Meanwhile, yesterday, a reader spotted this legal notice in the Register-Star, announcing that the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has received a Brownfield Cleanup Program application for 41 North Second Street, the address of Bliss Towers.
According [to] a report prepared by Poughkeepsie-based engineering and architecture firm PVEDI Engineering, Architecture, and Geology, D.P.C, . . . the site of Bliss Towers and Columbia Apartments was previously used as a furniture manufacturer in 1923, junkyard prior of 1965, and a slaughterhouse from 1949 through 1961.
The property was also used as a malt house with a kiln, and possible sources of contamination from the former uses were found to be from chemicals used in the operations from the furniture manufacturer, junkyard and kiln.
According to the report, four chemicals, known as semi-volatile organic compounds, and four metals, including arsenic, barium, lead, and mercury, were found in soil samples collected from the site in concentrations higher than the state level for brownfield cleanup areas in residential areas. . . .
The article also reports that John Madeo, executive vice president of development and general counsel for Mountco Construction, HHA's development partner, said contamination on the site on the site does not mean it cannot be built on.
The EVP is correct that you can still build, HOWEVER there would be a need for 'soil remediation' which is the process of removing or neutralizing contaminants from polluted soil, restoring it to a safe and usable condition. This can involve various techniques to address a range of pollutants, including heavy metals, pesticides, and hydrocarbons. The goal is to minimize risks to human health and the environment.
ReplyDeleteAND CAN BE COSTLY. It is important for the development partner to share what would the additional costs be to this project!
What better place to build low income housing projects than on top of contaminated, toxic brownfield sites. Will payments for cancer and organ damage treatments be included in the lease?
ReplyDeleteLike anything short of nuclear waste, it can be remediated, but at what cost? Before they did the soil samples it seems they were hoping for just solid debris and spoil, but now have found heavy metals and VOCs—of which can off gas through the foundation. I’ve seen it before on industrial sites and it will be a bad look for them to have to put air scrubbers in all the residences, which use a lot of electricity, by the way. As the article points out, they are hoping the state will help fund the remediation. We’ll have to wait and see. This project keeps getting more expensive while they try to find ways to cut costs. Financially, it seems to me like it’s becoming an insolvable equation. Undetermined state funding combined with possible deep cuts to federal HUD support. I feel bad for the residents. Too many failed attempts at this redesign, compounded with the current design being overly ambitious, have delayed this for so long that I worry the building will be habitable before there’s a replacement.
DeleteI think the lesson here is that the solutions to affordable housing will be piecemeal, quality builds, in scale of its surroundings, and much of it by the private sector. These overly ambitious “silver bullets” are doomed to fail in one way or another (Bliss, Mill St, Depot Lofts). They are way out of scale and draw local pushback, ask too much of taxpayers that are already stretched, too large for their less than perfect locations (lack of parking/contamination/flooding), and out of control budgets that are dependent on competitive state grants. Plus they move too slow due to management and oversight of volunteer boards that meet only monthly (HHA, Planning Board).
What we need to do is modernize the zoning code to allow for gentle density where it makes sense, put competent people on the planning board to speed up review, foreclose on tax delinquent vacant properties to free up land, and build baby build — duplexes, triplexes, multi family/commercial mixed builds of modest size and scattered though out the city. Private investment will come, and they will pay the taxes to keep this all going. It’s not that complicated, but it takes courage in our government to update the process and stop being susceptible to these large tax exemption parasite developers. Hopefully this election season will bring that change.
I tend to disagree with the build baby build sentiment and fall more in the line of steady state, sustainability and preservation. Renovation and restoration are a good thing, but for those currently living here now, what;s the point? The more open space the better.
DeleteAs far as HHA goes, I've renovated and restored several buildings much older and in much worse shape than the empty spaces they have. If they can't maintain the functionality of their property, why would anyone expect they could manage and maintain a development twice the size? Maintenance and repair is always going to be more practical than neglect, demolition and a rebuild.
As much as many of us here would like, the city is not a museum and we can’t preserve it in amber. Even with historic preservation there can be development. It’s not legal (people can build ‘as a right’ within current zoning) and it’s not fiscally sustainable for the economy of Hudson. The kind of development I’m talking about are private funded, full tax paying, quality, modest sized duplexes and multi family (as well as single family homes like the ones Walter Chatham is planning on Hudson Ave). Politics is the balance between principals and pragmatism, and a zero-development policy is not based in any reality. If you resist and NIMBY all development the blowback will result in the massive boondoggles the mayor and friends are trying to push on the city. I’d rather see large projects along Fairview in Greenport where they make better sense. I have empty lots near my home. I would love for them to remain open space forever, but that’s magical thinking. Short of buying them myself there’s nothing I can do about it but make sure zoning, PB, and HPC don’t allow some monstrosities to be built there.
DeleteI agree with your second point. HHA cannot maintain property, as demonstrated by the state of Bliss, etc. NYCHA in NYC faces a similar but worse situation with many vacant uninhabitable units and billions in repairs needed. These large “towers in a park” style projects have always been a disaster and that’s why the federal government stopped building them decades ago.
The word development is a misnomer. It is used to associate urbanization and suburbanization with improvement and progress, while it converts local urban greenspace and outlying farmland into corporate campuses and housing projects. Developments and developers don't improve the environment for the existing population, they degrade it. It's a false terminology.
DeleteThe tower formula has certainly led to disasters all over the country, but the fact is the building is already here. I could see a reasonableness for demolishing it if the plan was to create a sane, to scale, garden townhouse style development that would house the existing residents in better conditions, but that's not the plan at all. The plan is to double the size of the project and create an even larger mass of apartment blocks in a neighborhood that is already overly congested. If that's the option, I'd say a better choice is to fix up the buildings that are already here and leave well enough alone.