A story from the Daily Freeman.
The Catskill Watershed Corp. has awarded Shandaken a $114,000 grant to buy land for a new Town Hall.
The better news is the town already owns the land and can use
part of the money to repay a debt to the New York City Department of
Environmental Protection.
The town applied for the grant over the summer. The watershed
corporation’s board of directors voted in favor it earlier this month.
The town now can move ahead with securing the property, where the
voter-rejected Phoenicia sewer system was to be created, and can use
$70,000 of the grant to pay back the New York City department.
Before the sewer project was shot down by voters, the town used $70,000 from the department to buy the property. When the project was rejected, the department wanted its money back.
The town hoped to sell the property and use the proceeds to repay the
environmental department, but a buyer could not be found.
Of the $114,000 awarded by the Catskill Watershed Corp., $105,000
is for the land and $9,000 is for legal and closing costs. The money
was authorized under the corporation’s Flood Hazard Mitigation
Implementation Program, which helps move to safer ground such “critical
facilities” as firehouses, schools, town hall and water and wastewater
systems.
The new Shandaken municipal complex is to house the town’s government offices and highway and ambulance departments
Part of the town’s current municipal complex, on state Route 28
in the hamlet of Allaben, was inundated by Esopus Creek floodwaters
during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. The town then was forced to use an
alternate location for day-to-day government operations and to operate a
command center for post-flood responses.
The 3.2-acre Allaben site has been designated a Special Flood
Hazard Area, with the Highway Department garage actually located in the
floodway.
A recently completed Local Flood Analysis for the Shandaken
hamlets of Mount Tremper and Phoenicia recommended relocating the Town
Hall and highway garage to the 4-acre parcel that was to house the
Phoenicia sewer system.
As part of the state-funded NY Rising Community Reconstruction
Program, the town engaged Latham-based engineering firm C.T. Male
Associates to conduct a feasibility analysis about the planned
relocation. The analysis is to be completed in 2017, and the Town Hall
move, also financially aided by NY Rising, is anticipated by the end of
2018.
