Following Monday night’s Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, several people wandered by Gaffney’s restaurant on Caroline Street at about 11:00.   Looking in the window they saw Gary Hasbrouck, a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, drinking with Sonny Bonacio and Richard Higgins.  Only a short time before the  three of them had been sitting at the Council table with Hasbrouck on the side among the other ZBA members and Bonacio and Higgins facing them.

If you watch the video of the meeting you can observe Mr. Hasbrouck’s performance.  He told the other members of the board that he had originally had reservations about the project due to the potential impact that the project might have on the availability of street parking.  He went on to say that he made multiple visits on different days and different hours in the neighborhood and was now sure that there was ample parking for the project indicating his support for the proposal.

Mr. Hasbrouck owns and operates Loudon Oaks which appears to be a trailer park in Wilton.  Here is a link to his Facebook page.  Link to his Facebook Page

Mr. Hasbrouck is not unique in terms of his close relationship with the development community as regards our land use boards.  The extraordinary bias of these boards on behalf of developers is common knowledge to anyone that has dealt with them.

Every member of the City Council is fully aware of this.  They know that Scott Johnson stacked these boards.  I have had conversations with the majority of the council who have lamented to me privately about the situation but in public continue the charade that these boards are a source of fair and independent evaluations of projects.

I am still working on a review of the full meeting which I will publish shortly.

This is a brief post on the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting as regards the Bonacio proposal for Moore Hall redevelopment last night.  There was a very impressive turn out by the neighborhood.  They filled all the seats in the council chambers with some standing.

The ZBA took no action at the meeting.  They indicated that the decision will be made at either the December 7 or December 14 meeting.

I will post a more detailed description of the meeting tomorrow when I am back in the U.S.

On Monday night at 7:00 PM at the City Council Chambers, the Zoning Board of Appeals will consider whether to grant the waivers sought by Bonacio Construction for its Moore Hall Project.

The deliberations, unfortunately, have as much to do with the power of interests as they do with the substance of the decision.  It is very important that the opponents of the project show up in numbers.

Today it is the neighbors of Moore Hall; tomorrow it could be your street.  I urge people in the community to take the time to attend this meeting and to give voice to the many reasons why this project should not go forward.

 

 

NEWS RELEASE

From:            Eileen Finneran

Subject: Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Brought
by Former City Council Members

Press Contact:  Public Safety Commissioner
Christian Mathiesen, 527-2710 or 587-3550 x2627
or Deputy Public Safety Commissioner Eileen
Finneran, 587-3550 x 2631

Saratoga Springs, November 22, 2015 – In a
Decision and Order dated November 17, 2015, the
New York State Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit
against the City of Saratoga Springs, its City
Council members, and a local developer and a local
landowner.

In McTygue et al. v. City of Saratoga Springs et al.,
three former City Council members (Thomas
McTygue, Remigia Foy, and Raymond Watkin)
challenged a 2013 City Resolution in which the City
agreed to purchase land on which it could site an
EMS facility for $200,000 and sell a City-owned
parcel commonly known as the “Collamer Lot” for
$775,000.  The lawsuit alleged violations of the
Public Trust Doctrine, the State Environmental
Quality Review Act, and General Municipal Law
section 51 (a public corruption statute).  Upon the
City’s motion, Acting Supreme Court Justice
Richard Sise dismissed the suit in its entirety.

The City Respondents are thrilled with the Court’s
decision, though not surprised by it.  Public Safety
Commissioner Christian Mathiesen said, “The entire
process leading up to the City Council Resolution
approving the land transactions was transparent and
in furtherance of the best interests of the City.”

The City Respondents were represented by Daniel J.
Hurteau and Jena R. Rotheim of the law firm Nixon
Peabody LLP.

---

************************************************************

Not being a lawyer I struggled with the decision.  It appears that the suit was dismissed for a number of reasons.

• It was beyond the statute of limitations
• The plaintiffs did not have standing
• The persons bringing the suit failed to meet a standard that required them to show “official corruption.”

In the case of “standing,” the judge found that plaintiffs failed to show that they had been harmed.  Apparently, proximity to the parcel can be a factor and the judge took exception to measuring the distance from the Collamer to Tom McTygue’s home as the crow flies (which could have affected his standing) when it should have been measured by the distance required to travel there.  More pointedly, the judge took exception to the claim made by Tom McTygue that “construction of the [city center] parking garage will, according to McTygue, impose an environmental harm on him that is greater in degree than that experienced by the general public.”  The judge continued by stating that “…the claim is not articulated.  And because the ‘[t]he injury in fact element must be based on more than conjecture or speculation’, petitioners are without standing…”

In the case of “statute of limitations,” the two parties argued over when the clock started in determining when the suit had to be be filed by.  The judge found for the city.

