Tusten considers buying building

Posted 8/21/12

NARROWSBURG, NY — For the past two meetings, the Tusten Town Board has discussed purchasing the building next to the fire department. Councilman Tony Ritter brought up the proposition, saying that …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Tusten considers buying building

Posted

NARROWSBURG, NY — For the past two meetings, the Tusten Town Board has discussed purchasing the building next to the fire department. Councilman Tony Ritter brought up the proposition, saying that now would be the right time to buy.

He said the 3,000-square-foot building is listed at $139,000 and it would cost the town an estimated $7,000 a year for 30 years. There are a few reasons the board is considering the building. First, they need more space for records and offices. Right now there is not enough room to store records, and while the third floor of the town hall building has space, they can’t put them there because they would weigh too much. Second, the current building is neither compliant with automatic external difibrillator (AED) requirements, nor handicapped accessible. The new building could also serve as more parking for the town, and the acquisition of the building is part of the Tusten Master Plan, which the board adopted a few months ago.

Councilman Ned Lang is not in favor of the purchase of the building. He says there are other options and the town shouldn’t spend the money, and he is against “the expansion of government.” The other board members are in favor of buying the building; however they realize there are a lot of questions that need to be answered, such as what exactly their needs are, what the cost of renovation would be and whether the building would meet regulatory requirements. Other issues were brought up, like the fact that the land around the building is actually owned by the railroad. The board agreed that if they decide to go ahead, the matter would need to go to referendum.

Riverwalk Project update

Larry Boudreau, director of land development at The Chazen Companies, made a presentation to the board about the recent geo-tech survey for the observation deck renovation in the waterfront development project. Boudreau said they did soil testing on May 8 in six spots underneath the deck on Main Street. They took 50 samples, from every two feet of the area. They started at the south end of the deck and moved north, and determined it is more stable on the north end, and less stable on the south end. They conducted a global stability analysis to assess the stability of the soil, and the results from that would determine the structural design. The stability of the soil does not meet requirements, so the soil needs to be removed, because any design would slip on it. “The design that we would present, would not slip,” he said.

Chazen has design-development documents that went through design committee approval. They would have to remove the soil and expose the rock, and in order to do that they would need to stabilize the work platform with a tie-back wall. “That’s how we could get this thing to happen,” he said. Supervisor Carol Wingert replied, “It sounds expensive.” The estimated cost would be about half a million dollars. The board said that was too expensive, and that cost would be the deciding factor in the design plan.

Solar bids

The board opened bids for the design and installation of solar panels for the town. The bids are from PowerUp Development LLC from Corvallis, OR partnered with Atlantech Solar from Suffern, NY; Shekinah Solar from Beach Lake, PA; and RER Energy Group from Reading, PA. The board and the Tusten Energy Committee will review the bids, and will discuss and possibly award the solar project to one of the bidders at a recessed town board meeting on Monday, June 23 at 5:30 p.m.

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here