On Wednesday, the Planning Board holds a special meeting. The only thing on the agenda for the meeting is the proposed redevelopment of the Hudson Housing Authority properties. John Madeo of Mountco, HHA's development partner, is hoping the Planning Board will vote on granting site plan approval at this meeting, but there is no guarantee that will happen.
One of the things the Planning Board will do at Wednesday's meeting is review and discuss the applicant's responses to issues raised in the public hearing--either at the hearing or in written comments. The most recent responses, submitted to the Planning Board on September 10, can be found here. The document contains some interesting information.
In response to concerns about the instability of the soil, a condition that caused redevelopment plan proposed in 2019 to be abandoned, the following information is offered:
HHA/Mountco's structural and geotechnical teams have designed a stone column ground-improvement system for the project. The stone columns will be installed beneath the proposed buildings to improve the engineering characteristics and load-bearing capacity of the underlying soils and to provide suitable support for the proposed building foundations.
Approximately 890 stone columns will be installed beneath Buildings A and B, consisting of approximately 290 stone columns beneath Building A and 600 stone columns beneath Building B. The stone columns will be approximately 1.5 feet in diameter and will extend to an approximate depth of 20 to 25 feet, depending upon subsurface conditions and final engineering requirements. Installation of the stone column ground-improvement system is expected to take approximately 9 weeks.
Building A is the building proposed for the Bliss Towers site, west of the existing structure. Building B is the building proposed for State Street, where the playground and park with the gazebo are now located.
Regarding the vibrations resulting from driving 890 stone columns 20 to 25 feet into the ground over a period of nine weeks, the following information is provided:
The installation of the stone columns will cause ground vibrations at the project sites and may result in perceptible vibrations in portions of the surrounding area. Based on vibration monitoring conducted to date, the average vibration readings have been less than 0.5 inches per second, which is well below the 2.0 inches per second damage threshold for residential buildings identified by the design team. Throughout the stone column installation, ground vibrations will continue to be closely monitored to ensure that vibration levels remain within the established project limits and to minimize potential impacts on surrounding properties and structures.
For anyone who has read Margaret Schram's series of articles about Lake Albany clay, Columbia County's Sleeping Dragon,* this information doesn't seem all that reassuring. What happens if, while being closely monitored, the ground vibrations exceed the damage threshold for residential building identified by the design team?
Also of interest in the document is the construction timeline, which has Phase I construction starting in April 2027 and ending in July 1, 2029. The following timeline anticipates the demolition of Bliss Towers will take place in December 2029 and Phase II will be completed in March 2032.
The entire document can be found here.
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Maybe this is too late to bring up but the Redevelopment Committee of the HHA was created to address, discuss and answer so much, including the soil challenge.
ReplyDeleteThis is the committee that was set up in August of 2024 to work with the Mountco team and the architect to finish developing the plan, including mitigating plans which would then be presented to the City of Hudson.
Ah, but who remembers that it was during that same exact stretch that the HHA Executive Director and the Board of Commissioners decided the public no longer needed to be part of "those" public meetings and set up Claire Cousins, Nick Zachos and Rebecca Wolff to lead the Redevelopment Committee. (Please keep in mind, Nick is the only member who has any knowledge of construction or planning.)
This is the same committee that was created by the ED and the Board of Commissioners to discuss everything related to the new building's planning — the same committee explicitly created to NOT INCLUDE THE PUBLIC.
This is the same committee that never reported the results of those meetings at the following month's meeting, and never published minutes.
This is the same committee that was supposedly expediting the process — getting all the necessary plans and answers ready for city officials, the Planning Board, and the public. FYI: that did not happen. We are standing here in 2026 with many unanswered questions.
For those who weren't attending the monthly public HHA meetings back then: it seemed to me that the ED and the Board of Commissioners were growing frustrated with public participation — specifically, people asking for more clarity on the architecture, the construction plan, the infrastructure impacts to the city, and the costs.
I surmise this because there was no public documentation of the meetings that followed — no minutes released, no room for public participation. The public portion of the monthly meetings simply ended, and the private meetings began without it. If memory serves, the justification was a need to "expedite" the process.
During recent public Planning Board meetings, several comments implied that if the people questioning the plans had just attended "the meetings," they'd already have their answers. I don't recall seeing or hearing those commenters at the meetings I attended in 2023 and 2024.
Attending those meetings — until we were no longer allowed to — was about gathering information, asking questions, and challenging the plan in service of the city and its residents. All of them.
I'll go ahead and predict: given the answers we have and the ones we don't, if the Mountco plan gets built, the $250 million price tag being sold to the public will be surpassed — in dollars, and in impact to the city and its residents. A side note - those ‘vibrations’ will impact many homes around the construction site. Their walls and paint jobs will be cracking.
I don't know whether then-Mayor Johnson knew about this "sub-committee." I'd like to think not. And I can't imagine current Mayor Ferris knew this history either. But it's worth digging up this forgotten chapter, given the recent comments suggesting HHA and Mountco have always operated with an open-door policy on information.
As odd as it may sound, I keep thinking of a line from Ted Lasso — Ted's playing darts against someone who has no idea what he's capable of and has already made up their mind about him. His response: "be curious, not judgmental."
Maybe there's still value in approaching what's being raised, questioned, and challenged with curiosity — instead of judging it at face value.
Carla brings up a very good topic that should be throughly discussed by the board.
ReplyDeleteThe city needs actual community members who are professionals to advise us. Not a made up board. Nick has zero experience in building. His only experience is bankrupting the youth department.
This proposal is going to destroy those streets and the houses around it. The city will be paying out the nose for this project for the next 50 years.
Thanks, Carla, you raise really strong issues with this bill of goods. I'm considering starting a line on Kalshi regarding the damage done to neighboring buildings during the construction and about the stability of the buildings when complete.
ReplyDeletePrivate meetings about a project that could impact the entire city, no records, no minutes, and no way for the public to participate until the plan was done?
ReplyDeleteSounds like the Charter Review Committee all over again.
Touché Michael. Maybe we can ALL LEARN!!
DeleteRelated to Carla's excellent point (which deserves its own Op-Ed or permanent letter on her own blog, IMBY or similar) is the fact that Joe Ferris accused the Friends of Second Street (in a recent RS story) from not engaging in good faith, but much of this happened before Joe Ferris even moved to Hudson from Brooklyn, or at least started attending public meetings in Hudson.
ReplyDeleteAnd this goes to the core issue of public engagement:
Bliss/HHA:
1. Did not reach out to neighbors directly across the street for 4 years.
2. The primary decisions were made behind closed doors by Claire Cousin, Zachos and Rebecca Wolff, and MountCo, with little or no public input from Bliss/Hudson residents or non Bliss Hudson residents.
Cousin, Zachos, and Wolff have specific past conflicts of interests, or economic interests, in local housing policy and not for profit spending.
3. Then the Planning Board rushed the SEQRA vote (evidently without full information or applicant disclosures) at the one meeting where Peter Spear was not present in Hudson.
(Spear has been one of only 2 board members asking direct questions about contradictions in the applicant file).
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If this House of Cards falls down... who will be blamed?
Addendum: The Planning Board agenda is usually set a week in advance, and there is no evidence that the Planning Board intentionally voted when Spear was absent.
DeleteThat said, it is regrettable that such a momentous vote happened so quickly, arguably without complete information, and with what seems to be very little deliberation.