$30,000/Year In Exchange For Another Bit Of Hudson's Soul

HUDseen hopes to soon provide more details and comments regarding the parking lot lease agreement recently signed by Gabe Katz of the Pocketbook Hudson (PBH) business complex at 549 (one way) Washington Street and our so-called mayor, Kamal Johnson, of Hudson City Hall (for only a few more days, thank goodness).  It's one of the last things Kamal will have put his signature to as our so-called mayor.  Consider it his parting gift, if you will, to the people of Hudson he so loved and cared for.  For now, though, due to time constraints, there is this to consider:

The large city-owned dirt parking (and snow storage) lot across the street from the Hudson Firestation -- at the confluence of the end of Railroad Avenue/DSS driveway, the eastern end of Washington Street and the northern end of North 7th Street -- has essentially been given away to Gabe Katz and his PBH business complex for $30,000 a year for at least the next five years.  Soon enough, according to the PBH's engineering firm's diagram of the lot and surrounding area included in the lease agreement (shown below), all that will remain of the spacious Firestation lot for city use -- including the public, DPW (primarily snow dumping) and the fire department -- are the following two areas:  

1)   A sliver of space near Railroad Avenue with just enough room for seven (7), possibly eight (8!), vehicles to awkwardly park in, what the plan diagram refers to as "fire department overflow parking on existing gravel surface."  (The red dot on the diagram.)  Those spaces look as though they can only be accessed by means of the DSS driveway/Railroad Avenue.

2) A roughly 60-foot by 60-foot area for DPW to dump snow on, referred to as "snow storage 3,650 sf." (The blue dot on the diagram.)  This is a much, much smaller area than what DPW has used to dump plowed snow from past large snowstorms!

And that's it; nothing else for us poor country bumpkins. At least Gabe Katz and Kamal Johnson left a little something to make life tolerable for the rest of us. 

click on to enlarge

HPB's proposed parking lot with 40-plus spaces ON CITY PROPERTY meant solely for their guests' use is referred to on the diagram as a "gravel parking lot 15, 875 sf" with an additional space referred to as "HMA ADA parking area 720 sf.".  (The yellow dot is in the back of the lot).  But that's not everything being taken over on city property, because it doesn't include the buffer zone with six "evergreen screening trees" between the front of the lot and the edge of Washington Street (about 20 feet by my estimation).   I'm thinking that space -- which will also include a sidewalk where one does not currently exist -- amounts to an additional 2,000 or 3,000 square feet of what was once essentially -- like the entire lot! -- free, off-street public parking spaces for the taxpaying residents of Hudson.  The frontage for PBH's lot along the end of Washington Street will be at least 120 feet long, and their lot will be nearly identical in configuration and size to Galvan's adjacent paved parking lot with its 38 not free parking spaces and 18 lights that remain on all night for a few of their tenants (for now) of the 76 North 7th Street apartment building several hundred feet away, nearly to State Street (or about a 3 minute walk, not including the time spent in the building getting to and from an apartment).

One of the lot's two now meaningless signs, 
soon to disappear. After how many decades?

It's not too unusual -- even in these post-Covid times -- to see the city's dirt parking lot across the street from the Firestation completely or half filled with dozens of parked cars while a public event of some sort is being held inside the station.  For the most part, those parked cars are owned by Hudson residents attending a public event.  Many of the events, with some being quite important to residents, are held at the station out of necessity, as there is no other location large enough and with ample parking to accommodate everyone.  There isn't anywhere else to fucking park besides in the huge lot associated with the Firestation!  On what streets will event attendees now park their vehicles once the seven spaces in the lot are occupied?  In the 500 block of Washington? In front of Galvan's apartment building?  Along the DSS driveway ("Hey, it is a street!)?  Down the 6th Street hill in Oakdale Park's parking lot?  That's only a five-minute walk up and down the hill, if you can make it!

Kamal Johnson was all for handing off that often used and helpful city public parking lot to Gabe Kaplan and the PBH (he signed it away, after all), as were at least two Common Council members, Jen Belton and Vicky Daskaloudi, who introduced and seconded the resolution for the lease agreement.  But you gotta wonder if the Fire Department and DPW were all for this give away, too.  I have no doubt that anyone in City Hall who was supportive of this gross parking lot lease agreement had a guiding factor in the back of their mind:  THE CITY NEEDS THIS MONEY!  WE ARE DESPERATE FOR THAT THIRTY GRAND EVERY YEAR!  TAKE IT WHILE WE CAN!

Slowly but surely, little old Hudson's soul is being erased, reengineered, razed, paved over, PILOTed, blocked off, sold and leased to the highest bidder with the deepest pockets.  But, hey, at least the richie rich's from out of town have another expensive boutique hotel, restaurant and wellness fucking center to visit and spend their cash (between a pair of one-way streets in a once quiet residential neighborhood).  And thank goodness, they will also soon have a place to park their cars in a parking lot not too far away (or have them valeted there) on city property where residents could once always count on a place to park their cars if they needed to attend a public event, including, of course, events having to do with Hudson's future well-being. 

Whatever!  What a mess!