Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency, Regular Meeting

1. 0:03Okay, Dominic, are you ready? I am ready. Okay, this is the meeting for the Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency. Can you start a meeting? It's 6 o'clock. Logan, can we get a roll call? Yep. Board member Ferris, here. Board member Vogle, I don't see him online, but he may be joining us. Um, board member Moranti here. Board member Rooney here. And board member Smith here. I think we got it right. Thank you. Quum is present. Did everybody get a chance to read the minutes that Looney provided yesterday for us?
2. 0:54I did. Thank you so much. Can I get a motion or is there any questions or changes for the minutes? Great. Can I get a motion to accept the minutes? I'll make that motion. I second. Great. All in favor? I Thank you. Pass over to you, Mr. Logan. Yep. That brings us over to my admin report. Um, we were able to switch money over from the CD, which is in another five month CD that remaining uh just over $15,000 and that will mature in February 14th or 15th I believe. Um, so that's all good. Um, for the next time we do that, this time I ran into some trouble
3. 1:42as I was not the signator, so they wouldn't let me transfer it over. So I had Dominic and Joe helped me out and that was all fine. But I'm just saying that out loud so the next time it happens, people can remind me you need someone else to go there, you know, with me or just there, however it works. Um, so that's that. the remaining properties. Um, I talked to Joe Ving our tech person and he is uploading me an archive all of uh I'm blanking on her name Brand's emails
4. 2:17from 2021 on. Um, we kind of found out a way how we could upload that all to my computer. I haven't looked at them yet, but they should be in there by the end of the day. um all that pertaining to any title searches and just something we should have on this computer um all in one place. So that's all good. Um the next item on my uh admin report is the ZBA approved the um was it setbacks basically for the town houses for the HHA development um
5. 2:57project. So that um I guess this is more a question for Raonda. So where are we at right now? We're in fall hoping to close by the end of this year, right? Um what else are you guys waiting on? Well, we need approvals from the planning board, right? So um our goal and hope is we can close at the end of the year, but we don't actually have a real answer for that until we get approvals, then we can bring that to the state. But until that
6. 3:28Got it. And it's just the just the planning board form. That's the one approval you're talking about. Oh, do did you get the CPA approval? Yeah. Okay. We got that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that for the property number our property. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That's I I thought it was just uh bliss but cool. No, I think that was specifically Yeah. Um, oh, I just wanted to Oh, yeah. that in the air. Um, so that's exciting. Well, I'll be, you know, paying attention to that and helping to move forward.
7. 4:04Um, budget outlook. So, I don't have our budget. In a little bit, we'll go over the Htf budget. Um, but there'll be three things kind of impacting our budget. The HHA closing, the BEA contribution, the amount, what they do, so on. Um, and RFP. And I don't have any updates really on the RFP. We've gotten one um proposal. Um but it's open till September 30th. So I, you know, we're not going to go over anything until that date. Um so those are the three things that are really going to affect you know our revenue next year. Um and kind of what kind of operation we we
8. 4:44can have basically. Um, so in our October meeting, um, I was hoping to do sort of a budget workshop, lay everything out, leave some things blank that are undecided, so the whole board can kind of discuss, you know, whether it's spending or, you know, some things we won't know exactly, so we're going to have to estimate. I don't think we make it a sense what the BDA is planning to do, but they won't make their final deliberations till beginning of November. Yeah, November 10th is when it needs to be submitted to the council.
9. 5:17No. Yeah. November 10th, but I know the deliberations for like housing and certain other things are earlier, but I guess that doesn't mean that we know what Yeah. Okay. And so that'll be, you know, one of those kind of blanks we leave it in there for our October budget workshop. Um, cool. And that kind of covers all that. Like I said, in a little bit, we'll go over the HF budget on top of the university program. Um, I think that covers everything in my agenda. Yeah. Then we have the invoices, bill approval. So, we have Logan and
10. 6:01RCMPA invoices. Mhm. Uh, can I get a motion to pay the bills? I'll make that motion. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor I we don't have any resolutions right now. No resolutions um that I have or know about. So uh Hudson Housing Trust Fund. Yep. So let me share my screen. This is all stuff they're meeting was right before us last month. So they didn't get sort of the whole report to go over. Um but I can go over the the roots report maybe first.
