Council votes down grant for Bliss overhaul

The resolution, introduced at the meeting, was defeated 5-2, with Hudson 1st Ward Councilwoman Margaret Morris and 4th Ward Councilman Rich Volo voting against the resolution.

Councilmembers Dewan Sarow, Shershah Mizan, Vicky Daskaloudi, and Dominic Merante were absent from the meeting, and the resolution did not have enough votes to pass. The measure needed six votes to pass.

Council President Thomas DePietro said he has called another meeting to be held Monday for the council to vote, again, on the measure.

“It only needed one more vote to approve it and it seems odd that two votes against it could defeat it,” DePietro said Thursday.

DePietro added that in his seven years on the council, Wednesday was the first time a Restore NY application was denied the council’s support.

“In my time, I’ve never seen the council not support a Restore grant application,” he said. “Whether they have in the past, I don’t know.”

Jeffrey Dodson, executive director of the Hudson Housing Authority, as well as representatives from Mountco Construction, the housing authority’s development partner in the project, presented plans at the April 16 council meeting for the proposed redevelopment of Bliss Towers and Columbia Apartments to be done in two phases, and resulting in 300 units of affordable housing.

The project is broken down into three sites, with A and B being conventional apartment developments of five to seven stories. There is no designated site C, and site D will consist of roughly 10 townhouses built on city property that the housing authority is under contract to acquire.

Also proposed in the project is the partial pedestrianization of State Street, and both phases of the project will cost a total of $220 million.

Councilmembers expressed their concerns with supporting the housing authority’s application, and the lack of details provided on the proposed project so far.

“The concerns I have really relate to the fact that we’re asking for grant money, and the application has to come from us, for a project where we don’t really have detail yet because it’s still in very early stages,” Morris said at the meeting.

Voting in support of the grant application is also voting to support the project, Morris said.

“My whole problem is that I think that in voting to support this application, we are in essence voting to support what has so far been presented to us as a plan for phase 1 without enough information to be able to say affirmatively, ‘yes, I am in favor of how this has been laid out.’ That’s the issue,” she said.

The council would not be voting on the entire proposed project, Dodson said, who attended Wednesday’s meeting virtually.

“You’re voting to support the housing authority to move forward with trying to build better housing,” he said. “What you’re really voting for today is the fact that the current housing situation is not safe, it’s not adequate, and something needs to be done, and this is what’s going to assist us.”

There should be established checkpoints for the city and council to have their say about the project, said Hudson 2nd Ward Councilman Mohammed Rony.

“Because this is such a large project, it will have an effect on how the city will be for the next 20, 30 years,” he said. “But at the same time, I look at this vote as more of a moral support from the council that yes, we do need affordable housing, and that this is an integral part of the future of Hudson. If we don’t have enough affordable housing within Hudson, the city will become even more of a hollow version of itself than we have seen in the last 10 or 15 years.”

The council did not receive enough information about the financial aspect of the project, Volo said.

“What are going to be the additional costs to our sewers, police, fires, schools, maintenance, etc.?” he said in an email. “I felt that more transparency is needed, City of Hudson residents have a large tax burden and many have left Hudson because of it. I did not feel it was appropriate to vote in favor of this project without this information. I urge the residents of Hudson to learn more and become involved in this project.”

Volo said he does not support the project in its current state.

“The current project, I do not support,” he said. “Even for a Restore NY grant, it’s too big. I understand that this is a portion of it, but I don’t support the project, and I’m not going to vote in favor of something I don’t support.”

Smaller-scale housing should be built throughout the city instead, Volo said.

“In 2018 or 2019, the (Hudson) Housing Trust Fund passed a document recommending small-scale housing throughout the various wards,” he said. “The recommendation was not for large-scale public housing, it was for small-scale housing throughout the city.”

Dodson said Thursday the housing authority would answer any questions the council has about the project.

“There are no questions we aren’t willing to answer,” he said. “Some we can’t answer because it’s a draft; it’s a fluid plan. The inference that we were not being transparent is utterly ridiculous, we gave a prepared presentation. Those questions have no bearing on our application.”

The Restore NY funding the housing authority is seeking would have provided $2 million in funding to be used for the demolition and site preparation of the project.

The grant would have also provided the housing authority with money to fill the roughly $23 million funding gap of the project, Dodson said.

“Since it was not approved, we would have to find money elsewhere to do that,” he said. “It is discouraging but in no way will it stop the project from moving forward. It will not hinder our pursuit of moving forward to get the proper permissions to build the project.

“It would have made a very small dent, not even a percentage point, that’s why it’s so ludicrous.”

The result of the vote was disheartening, Dodson said.

“I’m severely disappointed, and the message I received clearly from them (council members) could not be anything other than the Common Council is not in support of affordable housing for residents of Hudson,” he said. “It appears that they are unconcerned with the current conditions residents are living in, and are not willing to take a step forward for improvement.”

The project does not meet the criteria for the grant, Morris said in an email.

“We have not seen the proposed application, which must include a project proposal, nor have we been provided with sufficient financial details to evaluate the financial impact to the municipality of the project,” she said. “Absent this information, I did not believe that voting to approve the unseen application would be responsible or in the best interest of the community.”

Empire State Development, the state agency responsible for approving the applications for Restore NY funding, already approved the city’s intent to apply for the grant, DePietro said.

“All applications get greenlighted by the state,” he said. “The state already said it’s eligible for a grant.”

It is not up to the Common Council to determine if the project is eligible for the grant, Dodson said.

“We were told what the guidelines were,” he said. “If we don’t meet them let them (the state) tell that to us,” he said.

The council is slated to hold a special meeting Monday to hold another vote on the housing authority’s application.

Wednesday’s vote should not be seen as a characterization of the council’s position on affordable housing, DePietro said.

“I don’t think it should be taken as a representation of what the council thinks of affordable housing, and I hope to prove him (Dodson) wrong about that Monday,” he said. “A lot of people who say they’re in favor of affordable housing, but when push comes to shove, they come up with reasons for opposing it.”