HPC to Hold Public Hearings

When the Historic Preservation Commission meets on Friday, June 27, the meeting will include two public hearings.

The first public hearing is for an internally illuminated aluminum box sign, measuring 41 inches square, to be installed at 421 Warren Street. The sign is for Hudson Dry, which, according to its website, is "The Hudson Valley's First Zero-Proof Bottle Shop." The HPC decided to hold a public hearing about the sign because such an illuminated sign is not the sort of thing the HPC typically approves, considering it out of character for Hudson's historic main street. 

In April, the HPC approved a smaller internally illuminated sign for Flowerkraut at 722 Warren Street. The rationale for that decision was the area above Park Place had a different vibe from the blocks farther west on Warren Street. What was appropriate for the block that included Rivertown Lodge, the Park Theater, and such 20th-century buildings as the diner, the Crescent Garage, and 751 Warren Street, with its lovely Art Deco eyebrow, would not be appropriate for blocks where the majority of the buildings were consistently 19th-century. With their decision about the Flowerkraut sign, the HPC did not believe they were establishing a precedent that would apply to all of Warren Street. Besides, the owner of Flowerkraut said the sign would be turned off every day at 6:00 p.m., when the shop closed.

Granting a certificate of appropriateness for an internally illuminated sign in the 400 block of Warren Street would set a precedent for the type of signage acceptable on all of Warren Street, and for this reason, the HPC is seeking public input.

The second public hearing pertains to the proposal to construct a new three-story building at 9 Partition Street. 

The Zoning Board of Appeals granted the project the necessary area variances at its April meeting after adjustments were made to the design to reduce the lot coverage from 100 percent to 89.58 percent, and an elevator and handrails on the rooftop deck were removed to eliminate the need for a height variance. The minutes from the April ZBA meeting at which the variances were unanimously granted can be found here.

During the public hearing on the project held by the ZBA, residents of lower Union Street, whose properties back up on Partition Street, expressed concern about the number of zoning code restrictions that had to be ignored for the structure and the precedent it would set. They were not, as the ZBA obviously was, placated by the changes made to the plan to make some of the variances less extreme. Other concerns voiced by the neighbors were that the building proposed is out of character with its setting, both in design and use, and that it will have a negative impact on their quality of life, both during construction and after, and on the value of their property.

Presenting the project to the HPC on June 13, Chip Bohl, the architect for the building, who formerly served as the architect member of the HPC, explained that the concept of the design was to transition from the "finer homes on Allen and Union to the industrial buildings at the waterfront." He spoke of the oriel proposed for the front of the building, which he called a bay window, as a detail found on many of Hudson's 19th-century buildings. Indeed, oriels are a prevalent feature of Hudson architecture, so prevalent that Gossips did five posts about oriels back in 2012, which can be found here, here, here, here, and here. Although oriels are common in Hudson, most of them are found on Warren Street not on Union and Allen.

Members of the HPC seemed sympathetic to the design. John Schobel expressed concern about the metal cladding. Bohl responded by saying that "metal gives us that transition," calling it "a nod to the industrial part of Hudson." Miranda Barry commented, "New construction allows us the opportunity to consider where we want to fall on the timeline," and expressed the opinion that the transition is "a brilliant idea." She said she liked the oriel and opined, "The scale of the building is very appropriate." She went on to say that the design was "bringing forward a piece of Hudson history that has almost been lost." She was alluding, of course, to the fact that very few--actually only three--of the industrial buildings that populated our waterfront in the 19th century still survive today. 

Friday's Historic Preservation Commission meeting, which begins at 10:00 a.m., is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

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Erratum: Gossips originally reported that the sign proposed for 421 Warren Street was plastic. That was incorrect. It is aluminum, with a black finish. That error has been corrected in the body of the post.