Gossips has already posted twice about Tuesday's Planning Board meeting, but there is no limit to the number of words that can be devoted to the meeting that sealed the fate of Hudson's waterfront and put an end to the aspirations of so many for close to thirty years. Today, Donna Streitz of Our Hudson Waterfront distributed her very comprehensive report on the meeting. The following is quoted from the beginning of that report:
Despite a decades long outcry from the public to protect and revitalize our waterfront for the benefit and enjoyment of the public, the Hudson Planning Board approved the Dock Conditional Use Permit, currently owned by A. Colarusso and Sons, without imposing annual limit on truck volume, and allowing operations on weekends. . . .
With the exception of one board member—Gaby Hoffmann—the board has rejected the input from the public wanting protection of our waterfront and expressing concerns about the threats caused by virtually unlimited truck traffic at Hudson’s waterfront. Since 2019 alone, public input received by the board includes over 200 public comment letters and over 1,800 petition signatures, opposing increased truck traffic at our waterfront.
Streitz's complete report can be found here, see 11/21/25 update. It is recommended reading.
The strange thing about this situation is that neither Colarusso or the Planning Board ever bothered to articulate for us what the upside is for the citizens and taxpayers of Hudson in having a gravel dump and industrial truck route on our waterfront. The downsides are many, and are obvious. So my take is that it's all about culture war nonsense. An incredibly weak and immature decision by a Board that didn't even ask any hard questions. I expect that it won't be long before we wake up to news of a tragic accident involving gravel trucks and trains / cars. ~ PJ
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the motivational nail on the head, it was an intentionally malicious decision rushed through at the last minute before the new Mayor could appoint new board members. They just as well could have sold the park to GE to build another PCB factory, and turned the Dunn into a storage site for abandoned cars.
DeleteJoyner rammed it through on her way out the door. This board (besides Gaby) thinks its perfectly reasonable to have an industrial gravel operation without limits at the heart of our city. The failure of imagination is staggering especially in the face of such a massive public outcry.
ReplyDeleteIf I may ask: What could we imagine for the waterfront?
DeleteIt's a serious question. For years I've been quizzing people in Hudson on this issue and I have to this day not received an answer. Given dictatorial powers, what would you do with it?
What I hear is a lot of generic talk about how that waterfront could be the economic engine that Hudson desperately needs.
We've seen the Dunn Warehouse proposal fail just recently. Now there's a new RFP round in which the ubiquitous Ben Fain is one of the parties. What you will not get from him is an imaginative proposal that will have any chance of moving the needle down by the river.
The brand new Comprehensive Plan barely talks about it, either.
All you need to do is take a look at a map of Hudson to see what the problem is and how unconnected the waterfront is physically to Hudson's commercial and retail center.
Lacking any real ideas, an industrial gravel operation isn't the worst outcome. At the very least, it generates some amount of sales tax to the county, a small portion of which winds up in Hudson.
Tassillo, I’ll bite. With a deep water dock, Hudson could become a major port for restored recreational dayliners. But more immediately, look at Battery Park City with its mix of parks, commercial and residential.
DeleteHudson’s overtaxed property owners will only get some relief when there are more property owners shouldering the cost of services, retirement benefits for city employees and debt service for much needed infrastructure projects. Anyone who thinks that the current situation is the highest and best use of that property, is not thinking very deeply
What you are describing might be doable but only after some necessary groundwork. The existing zoning explicitly does not allow any residential development. That would need to be fixed first.
DeleteAn LWRP do-over is the way to address this, and it's the only way: That vision that you are describing will require grants which Hudson's waterfront is not currently eligible for.
I've stopped thinking about the waterfront the moment I realized that for reasons beyond my comprehension, the city is almost magnetically repelled by the prospect of giving the LWRP another shot. As long as that's unresolved, the waterfront can never be anything.
Hi Tassilo,
DeleteThanks for the question. Picture a simple, but epic, riverside park with footpaths set amidst a variety of grasses and flowering bushes. The paths climb small hills to benches at varying elevations offering views on the human recreation below, set against the ever-changing river and purple mountains beyond. We might choose to embrace the fact we have an older population. Picture retirees walking together on a ramble, young children running and playing, teenagers laughing and confiding, fishermen catching their bass, while brightly painted boats come and go. Tennis courts, basketball courts, and food vendors could be nestled in the park.
Businesses of course would follow but we would kindly ask them to keep major construction on the other side of the tracks, where there is plenty of space.
I couldn’t disagree more with your theory about the waterfront being too far from Warren Street businesses to deserve attention. In the long run, the distance between the two will prove to be an asset to the city. It will help us better define the future waterfront as distinct from upper Warren, for they are very different. The waterfront is full of energy, some still only potential, some fully realized such as the handsome train station, the bandstand, the fantastic ferry, the sloop club, kayak rentals, and every manner of river boat gliding through that sublime natural landscape. They all face and include the public. They have no need for chainlink fences nor fancy lawyers from Albany to threaten our city.
Other cities are showing us how friendly and open it could be. We just don't yet believe we deserve something so convivial. It will take a few strong personalities who understand the virtuous goal of government is to foster friendship. We are like Manhattan before Central Park was dared.
Your survey is a good idea. I hope you continue with it and make it a living document available to the public.
"..an industrial gravel operation isn't the worst outcome. At the very least, it generates some amount of sales tax to the county" I doubt that gravel is being sold retail and collecting any sales tax, it's a wholesale operation. There could be worse outcomes, we could have a plastics factory, a paint factory, a cement plant. The premise is absurd, it's no longer an industrial site, the function of the property isn't to generate revenue.
DeleteThe members of the Planning Board should have been forced to spend a week sitting on the waterfront and observing the gravel operation. There might be one or two employees at the dock, and the truck drivers are coming from outside Hudson. What economic rationale is there for this ridiculous idea? ~ PJ
ReplyDeleteWho is going to break the news to Theresa and Randall that through their recorded comments and procedural error this will drag on for a few more years...
ReplyDelete