PUBLIC HEARING – ROUND
7 RESTORE NEW YORK
COMMUNITIES INITATIVE
MUNICIPAL GRANT
Tuesday, January 17,
2023 - 11:30 AM
Shaun Gillilland, Chairman
James Monty, Vice-Chairman
Vice-Chairman Monty called this Public Hearing
to order at 11:30 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton
Barber, Robin DeLoria, Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Charlie Harrington, Roy
Holzer, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, James Monty, Tom Scozzafava,
Matt Stanley, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Davina Winemiller, Margaret Wood and
Mark Wright. Shaun Gillilland was
excused.
Department Heads present: Michael Diskin, James
Dougan, Judy Garrison, David Wainwright, Anna Reynolds and Michael Mascarenas.
Also present:
Jessica Deslauriers, Chelsea Merrihew and William Tansey
News media – Alana Penny, Sun News.
MONTY: All
right, it’s 11:30; I will call this public hearing to order. This is for the Round 7 Restore New York communities’
initiative municipal grant. Judy, would
you read the notice.
GARRISON:
Notice of public hearing. Please take notice that the Essex County
Board of Supervisors will hold and conduct a public hearing at the Supervisor’s
Chambers at the Essex County Government Center, 7551 Court Street,
Elizabethtown, New York on the 17th day of January, 2023 at 11:30
a.m., on Round 7 Restore New York Communities Initiative.
New York
State Empire State Development has announced the availability of Round 7
Restore New York’s Communities Initiative for the purposes of revitalizing and
restoring urban and rural areas. Essex County plans to apply for funding to
restore a vacant and surplused property to plan commercial reuse. The Restore NY Property Assessment List is
attached. The Application is due January 27th, 2023.
Application Materials are available at the Office of
Community Resources or by visiting the Empire State Development Website. https://esd.ny.gov/restore-new-york
Judith A. Garrison, Clerk
Essex County Board of Supervisors
Dated: January 4,
2023
MONTY: Thank you
Judy. We have Jessica and Anna, if you
would like to come forward and answer any questions or explain the project for
us. Thank you.
REYNOLDS: Hi, sorry I realized that the public hearing
notice didn’t mention the project cost but that’s okay. So, this year, this round, we’re going to
apply for the Frontier Town property that we’ve owned for a few years. It’s eligible due to its commercial usage and
we did get it on the back taxes, I don’t know what year but that’s how it
qualified. So, the proposed project is
to demolish a building and restore three buildings. The ones to be demolished is the Main Street
section and then three of the, one of the gristmill restoration, the carousel
building and the train station and the old church there we go. So, we will be working with CPL our Architect
on contract to give us those proposed cost estimates so we’ve been working on the
application. Are there any specific
questions?
McNALLY: Dollar amount
of the application?
REYNOLDS: Jess, do you
know the max amount we are applying for?
DESLAURIERS: $1.9 million
McNALLY: Perfect, thank you.
REYNOLDS: $1.9 million.
MONTY: Anything else
from the board?
DEZALIA: I may be misunderstood but I thought the
sawmill was one of the restoration ones?
REYNOLDS: It is on the list but it’s too expensive for
the application maximum so we –
DEZALIA: But we’re
still planning on that as part of this?
REYNOLDS: Yes, so that will be like a phase two, phase
three and that’s kind of our plan at the property. We can only apply for so much with the money. With that, we are trying to get this done,
make it a sellable property and/or apply for another round of restoration.
McNALLY: Does that application is it going to include
letters of support from different organizations?
REYNOLDS: Yes.
McNALLY: So, you’re going to use ROOST and IDA and
some others?
REYNOLDS: If we
can. I think we already have some in
house.
HUGHES: Good morning Anna. I just want to understand,
so demoing a building which is dilapidated beyond repair, reconstructing three
or four of these buildings and these are the old Frontier Town property
buildings, the old theme park so let’s we get that money in, let’s say we are
successful and we develop what’s the plan?
I mean, I haven’t seen anything in front of the board about approval of
a plan to sell it, to do anything with it?
Are we keeping it? Are we selling
it? I mean, these are iconic buildings,
great that we are refurbishing them and getting them back to the way they used
to be but what then? Is it still going
to be a theme park? You might not have the
answer for this but is that what we’re trying to sell it for?