In the case of “failure to state a cause of action,” the plaintiffs had to show that the “‘…acts complained of are fraudulent or a waste of public property in the sense that they represent the use of public property or funds for entirely illegal purposes.'”  The judge went on to set a very hire bar.  “There must be specific allegations of waste tied to official corruption and allegations of illegality alone are insufficient and any expenditure of funds must be for entirely illegal purposes…”  “In the absence of allegations of corrupt motive and illegal purpose the complaint is facially insufficient…”

---

This is a link to a more readable (PDF) copy of the decision.

McTygue v Saratoga Springs

 

 

 

 

I thought long and hard before posting this because of the increasing  anti-Muslim hysteria in general and anti-Syrian hysteria in particular.  The vast majority of the victims of ISIS are Muslims and many of those are Syrians but this does not seem to mean anything to many of our citizens.  Who knows what lists this post will put me on but in light of the terrible things done as a result of fear and xenophobia I felt compelled to offer this.

The Washington Post published a story with the heading: “CNN anchor blames French Muslims for failure to prevent attacks”

Yasser Louati is a highly respected French civil rights activist and attorney.  The Washington Post story properly takes CNN to task for its two reporters who badgered Louati relentlessly in an interview about why the Muslim community in France failed to prevent the awful massacres last week.

John Vause of CNN asked Mr. Louati, “Why is it that no one within the Muslim community there in France knew what these guys were up to?…Because it seems to me that this was a pretty big plan. Surely someone beyond the seven guys who’ve been killed over the last 48 hours would have to have known something and that was probably within the Muslim community but yet no one said anything.”

The parochialism and ignorance of Mr. Vause in this interview was just appalling.  Following Timothy McVeigh’s bombing in Oklahoma, no one asked any Christians on television to defend the failure of the Christian community to stop McVeigh. It apparently never occurred to Mr. Vause that he was expecting an individual who he assumed to be Muslim to explain how the entire French  Muslim  community couldn’t discover what the global intelligence community failed to detect.

Here is the link to the story and video

I am pleased to be able to republish a poem by the Syrian Kurdish poet Amir Darwish. A collection of Amir Darwish’s poetry can be found in the book Don’t Forget the Couscous.   

Sorry! An apology from Muslims (or those perceived to be Muslims) to humanity

We are sorry

for everything

That we have caused humanity to suffer from.

Sorry for Algebra and the letter X.

Sorry for all the words we throw at you;

Amber, candy, chemistry, cotton, giraffe, hazard,

Jar, jasmine, jumper, lemon, lime, lilac,

Oranges, sofa, scarlet, spinach,

Talisman, tangerine, tariff, traffic, tulips,

Mattress (yes mattress) and the massage you enjoy on it:

We are sorry for all of these.

Sorry that we replaced alcohol with coffee for Enlightenment philosophers.

Speaking of hot drinks,

We are sorry for the cappuccino the Turks brought over.

Sorry for the black Arabian race horses,

For the clock,

Math,

Parachutes.

 

Abdul in the US is sorry for what so and so did;

He does not know him but he is sorry anyway.

Sorry that we accompanied Columbus on his journey to the States.

And sorry for the Arab man with him

Who was the first to touch the shore and shout ‘Honolulu’

And named the place after him.

Sorry for the architecture in Spain and the Al Hambra palace there.

We apologize for churches in Seville

With their stars of David at the top that we built with our hands.

We say sorry for every number you use in your daily life from the 0 to the trillion.

Even Adnan the Yezidi (mistaken for a Muslim)

Is sorry for the actions of Abu whatever who beheads people in Syria.

 

Sorry for the mercury chloride that heals wounds,

Please give us some –

Because the guilt of initiating all of the above

Gives us a wound as big as this earth.

Sorry for the guitar that was played by Moriscos in Spain

To ease their pain when they were kicked out of their homes.

Sorry for the hookah as you sip on its lips And gaze into the moon hearing the Arabian Nay.

Sorry for cryptanalysis and the ability to analyze  information systems,

To think what is at the heart of the heart of the heart and bring it to the world.

Sorry for painting Grenada white to evade social hierarchy. Sorry for the stories in The Arabian Nights.

 

Every time we see a star, we remember to be sorry for

Astronomy.

 

We are sorry that Mo Farah claimed asylum here

And went on to become the British champion of the world.

Sorry for non-representational art,

Pattern and surface decoration.

We are sorry for all the food we brought over:

From tuna to chicken tikka masala,

Hummus,

Falafel,

Apricot,

Doner kebab

Right up to the shawarma roll.

And don’t forget the couscous.

If we forgot to apologize for something, never mind,

We are sorry for it without even knowing it.

Most of all we are sorry for Rumi’s love poems,

And we desperately echo one of them to you:

 

Oh Beloved, Take me.

Liberate my soul.

Fill me with your love and Release me from the two worlds.