11. 6:42Um so I believe this is a report for the whole year or September. So um it's like the annual report finish. Yeah. So nothing was expended this past month. So this was just annual. Got it. So, um, households served, that was 19 with 33 impacted. Of all the families and individuals, there were no evictions from those families receiving assistance. Um, and this kind of just breaks down the numbers. We this year was 20,000. Um, and it tells you average assistance 160 to 3,500 dispersed. Um, and like
12. 7:26Michelle said, you know, that's a whole 20,000. So there's, you know, not additional families being held for the remainder of the year. That is the Hudson reach program for 2026, which is $15,000. It was 20 for 2026. It's $20,000. Um, and then next item is the HTF uh budget. And I assume all this stuff remains the same, right? Yeah. Um, so does people look over this, have questions? They said one question. Um, recommendation C says HDF advisory comm wants to request $28,000 from BEA. Is that, and maybe I'm misreading here. I see B totals 21,000.
13. 8:18Um, is that an additional seven or another 28? And if I'm completely misinterpreting this, please correct me. 30 to 28,000. I'm not seeing the the 21,000 here. Um, so B on what I have, it says recommendations from U housing trust fund. A renew the CD for with 15. Got it. recommended 27 budget, five for admin, one for contingency, 15 for Hudson roots, which gets you to 21. And then I see C uh advisory committee wants to request 28 from BEA. So is that they're separate? So they're requesting 28 revenue from DEA and that that other number that adds up to 21, that's going
14. 9:11to be um their expenses for the year. So $5,000 that they, you know, transfer to HCDPA that covers a portion of basically the audit cost. So that includes them, $1,000 for contingency and a $15,000 contribution to the Hudson Res program. Gotcha. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Right. bag. So my my question is though um with this is for 2027 and um which moving you know projection for 2028 is that what are we going to have for HCDPA because we're going to need to cover uh same thing for audit for you know 2027
15. 9:59for H housing trust fund is way shall two uh increase to five to to maybe 7500. So we have some kind of flexibility because as a transgend um what extra paperwork or extra things we might have to do um or Logan might have to tie up at the end of this. So, is there a way because for 2028 um we're not going to have that money, right, or audits or and we're still going to have obligations for Hudson Trust. So, is a way to up that uh budget, right? CDA.
16. 10:49We um Sarah Black and I had looked at um Chris Shell's hours, her hours spent on housing trust fund stuff and audit costs. And then we looked at like the auditor's hours and we broke that all down to what we thought was a fair representation of time spent on the housing trust fund. And then that's how we came up with those numbers. So I mean how much of this audit this Pepsi? Was it It was 14 something was 15. So, I think paying a third of the audit cost is like a fair contribution from the housing trust fund to the agency.
17. 11:27But what about 2028? For 2020, I mean, honestly, like we I think that's one of those things that we have to see what we get from the BA and then like what's coming in the pipeline for next year. Um cuz that I mean I don't quite know how increasing the admin would be to 2027 out to 2028. But but what are we going to have for 2028? Um that's going to depend on how much we get from VA this year. Like affect what we have in which lines.
18. 12:04So, so my my fear is though then we need to somehow salvage um money because we don't know yet, right? So, there's two options, right? Instead of $15,000 for promise, cut them to 10. No, no, no. Let let me just explain. So, so then if the BEA comes in, then we can replace it. We don't know what the BA's money is going to commit, right? So, you're asking me to reduce the money for rental assistance and increase it for our share of auditing to HCPA as a well not no to as a contingency like a contingency.
19. 12:50We have what's contingency right now is a thousand. So, we can say that contingency could be for HCPA if it's needed, but I I mean it's hard because the hous the housing trust committee is the one that makes this budget, but I would say based on their opinions, I don't think they're going to want to take it away from that center. No. Oh, but so another thing for the the money Yeah. Is is there a way to figure out because I think one of the things I see is a need um is
20. 13:31attorney gaps. Yeah. Is there a way to this year use that for because what I run into is if we send them to legal aid or if we send them to office free agent there's a big gap. Is there a way to use that for um evictions that individual that needs attorneys because that usually it's 11th hour. Yeah. It would be good to have attorneys that are prepared that prevent evictions before they get to court. Yeah. I mean, that's something that we've discussed over and over again. and the things.
