Mayor Fires Commissioners Who Sought Environmental Study
Reading the lumbering SEQRA law is an excellent sleep aid. It’s also a way to hold lawmakers accountable.
July 28, 2019
Kingston, NY – In the early days of Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed cemented his dominion by handing out perks to business leaders, and in return, business leaders turned a blind eye to his corruption. After all, the business of America was business, and the end justified the means.
Fast forward to 2019, where 90 miles north, Kingston’s City Hall is sparking an outcry over strong arm tactics such as commission purges and detours that bypass state and local law, apparently to hasten approval of a $52 million multi-use construction project planned for the historic Stockade District.
At stake is whether the developers of the Kingstonian will have to undergo the lengthy environmental review spelled out in the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act known as SEQRA.
Developers hate the law, which they say costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and can delay a project by years. Supporters say the law is necessary to prevent environmental catastrophes.
Kingston’s government is siding with the developers. The City’s March 2019 Fair Housing Plan Analysis of Impediments pointed the finger at SEQRA: “Relieving the expensive, onerous and time consuming parts of the statute … would save … tens of millions of dollars a year which in turn could be redirected to building and renovating housing units across the state.”
In a noteworthy project such as the Kingstonian, especially one located in a historic district settled by Peter Stuyvesant in the 1650s, several state and local agencies have a say. Known as involved agencies, they pick one amongst themselves as a lead agency, which makes the final decision on the extent of the SEQRA review process.
Developers pray for a so-called negative declaration (“neg dec”), which means that the lead agency has foreseen no significant adverse environmental impacts and has issued a determination of non-significance. This means that the developer can skip a potentially expensive and lengthy review known as an Environmental Impact Statement.
Should a positive declaration (“pos dec”) be issued, it means that the lead agency has determined that the proposed action may result in a significant adverse impact, and therefore will ask the developer to conduct in depth studies that comprise an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
As a so-called involved agency, the Historic Landmarks Preservation Commission (HLPC) is one of several regulatory bodies empowered to make its opinion known whether it is for or against an EIS. Nine agencies are in play, including Kingston’s Planning Board, the lead agency, which according to PART 617.3 (e) of SEQRA is supposed to take into account the opinion of the other agencies.
Commission refused to rubber stamp the “Neg Dec” Sought by Developers.
Publicly available interviews and recordings show that City Hall employees and the Planning Board tried to quash discussion once it became apparent that the HLPC was leaning toward a finding of potential significant adverse impacts. When that maneuver failed and the HLPC produced a letter outlining the risks, the mayor ousted two members of the commission. Then, the Planning Board refused to accept the HLPC’s letter on grounds that the newly reconfigured commission – presumably with more development-friendly members — was “still deliberating.”
“In Kingston, they like the idea of preservation, but only when it’s convenient,” said fired board member Marissa Marvelli, who holds a master’s degree from Columbia in historic preservation.
Here is the timeline where City Hall tried to bury HLPC’s statement about potential adverse impacts.
February. At the regular monthly meeting, HLPC commissioners asked Planning Director Suzanne Cahill, who is a City Hall employee and also the administrator of the HLPC, to put the Kingstonian on the March agenda. “We all asked for it,” said Marvelli. “I followed up next day by email,” she added, but Cahill did not reply.
After the agenda was released, absent any mention of the Kingstonian, Marvelli said she wrote another email, and also got no reply to that. “Then I called her, and she explained that she thought that item didn’t need to be on the agenda.”
March. At the monthly HLPC meeting, Marvelli moved to amend the agenda to include discussion on the Kingstonian. Cahill and City attorney Dan Gartenstein tried unsuccessfully to block the motion, raising numerous procedural objections. On the video recording of the meeting, Cahill can be seen nodding her head when a board member inquired whether the motion had been defeated, even though no vote had been taken. Visibly frustrated, Marvelli insisted on a vote, and the board unanimously approved the motion. (Minutes 4:00 to 19:45.) Later in the meeting, they discussed the Kingstonian, and then produced a letter listing potential adverse significant environmental impacts.
April 3. Mayor Steve Noble let go Marvelli and architect Alan Baer. Noble denied that he fired them, saying instead that he declined to renew their appointment. Marvelli and Baer’s terms had expired in September of 2018, but the two had stayed on as co-chair and commissioner until they were called into Mayor Steve Noble’s office that day. In a May 4 interview with Hillary Harvey for Radio Kingston, Marvelli quoted the Noble as saying, “Our visions didn’t align, then he said I didn’t get along well with staff members and that I didn’t have disposition for public official. But no citizen volunteer commission should be there for the mayor.”
April 10. Then, in what may have been the only way to get the HLPC’s opinion heard publicly, commission member Leslie Melvin read the letter listing the possible significant environmental impacts before a packed community hearing on the Kingstonian. Project backers tried to cut her off at the three-minute deadline, but the outcry from the audience was so loud that she got the extra time to finish reading the letter.
June The next incident took place at a Planning Board meeting held June 3 to discuss preliminary opinions from all involved agencies. The Planning Board read letters from several involved agencies based in Albany, and spent much time discussing studies underway to satisfy those agencies. However, the Planning Board refused to accept the HLPC’s report. Listen to Cahill and Planning Board Chair Wayne Platte fumble for words while they try to justify their refusal. “There’s a question about deliberation there,” said Cahill.
During the rest of the meeting, the Planning Board asked for various studies on other matters, in what appeared to be a de facto scoping process.
Political Patronage on Steroids
With Marvelli’s departure, the HLPC no longer has a preservationist. It does, however, have a new real estate agent. Noble replaced architect Alan Baer with another architect, Robin Andrade, and he replaced Marvelli with real estate agent Hayes Clement, who is also Treasurer of the Ulster County Democratic Committee. Noble himself is a Democrat who is up for re-election this November, as are the Common Council members who, like much of the Democratic local establishment, have thrown their support behind the Kingstonian. It was unclear whether any real estate agent who is also a Democratic operative would be able to buck the pressure to fall in line, even if he wanted.
Former marshland is the consistency of “toothpaste.”
Among the reasons a full review was needed, according to Marvelli, was the issue of safety. The site is former marshland, and developer Joe Bonura Jr. has quoted his geotechnical engineer as saying that 40 feet down, the soil is “like toothpaste.”
Marvelli said the HLPC wanted to make sure that excavation at the Kingstonian would not “undermine the foundation of neighboring buildings.” She cited the Irish Cultural Center, a project that managed to avoid a full SEQRA review. “We learned our lesson. They excavated and excessive storm water runoff caused damage to other buildings.” In the latest incident, a child narrowly avoided injury after the ground he was standing on near the property line collapsed.
Asked whether a similar accident was possible at the Kingstonian, Marvelli replied, “We don’t know. It’s former marshland at the base of the hill, so we wanted to study it.”
SIZE AND DESIGN CONTEXT
Privately, some officials grumble that the look does not fit in. One county official speaking on condition of anonymity said there were “design anomalies” that were not contextual.
The renderings call for low-slung apartments in whites, bricks, reds and gray, marrying modern steel to the old, topped with cornices and corbels in a nod to Uptown Kingston’s Federal era past.
“We were also concerned about the visual impact, but SHPO asked for [a study on] that,” said Marvelli. The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in Albany is also one of the involved agencies. It is charged with helping communities preserve and revitalize their historic, archeological, and cultural resources.
OTHER RESIGNATIONS
In protest over the firings, two other members of the HLPC also resigned — Leslie Melvin and Jane Birmingham. Also in protest, Giovanna Righini and Rebecca Martin resigned from the Heritage Area Commission and the city Zoning Task Force, respectively.
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