If I set my heart on anything but you

Let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,

Take away what I want.

Take away what I do.

Take away what I need.

Take away everything

That takes me from you.

Please forgive us.

We are sorry and cannot be sorry enough today.

Next Monday night, November 23, the Zoning Board of Appeals is slated to address the application by Sonny Bonacio to convert Moore Hall into 53 “micro” apartments.  As many of you know, the City Council is scheduled to meet with the developer and the community in the neighborhood of Moore Hall on Saturday, December 5.  While it is hard to believe that the ZBA would proceed before the Council could make its own assessment of the situation, given the makeup of our land use boards it would not be altogether that surprising.  I have not been to a ZBA meeting but the experience at the city’s Planning Board does not breed confidence.  Scott Johnson’s long tenure as Mayor gave him the opportunity to appoint most of the members of these boards and he was none too subtle about placing the most reliable representatives of the real estate/construction/finance industry on them.

Still, the extraordinary mobilization opposing the project and its high profile due to the many signs on the East Side, the coverage in the local media, and the decision of the City Council to involve itself should pressure the ZBA to act more cautiously.

Of course, the real issue is the utter poverty of the proposal itself.  One of the central criteria the ZBA must use in deciding whether to grant the applicant its variances is whether the project would have a negative impact on the neighborhoods that it abuts.

The two variances Bonacio is seeking  are over parking and density.  City code requires that the developer allocate 1.5 parking spaces per unit and the dimensions of the parcel limit the number of units to 18. The developer seeks to reduce the required parking spaces to 1 space per unit and to increase the number of total units to 53.

In a meeting several of us had with Sonny Bonacio he made it clear that he will not budge on his proposal.  Sonny was charming but firm.  He argued that the inherent structure of the building makes any other design impractical and that the cost to do the conversion precludes reducing the number of units.

The central problem for the ZBA is that as a “non-conforming” property, most of the code requirements that insure a safe, attractive, and efficient project cannot be assumed.  The simple question then is, “how can one assess the impact of this project on the adjacent neighborhoods if many of the key elements of this project are unknown?”

Let’s consider some of these:

Parking

The variance being sought assumes that the parking lot currently contains 53 parking spaces.  This number does not stand up under the most cavalier review.  The fiction of this number is based on the fact that as a non-conforming parcel, the existing physical characteristics are grandfathered.  Therefore, the fact that this parking lot violates the city’s building codes does not necessarily mean that it must be modified.  [The following itemized problems with the lot have been documented in previous posts so you may want to skip these]

1. None of the parking spaces meet the current code requirements for size dimensions. The purpose of this code is to minimize damage to cars that must navigate these parking spaces and to insure that in the event that someone must escape from a car in an emergency, egress from the vehicle will be easy.
2. The driving lane between the rows of cars is required under city code to be 24’ wide. This is to insure that emergency vehicles can easily and quickly access the full lot and be able to operate the equipment in their vehicles quickly and easily. None of the lanes meets this code and one is less than 16’ in width.
3. None of the parking spaces are currently designed for a handicapped car. The lot will require at least one such space and very possibly two.
4. The lot is exposed to the elements so snow removal will be required. The design of the lot will have to address this and may require during the winter that certain areas be reserved to address this need.

This raises some fundamental issues about the quality and nature of this proposal.  One must surely ask, would it be appropriate to go forward with a project assuming such a lot?  I would go further and ask, would it even be ethical?

It is very possible that the issue of safety and liability may override the freedom of “non-conforming” characteristics.   Were this to happen, and it is reasonable to assume that it will, then the currently requested variance would be inadequate since the number of on site parking spaces would have to be reduced.  It begs reason that the Zoning Board of Appeals would consider the variance on parking before the actual final need could be determined.  There is also the issue of the density variance as it relates to parking which will be addressed later in this post.

Impact on Neighborhood

The current city code requires a setback of a total of 45 feet on both sides of a parcel.  The minimum for any individual side is 20 feet.  So, for example, one end might have a 20 foot setback and the other would have a 25 foot setback.  Setbacks are a very important element in our city code because they very much impact how the infrastructure of a project will affect the surrounding neighborhoods.  This is particularly acute when it comes to parking lots.  If you casually walk our city you will see that there is almost always a green buffer between the parking lots and the sidewalks or roads.  This is because eliminating this buffer makes for a very ugly and overwhelming wall of cars and concrete.

In the case of the Moore Hall project, the proposal does not include any setbacks.  In fact this raises serious questions about the safety of the property that abuts North Lane.  The cars will extend directly to the edge of the alley.  There will be no buffer.  As for the White Street side, the cars will press cheek by jowl against the sidewalk there.

