded, polluted and compacted property with decrepit, industrial, wasted structures that need to be condemned and that has absolutely no use or value to anyone except the city as a public park isn't worth much, so it seems to me.
ReplyDeleteYou disagree? With the Constitution? With federal and state statutes that are derived from and harmonious with the Constitution? Ok. Just don’t let that get in the way of your hyperbole.
DeleteWell, I'm not a lawyer, but isn't there a procedure under NY Consolidated Laws, Chapter 73, that covers eminent domain? I know people who had their house taken by eminent domain to move a railroad track. Apparently it's not unconstitutional for the government to take property for public use, there just has to be a good reason to take it and compensation.
DeleteSeems to me there is a lot of hyperbole about the sanctity of private property. No one really owns anything, you rent it from the government by paying taxes. Stop paying your rent (tax) and see what happens.
Faux-libertarian Friedman (who claims to be a lawyer... but you sometimes have to wonder) can shriek about The Sacred Constitution all he wants.
DeleteBut it is well-established in both Federal and State law that municipalities can “take” private land for public purposes.
Even more than that, the U.S. Supreme Court found that towns and cities can seize private land via eminent domain and resell it to *private* developers, if it comports with a broader civic planning goals.
The landmark case was Kevo vs. New London (CT), rejecting the shallow arguments of Wise Use ideologues who think that any “taking” is a Constitutional violation:
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/04-108
P.S. I wrote about this deep-fried species of modern Libertarian — who has never actually read Hayek, but loves to bleat about Freedom — some years ago at:
Deletehttps://ruralintelligence.com/community/the-racetrack-next-door-rights-incur-responsibilities
EXCERPT:
“Developers can always count on at least one local crank or business lobby to shout 'property rights!' in a crowded public meeting.
“[... M]any self-styled Libertarians consider zoning and planning as a Soviet-style plot to defraud landowners of their personal property. Wrapping themselves in the flag and the Constitution, they act as if even the simplest social contracts are an intolerable imposition on their freedom.
“In truth, such ideologues are not Libertarians at all. With their rigid opposition to the most basic rules of civil society, they sound a lot more like anarchists. For what they preach is not Liberty, but Lawlessness. ...
“This brings us to a precept of principled Libertarianism: the so- called 'swing-your-fist' test of personal freedom. As the saying goes: Your rights end where my nose begins. One person's ability to free enjoyment of their own property does not extend to spoiling the rights of others.
“For example, musicians have every right to practice their craft in their own homes; but a residence in a crowded neighborhood is not the right place for an all-night drum studio.
“Property rights do not include the right to tread on other peoples' rights. Nor do they entitle anyone to ignore common-sense laws that reasonably protect everyone from common nuisances and hazards.
“Property rights incur property responsibilities, including respect for the rights and laws of the rest of the community.”
In this situation, Colarusso and its proponents claim to stand for liberty, while conveniently omitting how their recklessness affects anyone else, such as the 150+ members of the Hudson Business Community who wrote the Planning Board to object to the project due to its overall negative impact on Hudson and its future prospects.
(Unfortunately, due to the age of this piece the formatting is all lost, making it hard to read, but the gist is above.)
Just wow.
ReplyDeleteAd hominem attacks are unnecessary, and not useful now, Mr. Friedman. And these crucial issues are not hyperbole. No one doubts that you're a very clever person, and know the law, but I believe your head is in the wrong place on these issues. I'm not specifically advocating eminent domain here, but the overwhelming community response to the Colarusso problem has been strongly against them and their ongoing, consistently bad-faith tactics and dismissive and mendacious attitude toward Hudson and its population. The bottom line remains: they need Hudson but Hudson doesn't need them! They provide nothing for Hudson which can't be sourced elsewhere; and, as far as I'm concerned, they can keep their damned fireworks, too. For 5% of their overall revenue, which has no benefit for Hudson, they're being allowed to virtually control the waterfront, the environment, and, to a large extent, Hudson's future. For what? To satisfy legal technicalities? That's not hyperbole, and it's completely unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteI’d respond, Victor, but clearly your reading comprehension is suffering. The bottom line, as you put it, is the rule of law. Everything else is hyperbole. And I think you need to look up “ad hominem” before using it in a sentence.
DeleteI know what it means. I'm sorry you feel the need to respond this way. People can decide for themselves.
ReplyDelete