The Hudson Wail comments on the ongoing review of Colarusso's application for a conditional use permit for its dock operations, which curiously have been going on for the past eight years without the required permit.
The following text accompanies the image:
In a world where Gaby Hoffmann joins the Hudson Planning Board, she thinks she's signing up for a mundane and wholesome small town volunteer position. Instead, she's thrown into a Kafkaesque saga involving one gravel company, grassroots activists, and a never-ending Conditional Use Permit review. As trucks rumble through wetlands and attorneys drone on for hours, Gaby must confront her deepest fear: a public comment period with no end in sight.
The conditional use permit application is at this point the ultimate wildcard in Hudson.
ReplyDeleteMill St is now in the hands of the courts and that's going to tie up legal resources of the city for as long as the legal proceedings will continue (and it's gonna be a while considering the heft of that petition and the law firm behind it).
Any resolution on the dock application will, one way or the other, result in more litigation. A petition by Our Hudson Waterfront would be easier to defend since Colarusso would be doing most of the heavy legal lifting. If however the PB resolution was such that Colarusso was suing, the city would be on its own and have only scant resources at its disposal to defend it.
All the while, Hudson's mayor has disappeared entirely. I would think he stopped giving any backroom advice in the way he surely must have done before in 2023 because now he doesn't know what to do anymore.
So the Planning Board is now left to its own devices and that makes Theresa, Eugene and Randall the protagonists. Gaby is the one detractor who is still a bit green but is backed by a very vocal and defiant public which thinks they have the momentum.
Nothing can be predicted anymore.
You think that Our Hudson Waterfront would be the only people with resources and interest in litigation? Grassroots residents are one part, but there are significant business interests in the area, some of which led by a rock legend and cruise ship heir. All sides have money and unless there is a compromise this is not getting settled for a long time.
DeleteBy the way, this is a genius meme.
Those two, the rock legend and cruise ship heir, were part of last year's litigation and I am not counting them out at all.
DeleteI guess what I am saying is: We have not a shred of an idea which way the PB will ultimately lean and what their conditions would be, yet everyone firmly expects a legal challenge to ensue.
As I posted elsewhere in a comment under Peter's Bard video post, it's what happens when you have a mayor whose disinterest and unwillingness to step up and lead allowed this divide to grow and fester.
I agree 100%
Delete