There is also the issue of trash.  Fifty-three apartments will generate a great deal of trash.  How will it be managed?  Where will the storage bins be located?  How large will they be?  How will they be maintained?  It is important to note that the footprint of the building itself exceeds the city code.  It covers much of the parcel so there will be very little space to put trash receptacles.  Given that the only vehicular access will be in the rear of the building on North  Lane, the receptacles will have to be somehow placed there.  Most people are familiar with how residents of multi unit facilities like the one proposed can be careless in dealing with trash containers.  Will trash prove to be both an eye sore and a nose sore?  Given the fact that no code requirements must be met, this is also an unresolved issue.

There is of course the issue of the inconvenience for neighbors that the use of their street as an overload parking facility for this facility will entail.  I noticed only last week that much of the parking on White Street had been taken up by the annual leaf clean up event.

The Central Issue: Too BIG!

Central to all these issues is the variance on density.  This is not some tweak from the existing limit of 18 units.  The applicant wants to build an additional 35 units which would be  approximately triple the limit established by zoning.   Most of the problems identified above are directly related to the applicant’s effort to, in effect, jam fifty-three units in a parcel that the city’s standards would limit to 18.

To make this project work, if we accept Mr. Bonacio’s word, he must badly overcharge for the space the units would provide.  The rents the applicant claims they will charge (there is nothing that would require the applicant to hold to these numbers) per cubic foot (they will have 7.5’ ceilings) will not only greatly exceed the existing rentals in the neighborhood but would exceed the rental fees for other space the applicant currently rents in the city.  In fact, the Saratogian recently ran a story about rentals he is building in Glens Falls that will offer much higher quality space for the same or less money.

No one would quibble with the creativeness that Sonny Bonacio has shown in coming up with this plan.  The problem is that to make it work it grossly overreaches the capacity of both the building and the neighborhood.

It would be shocking if the ZBA were to approve these variances and their approval would set a dangerous precedent for other proposals that may come before them. This episode should be a teachable moment for this community about how important the appointments to our land use boards are.  Many of us believe that the city charter should be amended to require that the Mayor’s appointments should require the approval of the City Council.  These appointments should be a matter of a very public process in which the community gets to weigh in on the appointments to insure that the personal interests of land use board members do not conflict with their public duties.

 

Several Articles Have Appeared In Local Newspapers:

Here is a link to the Saratogian article: Link To Saratogian

This article Is From The Gazette

Saratoga Springs neighbors oppose plan for ‘Pink Palace’

I figured that since I survived my trek across Saratoga National Golf Course that Jane and I could handle Paris.

Paris is rather subdued.  The number of people at Jane’s favorite restaurant was way down and the waiter attributed it to the recent attacks.  Can you think of a better place to play the hero by just showing up than France?

At the Tuesday night City Council meeting, Commissioner Mathiesen laid out the general issues regarding the Moore Hall project.  He recommended that the Council have a workshop to seek input from the neighbors and the developer.  Interestingly, it was John Franck who offered that it be done in the neighborhood.  He noted that during administration of Val Keehn, the Council had a number of meetings in different neighborhoods in the city.  There was no opposition to having the meeting, and it was tentatively scheduled for the morning of the first Saturday in December .  That would be December 5^th.  Some discussion was had over where to meet in the neighborhood and it was suggested that the Council contact Empire State College about a meeting space.

The Zoning Board of Appeals has the Moore Hall project on their agenda for next Monday night.  One would think that they would put off action until the City Council meets with the community.  Only time will tell.

In an important development, the planning staff has determined that the project requires site plan review and approval by the Design Review Board.   The attorney for Bonacio/Higgins, Michael Toohey, had told the Planning Board that because it was a non-conforming structure, it was not subject to site plan review or DRC review.  Apparently his position did not prevail.

The City Council discussion is worth checking out.  Commissioner Mathiesen made a strong argument for the need for the Council to hear the concerns of the neighbors about this important high profile piece of property.  Here is a link to the discussion from the City website.

Link To Council Meeting Video

Select the Public Safety part of the meeting on the left and move the timer to the 19 minute point.

 

At Monday’s City Council agenda meeting Commissioner Chris Mathiesen announced he was putting on his Tuesday night agenda a proposal to have a special workshop on the Moore Hall conversion.  He was supported by Michele Madigan.  Madigan noted that the Zoning Board of Appeals would be meeting on the following Monday to review the project so it would be important to have the event as soon as possible.  Mayor Yepsen and Commissioner Franck were not at the meeting.  Skip Scirocco offered no opposition.

I want to thank the many people who apparently emailed the Council members over the weekend urging support for Commissioner Mathiesen.

All of the original signs (48) opposing the Moore Hall conversion were picked up within days so the group has printed another batch.  A drive through the neighborhoods is quite an eye opener.

A banner has been positioned in front of Moore Hall.

The petition drive continues.  If you want to sign the on-line petition you can do so here.

 Petition Link