More Attention to Mill Street Lofts

Gossips has been posting about the bad idea that is Mill Street Lofts for several months now, but it seems only recently to have gotten on the radar of the Register-Star. Today, the paper published an article on the subject by Tiffany Greenwaldt-Simon: "Mill Street residents speak out against planned housing project." 

The article is made up primarily of information provided by two Mill Street residents: Jack Hornickel and Lakia Walker. One bit of information contained in the article that has not already been shared on Gossips is this, brought to the reporter's attention by Hornickel:

In the Affordable Housing Development Plan report, prepared for the city by Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress in 2021, the land was found to be good for single-family or two-family housing developments.

The report suggested that five to 10 single- or two-family homes would work on the site. . . .

The report referenced can be found here. The specific information is found on page 53. It is of interest that the Affordable Housing Development Plan mentions Mill Street as a possible site for developing "owner-occupied homes for first time buyers."  

Because Lakia Walker is on the Hudson City School District Board of Education, she might have been able to shed some light on the process by which HCSD and the City came to the agreement that HCSD would drop the "reverter clause" in the 1983 deed to the property in exchange for half the proceeds from the sale of property to Kearney Realty & Development Group, but apparently she wasn't asked about this. The first step in foiling this bad idea would have been keeping the reverter clause in force.

The residents of Mill Street aren't the only ones speaking out about this proposal. Recently, Jason Foster, who served as Public Works Commissioner from January to September 2024, submitted a letter to the Planning Board. Foster resigned as Commissioner of Public Works at about the same name as his wife, Susan Vernovage Foster, resigned from the Planning Board. Vernovage Foster was the only person on the Planning Board to vote against making a negative declaration in the SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) process for this project--a negative declaration signifying that there is no substantial evidence that the project could result in significant adverse environmental impacts.

Mill Street on December 18, 2023--Photo courtesy Lance Wheeler

The following is quoted from Foster's letter which was sent to the Planning Board last week: 

[T]he Mill Street affordable housing project . . . is a City of Hudson initiated project. However, the City's partner Kearney Real Estate and Development Group is the only party that appears at your meetings. I think that it would be responsible for City of Hudson representatives, who are proponents for this project, to answer some questions about issues that go beyond the borders of the lot.

I wonder why this proposed design covers so much of the site footprint. I believe that the answer lies in the funding. The concept called for 100 scattered housing units within the City. Hudson bundled three properties in their affordable housing plan/application, Rossman Ave., State and Fourth St., and the Mill Street parcel. The effort would require Mill Street to fit 70 units on this site. This is a backward means of determining what to build on a lot.

The current design cuts into the hillside, placing portions of each building below grade. This is not an insignificant detail. The retaining walls required to accomplish this would be tall, expensive and susceptible to water infiltration. I have seen floor plans which seem to represent higher floors above the retaining walls, not the subgrade floors. Windows are shown in areas that would be underground on lower floors. Requirements for natural light, ventilation and emergency egress will be harder to achieve if living floors are on the same level as retaining walls.

You have discussed the flood plain on and adjacent to this parcel, and it sees understood that the field will be filled in to raise the grade above the flood plain level. The developer appears to have chosen to cut soil from the hillside and use it to help fill the low parts of the field. The sitework for this project will be intensive. Retaining walls appear to be quite tall, and will need to be over-excavated to install waterproofing and drainage. Many more trees will need to be cut down than are implied on the renderings.

Many of the concerns about this project are just beyond the property lines. The flood plain should be shown on project plans. The Planning Board is familiar with Hudson River flooding from their review of the Colarusso Haul Road. The City is familiar with flooding from a recent study done by Scenic Hudson of rising water levels at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park. The reports predict 2½ feet of rise in water levels by 2050. This will affect the project site. The intersection of 2nd and Mill Streets is approximately 8 feet above sea level. In 2024, the Mill Street neighborhood was flooded to approximately 10 feet above sea level. These numbers correlate to the analysis of the Haul Road and the rising sea level study at the waterfront park. Kearney stated that they will drain their site well but not improve the situation west of the property, as the size of the drainage pipes downstream at the intersection were smaller than those they would install onsite. This is a concern that the City should resolve. Regardless of drainage, when large regional rain combines with high tide Mill Street is still likely to flood. This issue will get worse over time as shown in the Scenic Hudson report. . . .

I ask that the Planning Board give this project the same review process of any other brought before them. We can accomplish affordable housing goals without ignoring so many issues. The City has chosen to ask you to consider the height variance for this project rather than the Zoning Board of Appeals. Variances are used to bypass defined zoning codes. Zoning codes are used to define and unify neighborhoods and are only bypassed in unique circumstances that have little impact. The responsibility was taken from the ZBA, because it was anticipated that the variance would not pass.

In the 2025 State of the State address, Governor Hochul asked that cities develop 50 affordable housing units in the next three years. Between Mill Street, State Street, Rossman Avenue and redevelopment by the HHA (Bliss Towers) Hudson is taking on a larger burden for affordable housing (possibly 200 units) than the Governor is asking. Developers don't need to be allowed to maximize construction on every site. There are economic and political forces pushing for a larger development than fits in this neighborhood. . . .

It should be noted that Kearney seems to have abandoned the plan to build on Rossman Avenue. What was proposed for that site were two attached houses, each with an additional rental unit, that were intended for affordable homeownership.

Regarding the number of rental units being proposed, Hudson has already fulfilled Governor Hochul's request for 50 new units with the 64 units soon to be ready for occupancy at Hudson Depot Lofts, 76 North Seventh Street. Intended for households with incomes of between 80 and 130 percent of the area median income (AMI), those 64 units qualify as "affordable." Add to that the 20 units with income caps in the building proposed for the other side of the street, there will be 84 affordable rental units in Galvan's Depot District. 

In addition to the 70 units Kearney is trying to get built on Mill Street, there are 24 more at State Street Lofts, the building proposed for Fourth and State streets, for a total of 94.

And then there's the Hudson Housing Authority (HHA). The total number of units being proposed by HHA is kind of a moving target. If pressed, Jeffrey Dodson, HHA executive director, would probably say, "We'll build as many as we can." Currently, their proposed Phase 1 would create 160 units, 50 more than the number of households currently residing in HHA buildings. Phase 2 would add another 100 units, but what has never been made clear is how many more units would be constructed on the parcels HHA intends to buy from HCDPA (Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency): the lot at Second and Columbia (now a community garden) and the lot at Warren and Front (now an Urban Renewal Era park). 

If everything now proposed is built, there will be 328 more "affordable" rental units in Hudson than there currently are, perhaps even a few more, and 81 new market rate units--55 at 75 North Seventh Street (the other Galvan building) and 26 on Fairview Avenue. That's a total of 409 new rental units in Hudson. Given the average size of a household in the United States is 2.5 people, that would be a population increase in Hudson of more than a thousand. None of what's planned, however, provides any new opportunities for homeownership.

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