A surprise on the agenda for tonight's Planning Board meeting, which presumably was supposed to be dedicated solely to the Colarusso conditional use permit, are two items of new business, both coming from the Galvan Foundation. The first is an application to build a new addition and make interior renovations to 405 Columbia Street, the building that was Helsinki Hudson.
The second is an application to demolish 14 and 16 North Fourth Street "to allow expansion of the Hudson Public Hotel comprised of two new buildings with 14 guest rooms."
My question immediately upon learning about this was: "Why didn't this go before the Historic Preservation Commission?" The two houses are in a historic district known as "North Fourth Street Extension," created on the initiative of people who once lived in one of the two buildings Galvan now wants to demolish. When I contacted Craig Haigh to ask why this was bypassing the HPC, I was told there was no record of this part of North Fourth Street being in a historic district. I know differently and will spend the rest of the afternoon tracking down the documents to prove it. If I cannot find the documentation, which I know exists, not only will Galvan be allowed to demolish these houses but also to construct new buildings with no oversight from the Historic Preservation Commission.
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UPDATE: Eureka! I found it (and it wasn't all that hard). The locally designated Warren Street Historic District was expanded to include "properties on the east and west sides of North Fourth Street between Prison Alley and Columbia Street" by Resolution 14 of 2006, passed by the Common Council on May 16, 2006, and signed by Mayor Richard Tracy on May 17, 2006. The resolution can found here. You need to scroll past the first two pages.
Surprise surprise. Kamal Johnson loses the election and his two most notorious organizations with ties to him are trying to rush the planning board agenda in the lame duck period before the new administration and, hopefully, changes to the planning board.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it. The demolition of those two houses was not part of the hotel plans brought before the Planning Board a few years ago. How can Galvan decide that their perfectly good houses have got to go? Those houses should remain and be lived in, and not by Galvan workers (as 14 is currently). This city is done for if the Planning Board approves this.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the HPC has not actual teeth. Has anyone ever been so much as fined for bypassing the HPC, much less made to correct the violation? It seems if people do what they want in historic districts, and ask for forgiveness later, it works out for them most of the time.
ReplyDeleteThe HPC's decisions must be enforced by the Code Enforcement Officer, and it does happen. Here is one example: https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2017/02/code-enforcement-at-work.html I recall the person representing Galvan at the time complaining that they'd spent $60,000 on the stoop they were now asked to undo and replace with the stoop that had been approved.
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