tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post5037675379749413840..comments2024-03-28T17:55:31.180-04:00Comments on The Gossips of Rivertown: HPC Holds a Second Public HearingCarole Osterinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010623982526286408noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-20382141493795310322018-06-25T12:15:47.275-04:002018-06-25T12:15:47.275-04:002.
But what's the alternative to our endless ...2.<br /><br />But what's the alternative to our endless unconscious stumblings through these much-needed planning efforts? And how can we defend our best efforts from the commandeering autocrats and oligarchs who tend to drive these processes, if only unconsciously, towards their own preferred conclusions? (I hasten to express my gratitude to Council President DePietro who recently asked HDC Treasurer Don Moore why the rfp for the Kaz site framed its own foregone conclusion? That's exactly what I'm talking about, and kudos to Tom.) <br /> <br />The alternative to boss rule plus collective stumbling must begin with a renewed vision. An update to the City's Comprehensive Plan is long overdue, though in the meantime we've learned to avoid the kind of cookie-cutter planning firms we've hired in the past (BFJ, Saratoga, even Randall & West), and also learned to avoid anyone who's so dull to still recommend them! <br /><br />Instead, let's learn from the recent examples of the Hofstra Law School (2015), and the graduate-level landscape class from Cornell (2016), both of whom made astounding contributions to City planning. <br /><br />Events are now practically forcing Hudson to look beyond the tired templates of the usual conventional planning firms whose designs are so often driven by the profit-motive, and/or the convenience of each firm's long-associated engineering firm (a professional class not unlike lawyers). <br /><br />In proper order, the waterfront program should be finished only after the Comprehensive Plan is updated, and particularly if a proper LWRP is to have its long-awaited HMP (Harbor Management Plan). With an ever-expanding gravel industry at our waterfront (see "City attorney" above, no. 1) the waterfront will require an HMP sooner rather than later. For this reason alone our waterfront planning should be premised on the kind of comprehensive vision which informs a Comprehensive Plan. <br /><br />To achieve this effectively, we must free the City from the clutch of its incompetent egoists who always (always!) screw up the best planning efforts. Watching the contortions of the HDC, maybe we're finally beginning to learn.unheimlichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00204285837938988668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-80279103098251854442018-06-25T11:47:07.853-04:002018-06-25T11:47:07.853-04:001.
This story calls to mind the discrepancy betwe...1.<br /><br />This story calls to mind the discrepancy between the documented intent of the Common Council when fashioning the Core Riverfront Zoning District and the same district's description and mapping in their respective Council resolutions.<br /><br />Thanks largely to then-Council President Don Moore's management style, these text and map blunders were ratified over the public's protests. Notwithstanding the nearly brain-dead Aldermen of 2011, it was predominantly Mr. Moore's disdainful attitude about public participation which had preserved a safe space for [the mayor's] corporate council to draft something so poorly that today the City is already in the awful situation some of us warned was inevitable 7 years ago. <br /><br />But whether it's a zoning district or a historic district, gaps between legislative intent and the actual drafting of laws are generally traceable to the carelessness of attorneys. <br /><br />Then later on, in the midst of some determination that pivots on these self-same gaps, a justifiably confused ZBA or Planning Board will readily cede its authority to any interpretation at all from its nearest and latest legal advisor.<br /><br />In this hazardous way our attorneys inevitably create and/or drive the City's policies, albeit unconsciously. Call it an inadvertent professional hazard - one which may or may not be accompanied by work-making legal consequences.<br /><br />Culturally, it seems we're too fatuous and dull in Hudson to challenge this nearly automatic machinery. Somehow, there are always plenty of people appointed to policy and planning positions who are content to accept the merest opinions of any lawyer or of anyone who can claim "planning" bona fides. And if the latter are autocratic personalities, then any institutional memory of whatever had given rise to this or that policy becomes redundant.<br /><br />For example, more than any other City official the attorney now advising the Planning Board and ZBA is sealing the fate of the South Bay. By compounding the initial Code and Zoning Map blunders engendered under (and by) the jealous supervision of Mr. Moore, today's legal advisor to these ever-impressionable Boards is putting 15 years of herculean planning efforts at risk. <br />unheimlichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00204285837938988668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-6331349787178586382018-06-25T09:07:13.155-04:002018-06-25T09:07:13.155-04:00HPC needs "teeth" to uphold their decisi...HPC needs "teeth" to uphold their decisions and to hold owners responsible when they don't comply. And I'd like to see some stricter rules. We are too rapidly losing the character of our town. There are heinous exterior colour decisions, like black and orange, which are inappropriate and unsightly. The reason the French Quarter and other historic areas retain their original character is that they are strictly maintained. That's why people like them and come to visit. It's something that needs to be thought about in Hudson a lot more seriously.Cynthia Lamberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09550592770287010816noreply@blogger.com