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Editorial - Hospital Plan Needs Local Voice
1996
The Poughkeepsie Journal
This week, for the first time in years, the communities of the Harlem Valley will have a little official, sanctioned voice in the development of the 961-acre former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center.
The last public hearing on a redevelopment plan for the abandoned hospital was held last week by members of a local task force. The responses, and the plan itself, will now go to the state for approval and action.
The ball is in Albany’s court. And while there is logic in that – the former hospital is state property – a way must be found to continue the kind of committed, thoughtful local involvement that helped produce a workable master plan for redevelopment at the Wingdale site.
The plan makes an intelligent call for mixed-use development – commercial, industrial and residential – at the hospital, which closed in 1994. Developers are responding – ideas have ranged from senior-citizen housing to an international conference center, proposed by a Taiwanese consortium.
And, mostly through the labors of the Harlem Valley Partnership, a public-private consortium pursuing economic development, the localities have sought to clear up nagging questions of bond indebtedness at the site. The debt remains, but local pressure ensures that the issue won’t go unnoticed as the project proceeds.
A forceful local voice also helped resolve the question of the Division for Youth facility on the hospital grounds. The DFY unit clearly would be an impediment to private development, and the state now plans to close this center. The state has not rejected local involvement in the next phase, it should be noted. Indeed, Partnership Executive Director Kathleen Schibanoff said, the Empire State Development Corp., which serves as staff for the Inter-Agency Council, has welcomed local participation on a less formal basis.
The council, with representatives from the state Office of General Services, the Office of Mental Health, the Budget Office and other agencies, was created to oversee the downsizing of the state psychiatric hospitals. The council has functioned reasonably well. But it doesn’t make a great deal of sense for a local task force to work feverishly on a plan that it then delivers for implementation to another group.
At the least, a local liaison – from the partnership, ideally – should have a direct, hands-on involvement with the project as it is presented to the council and as changes and revisions are proposed.
It is especially important that the local-state relationship be maintained, and formalized, as developers are contacted and proposals received and assessed.
The state is under no obligation to develop the site in accordance with the master plan, even it the Inter-Agency Council approves it. It would be unfortunate if the state accepted a redevelopment plan that was at odds with the needs of the community.
The best way to ensure that those needs are understood and considered is to have someone representing and defending them.
The master plan encompasses two critical objectives that must be retained:
Job creation is vital – Economically, the Harlem Valley is still far from recovering from the closing of the hospital and the gradual downsizing of the Wassaic Developmental Center nearby. There were 1,115 employees at the hospital at the time of its closing; many lived in the community and many shopped there. And many are now gone. It is important that whoever buys a price or all of the former hospital commit to using local unions for construction and renovation and to hiring locally as much as possible.
Mixed uses a winner – The master plan’s call for mixed-use development is a good fit all around: jobs would be created, the tax base would expand and the development effort would not be bogged down looking for the one, elusive industrial buyer.
The mixed-use approach would also make the best use of the location and the existing structures. There is a cluster of buildings well-suited for assisted-living housing for senior citizens. There other buildings well-adapted for back-office operations and commercial enterprises. There is a golf course that, run separately, could be a money-maker.
To this end, it is critical that the state, as it sifts through the development proposals, continues to maintain the buildings and grounds, in particular the water and wastewater plant that once served the hospital. This plant, according to the local task force, appeals to developers concerned about water and sewer services in the rural Harlem Valley. It must be kept operational.
Time is of the essence, too. Schibanoff would like the Inter-Agency Council, at this Wednesday’s meeting, to approve the plan and authorize requests-for- proposals (RFPs) from developers. At the least, RFPs should be authorized at the July meeting. And before the replies start coming in, a new apparatus should be in place at the state level to ensure local participation during this critical phase of re-development.
This is state land, yes. But the Harlem Valley will have to live with what becomes of it.
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