REYNOLDS: I think it would be in conjunction with the
new State campground, so like connecting equestrian trail usage and the
Adirondack Gateway commercial business that’s come up so, we are trying to plan
them altogether to be successful. The
purpose of this application would be to prepare it for the commercial use now
whether that’s a lease or a sale or something like that, those can be
determined as we move forward.
HUGHES: Okay.
MASCARENAS: Yeah, I think ultimately Ken that’s going to
be a decision for the board moving forward in how that goes. Our goal is just what Anna has said, our goal
is also to limit our liability there so we have a lot of derelict properties
that are there that are, that could create a potential hazard for those that
are encroaching on the property and trying
to do –
HUGHES: Trespassing.
MASCARENAS: Yes, exactly but order to perform
recreational opportunities in around that area that it’s known for, so I think,
years ago when I was in the Planning Department Chasen worked on a plan with us
that came up with some of this restoration of this area and I think moving
forward with it makes a lot of sense this is a really good opportunity for us
to get some of that work done that we traditionally, never could have. So, we’ll decide going forward but I think
the intent is some of those things. I know the five towns have worked a
lot. I know Stephanie and Shaun have
been working a lot on this project on the side with the Community Resources
Department.
HUGHES: I just want to
be clear, very quickly, to follow up, excuse me, I’m sorry. I have no problem with rehabbing or demoing
for a better purpose I just wanted to make sure that we have an end game and
that action makes sense for the taxpayers and for the county so, thank you.
DEZALIA: I think more recently than the Chasen we had
CPL do a plan and we presented it to the board for the phase one of the arena
and we did apply for a grant on that and it is pending so this is sort of all
in conjunction with that plan so everything is kind of together but this fell
in line with what we needed to do with some of the older buildings also I think
it was going to be some site preparation too for all of that so the timing of
this grant would work in doing some of the other work separate from that phase
one arena.
REYNOLDS: That’s a good point. We did, so the Town of North Hudson received
a state allocation for DASNY years ago when they first, when the State first
was going to build the equestrian trails, the campground and Stephanie was able
to allocate that funding to the county, if we can propose to rehab the arena
specific to equestrian arena so when we went to the site, we had our architect
come in that’s when we noticed you know, we can’t make this an arena right away
without getting rid of these falling down buildings that wouldn’t be safe
overall. So, that’s kind of, where the
motion started earlier this spring.
HUGHES: May I ask one
more question, so we failed to be successful in the last round for the
Springfield property in Jay, if I am correct.
Have we received any feedback on why we failed that application that may
help us be more educated about how to potentially makes this more of a
successful application?
REYNOLDS: I don’t think I requested a comment but if
you look at the list of awards, we really didn’t compete. It seems like it was multi-use. All the awards were based on multi-use so the
commercial with housing or new commercial businesses that were on the large
scale, like fifteen apartments or a new brewery in Ogdensburg so, unfortunately
the State kind of gave us the feeling that one small project in our county was
a big impact but that last round was sort of disappointment for multiple towns.
HUGHES: Understood, thank you.
MONTY: Anything else for the board?
McNALLY: This project has been going on for ten years
now even before the campsite was built.
You know the DEC was on board and did a lot of the leg work on this,
this was all pre planned before the purchase of the campsite in there so you
know, this has some traction with the state I believe, this project and it goes
along with their new campsite. It’s not
just something that we are coming up with a plan and going forward, this is
based on a plan that was created ten years ago, nine years ago and the State
was a big factor in that plan and DEC was a big contributor to that plan of
what to do with that Frontier Town property.
DELORIA: There’s no crystal ball here Ken of what this
is going to become but if we do nothing and not seek grant funding to restore,
it’s going to be lost and then we don’t have anything with the value of the
property. As Steve said, this has been
going on for a long time, the five-town initiative was part at least part of
Governor Cuomo’s plan, I’m not sure where Ms. Hochul stands on that but I
certainly support it. Let’s see what happens in Phase one and see what Phase two
looks like.
MONTY: Anything else
form the board? Anyone from the public
have a comment or wish to say anything?
Nothing else, public hearing is adjourned.
As there was no further discussion to come before this
public hearing, it was adjourned at 11:40 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Judith Garrison, Clerk
Board of Supervisors