A Street, B Street, or Alley?

Last Friday, Walter Chatham returned to the Historic Preservation Commission with a revised design for an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on Partition Street, behind 123 Union Street. It will be remembered that Chatham had originally proposed an ADU that was a smaller version of the original house. 

Chatham started his presentation by challenging a statement made by HPC member John Schobel at the February 14 meeting: "Neither the public nor the commission shares your vision of Partition Street as a street of nice little houses." Chatham took the HPC on a tour, in photographs, of Partition Street, from Fifth Street to Front Street, pointing out the actual houses on the street (there are four by Gossips' count), accessory dwelling units, and buildings that were neither carriage houses nor garages, arguing that Partition Street was already a street of houses. He called Partition "a street in transition" and told the HPC, "You need to decide whether you want this to be an A street, a B street, or an alley."

Chatham then presented the new plans for the building. The materials have changed from brick to wood siding, the height of the building has been reduced by 18 inches, and the orientation of the building has been changed. Rather than facing Partition Street, it is now at a right angle to Partition Street, with a gable end facing the street. There will still be some decorative elements that relate to the main house--for example, lintels over the windows that mimic in wood the lintels on the main house--but the overall design was been "simplified to the point that it would be appropriate to a B street."   

The "pedestrian entrance" to the house (the living quarters are on the second floor) is on the west side of the building. On the east side, there is a paved area which accesses the two-car garage on the ground floor of the building and functions as a parking area.  

Reacting to the new plan, HPC member Hugh Biber said, "I think it's a good solution." Phil Forman, who chairs the HPC, concurred, "I also appreciate the analytics of what's going on on the street."

John Schobel said he appreciated the change in material and the change in orientation, but he pointed out that this was a new application which is "drastically different from what we had before, and we need another public hearing." 

Biber responded, "We've addressed the public's concerns," expressed at the public hearing on February 14. Other members of the HPC agreed that Chatham had addressed the primary concerns, although scale and mass remained an issue. Schobel pointed out that because this was being considered a new application and Chatham had not yet submitted the new application, they couldn't vote on this until the next meeting, so having a public hearing would not necessarily delay the approval process. Forman, however, thought otherwise: "I think this becomes a very weird use of public hearings if we layer on public hearing on top of public hearing on top of public hearing."   

Victoria Polidoro, legal counsel to the HPC, commented, "Since this is technically a new application, you could have a public hearing." And so it was decided that there would be a public hearing on the revised building on Friday, March 28.

After the decision was made to hold a public hearing on the new application, Chatham delivered what he called "a quick little speech." He told the HPC, "The general feeling among people outside of Hudson--and this is universal--is that Hudson is an impossible place to get anything done in, because the people on the boards and the citizens can create a kind of 'doom loop'. . . and what is happening, in my opinion, is that larger developers, with on-staff attorneys, engineers, etc., are beginning to define the character of the city, because a small developer can't move forward, and I include my client on this project as a small developer because he's doing tiny houses all over the city. So, I'm just gonna say that opposition is very good, but when it turns into an opposition to a building type or a kind of idea about how the city should grow, you have to be very careful, because by stopping smaller projects from advancing efficiently, you're opening the door to only large projects defining the character of the neighborhood, and I don't think anyone on this conversation wants that."

At one point in his speech (the point at which I inserted the ellipsis), Chatham said he wasn't speaking specifically about the HPC, but his plaint would have better been addressed to the Planning Board, where one of his projects, the small apartment building proposed for Fairview Avenue at the edge of the neighborhood known an "the Boulevards," has been under review for more than a year, since June 2023, while the review of Mill Street Lofts seems to be moving forward with much greater efficiency. In this instance, the difference may not be big developer as opposed to small developer, but rather that Mill Street Lofts has the sanction and support of City Hall, particularly of the mayor, who appointed all the people currently on the Planning Board.

It seems ironic that Chatham characterized his client for this project as a "small developer." His client for 123 Union Street and for most of the projects Chatham presents to the HPC is Eric Galloway, who is having a huge influence on defining the character of many neighborhoods in Hudson. (Galloway is not the client for Chatham's project on Fairview Avenue.) It is impossible to find a block of Union Street below Third or Allen Street below West Court Street without several houses that have been restored or reimagined by Galloway. His influence is also seen on Warren Street--202-204 Warren Street, where the graceful original porticos were trashed and replaced with decidedly less graceful ones; 260 Warren Street, where "white gunk" was applied to the original marble plinths and lintels; 364 and 366 Warren Street;  402-404 Warren Street, which Galvan is transforming into a hotel; and 449 Warren Street, pretty much an entirely new building, constructed by Galvan in 2014, from which one can see 501 Union Street, which Galvan covered with lime wash in violation of the stipulations in its certificate of appropriateness. Beyond that, Galloway is reimaging and re-creating an entire section of the city, which he has dubbed the "Depot District." 

In no way can Galloway be considered a "small developer." 

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