21. 14:19So, I would love to create a program like that, but the resources and capacity we we have don't allow for it because a there aren't attorneys who want to do this. Most we have like literally gone through like I have cold attorneys in the area and most of them don't want to touch eviction cases and most of the attorneys that do this are on the landlord side. Yeah. Conflict. Conflicted. Then we reached out to like students, law school students who just graduated all that and like this this is
22. 14:54a problem that is so much bigger than us and it's something that my fear is that if we were to have a very small pot of money like you see the budget right now like we're able to do a lot of helping a family $300 for like rental assistance and things too like promise has been serving a role as because a lot of times like they will go to court and then you know during the eviction hearing the the judge offers a chance for the um landlord's attorney to meet with someone from promise and they go in the back and they work out some kind of agreement in
23. 15:28the way that like obviously they're not attorney but like something that's saying like hey we have 300 blah blah blah or we have 500 G you know Bob gives no sense it's negotiate yeah come but the thing is that I I I don't know who would decide how much to hire an attorney, who gets the attorney, like when we have such a small pot of money, like who's going to manage the attorneys? And I mean, Tom with DPHRO had called a bunch of retirees and said, "Hey, would you do pro bono?" And we just haven't had
24. 16:08anything consistent. And what we had a couple years ago like there was more phone attorneys and then they kind of dried out and what I what I didn't like was like giving people who are desperate like a phone number like oh call so and so and they're like oh so and so's on vacation in Colorado the next 3 months and so what I'm saying is that this is something that like we have thought a lot about and we've run up against a lot of walls and I don't quite know how to solve it um because we need more
25. 16:40attorneys who are willing to do this work in our area. Um, and we also need like more solid funding or we need like big law firms that are willing to, you know, pay their attorneys nonvailable hours to do this type of work. Um, yeah, it's it it I know again it's a struggle. I receive legal aid, legal aid, and it's just not reliable. I know. And I've like they I think they blocked my number. Like I've called every person and like I know some who are working so hard and they wake up and they have like you know
26. 17:18two hours of voicemail messages of people because they're serving 16 counties. Yeah. It's first come first serve. You got to go on Monday. And then I also feel like it's so hard to keep with the salaries they can pay and then like they're trying to get beyond lawsuits who've got possible debt and stuff. I think the retention is really difficult. Oh, no doubt. Yeah, it it's it's and the thing too that's frustrating is like what I've also reached out to and tried to have conversations with, you know,
27. 17:44Henchi and Dy about is like the state allocates they have increased money to legal services for like English rent eviction support and stuff and it looks good in the budget but then just goes to legal aid and it's not helping us here. Um, and then it's also frustrating because Office of the Agent does have resources, but then like it I don't know like I I don't know how to solve this. Well, Office for agent contractor was labeled agent, right? So, like we're getting this loop. Yeah.
28. 18:17And I think it has to do with like a a deficit of attorneys is the big one because like I most especially like this works better in like Duchess County, Westchester, and Olter. And part of it's because they're connect law firms around there. Yeah. Sure. Folks, well, like my brother does like proono eviction defense and stuff, but like you can't work above, you know, you can't work in Colony County and that's part of the issue is like we don't I wish we had more young attorneys who were like Yeah.
29. 18:47Yeah. No, I mean I mean the lawyers go like you said for the landlords cuz that's Yeah. Right. I'm going to say this taking my keeping my PA hat off and with my HCA hat on. I think I understand the concern about where we might be in 28 in terms of money, you know, audits and whatnot, legal fees. I'm hesitant to negotiate against ourselves before going before the BEA in terms of going from 15 to 10 on the Hudson project budget line is my my sentiment.
30. 19:24Even if it's better to ask for more. Yes. Yes. like yeah plain plain English better to ask more and then assume that they might be cut. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. I think that that in terms of when presenting makes kind of the the the most sense and then like the BEA can come in with the full scope of what the budget looks like for the city and make a determination based off of that. Michelle does have a line. um the estimate year end at 2027. So December 2027 with no contribution from BEA the
31. 20:04HTF will have $10,800 with the contribution 30,000 to 38,000. So those are kind of the two numbers that we're playing up and then there's the in between obviously and that is a lower end estimate and the money that's left in the CD which is 15 I believe it's 16. So that tech could be used for next year. Okay. So that could be the gap we're talking about for cover in there. Um yeah. So that's part of this this budget calcul. Gotcha. Thanks. Yeah, it's a hard question to No, I I I get it. Yeah, I know. I just, you know, I just wish we could do more side of it.
32. 20:58Yeah. And like we had talked about having the city pass like a right to council, but then that means we have to make it council. Um Yeah. And I don't know if there's any way to get some promo lawyer to study one. But other than that, like I'll keep thinking if you have ideas. Um, and that's the other problem too is a lot of times they do wait till the last minute and then it's hard to get somebody. Um, so I wish but I I do think also like if we had a program and they knew about it, then maybe they wouldn't wait till the last minute. But also I know
33. 21:34communication sometimes when they get from the landlord and then reports can be um yeah because a lot of times they don't know the right to try things. They wait until last minute because they get that landlord right which technically they they're supposed to be 30 you know uh 3 months you know uh but you know they they don't know the rights and then uh and they get scared nervous and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And so that is our budget. I think typically what do we do? Typically we approve it as part of our budget. We can do our budget workshop because it's Yeah.
