In April, residents of Washington Street submitted a petition to the Common Council complaining about parking problems and noise issues visited upon them by the opening of Pocketbook Hudson Hotel and Baths.
Regarding the noise issues, at the Common Council Safety Committee meeting last night, Code Enforcement Officer Nick Fox reported that "Washington Street is essentially the quietest street in the city, even with those things running"--"those things" being the mechanicals and the exhaust fan at Pocketbook Hudson.
Fox reported that the ambient sound measured at the houses closest to Pocketbook Hudson registered 42.2 decibels. Farther west on the street, the sound was measured at 39.4 decibels. The maximum allowable, according to Chapter 210 of the city code is 55 decibels between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. and 45 decibels between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. Fox concluded, "From a code perspective, there are no violations."
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The problem with the idea that a new parking area for the PBH in the city-owned vacant lot should alleviate the parking problems on residential streets is this: at any time, dozens of guests of the PBH are using the lot to park in and they have been doing so for months, but the problems persist. The fact of the matter is that no guests have been or will be forced to park in PBH's lot; they can park wherever they like on any street. Most, if not all, people driving to the PBH will first look for on street parking close to the building and take a space when they can. That is the default - it's human nature. A new 34 space parking area will do little or nothing to alleviate anything, especially on the weekends. It will give the ILLUSION of solving a problem, that's all.
ReplyDeleteI hope the Planning Board denies the PBH their proposed parking lot based on the idea that that large parcel of city property was never meant to be used by or leased to one private company, no matter how desperate they are for parking or anything else requiring space. That large lot is ONLY to be used by and for the residents of Hudson, the fire department and DPW, particularly for the dumping of collected snow and other emergency uses. Now that would be f'n hilarious. "Go find your own parking lot, we can't help you! Doing so would set a horrible precedent -- we are not here to provide parking lots for individual businesses. You should have solved your parking needs before you opened your business. We are not her to bail you out. Good luck. Don't come back and try again. REQUEST DENIED!" Let's hope this happens. You want to see a residential parking problem of the city's own making? You ain't seen nothin' yet!
What an unhelpful and unprofessional claim it is to make that "Washington Street is essentially the quietest street in the city."
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