34. 22:16Um anything else from next year? No. Um we are not meeting in October, but we are planning a like know your rights housing resource bingo event in November. Um, so we're nailing down basically the idea like bingo where like you get information right do it like on an evening at circles but we're nailing down the um and trying to get some like maybe some local businesses to contribute something like in terms of just door prize type stuff. Um so we will share that information in October because we're nailing down the dates.
35. 22:52Are you getting like donations for the bingo prizes? Um I had to that's a conversation I want to talk to about what we can accept and then we were going to um show wanted to go to some small businesses and ask if they wanted to donate something to try and increase. Do you know where to get? We were um Kelly was wanted to Kelly was saying circles bagels at Spark as one idea and Jeff said um the HHA community room could be a second option that or the library
36. 23:25true community room that's walkable or true um and that's good advertisement I mean to get it you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I can also ask if you're available. Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So, what else? Um, just a follow up on 238. Um, I contacted a tow company. Um, and the tow company knew the individual and he wanted to talk to him first before he did any towing. So, whatever he said worked. It looks like everything's out. So, um, it looks like, you know, I I I think I I
37. 24:18think it might be a good idea is to see if Rob can put up a snow fence or something as a as a barrier. Um, you know, just so we're not reliving this in six months, right? Um, but, um, I can talk to Rob about that. I know that's really really I I second that. I think that's really important to put a physical barrier there. U, signs are not going to help you a lot. A physical barrier will definitely help. Right. Well, um, somebody stole the signs that I put up. So, uh, so Exactly.
38. 24:54Yeah. The other other issue also is that um the demarcation between the two properties is not clear. Uh there's no fence there. So there's some things that are being stored in the you know in in in that person's property that's kind of spilling over. So like so could be concealed like a walkway without without the demarcations. We don't know what side that walkway's on basically. not even like walkway. There's literally like you know washer dryers being stored there and it's in it's in the city's property rather than the person's
39. 25:33property because there's no clear you know there's no fence so there's no Yeah. So the snow fence would be helpful. Yeah. Do we have did you ever find the survey markings at all, Logan? No. What I was going off of was just like the the county maps and things like that. I can look, you know, I'm already looking for title searches for the other things with this archive I have. So, I can Yeah, because I know the front of it got a rope. Yeah, actually. Well, I need to go. That would be that wouldn't be part of the appraisal from 2021, would it?
40. 26:11No, I don't believe so. There wouldn't have been an appraisal. I don't think you would have had, you know, I I don't think you did title or survey back then, but you have the county maps. um you know the the plat maps really is what you have. The city has platted property so I mean those do have meetats and bounds um you know on the maps. So you may need to get somebody to go out and market but I don't know that um you know what was the name you used after county
41. 26:45maps. What kind of maps that the city has? PL Well, plat maps, you know, the the official maps are the same the same as the county maps. Okay. Right. Okay. I mean, unless planning has more maps, I I doubt it. Those are pretty old, but they might. Right. Yeah. I I definitely, you know, and uh if I have any I I think Rob is helping us out. Yeah. So, Rob will be Right. Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Um I do have one item for new business following on the conversation we had about other HCPAs and kind of
42. 27:32opportunities to um you know imitation is the highest form of flattery type of thing. Uh I reached out to um Patterns in Progress, which organizes the monthly regional mayors meetings that are done on Zoom. So they're going to try to get it on the agenda for October. It was this month's was very jam-packed, so they didn't have a chance. And then I actually ran into the mayor of Albany yesterday at a conference and we spoke briefly and we're going to try to figure out a time to grab coffee and discuss what Albany
43. 28:06has been doing and kind of see what you know what um what is possible to kind of mimic from them. So there is why don't we report that those updates to the to the full group. That's amazing. Thank you. That was that was quick. Thank you so much. It it's funny because I got a email on that uh last week on it out of the blue something about ACDPA in another I'm like that's who's listening to my phone? Yeah. That's kind of strange. It was funny. She and I ended up in the same room at the conference last Yeah. meant to be.
44. 28:47Yeah. Um, and uh I guess uh any public comment, right? We're at public comment, right, Chloe? Yep. No hands, please. We're good. Okay. Can I get a motion to adjourn? I'll make that motion. Second. I'll second. All in favor. I see you. See you next month. See you. Byebye.

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