Developers of the Hudson Valley Credit Union location proposed for the old College Diner site in New Paltz, like those involved with the Trans-Hudson project, are aiming to use a fake second floor, but location is everything: this site is in a zone where second floors aren’t required, but recommended.
The consultants on the long-reviewed and much-maligned Trans-Hudson project got hung up on windows during the November 22 Town of New Paltz Planning Board meeting.
The “community fridge,” a refrigerator which will be filled with food for the express purpose of giving it away to those in need, is on the cusp of being a fully operational project.
It’s time to teach kids in the New Paltz Middle School a skill that is new to many of them: how to use a locker. Those icons of life in public school have been off-limits since students have returned to the halls, because no one was sure how to keep the little ones six feet apart during that chaotic period between classes. The answer will be tight-fisted control over who gets to what lockers, and when.
Village of New Paltz Planning Board members are very enthusiastic about the idea of adding a second historic district. If they had any criticism, it was that the proposed district isn’t nearly large enough to serve the needs of the community. Those board members learned about the proposal to be considered by Village trustees at their December 16 meeting, and quickly began suggesting ways to expand it.
Town and Village elected officials have frequently made comments at public meetings about the lack of response to transportation concerns at the state level.
During last week’s New Paltz Village Board meeting, several people commented on the push to enact “good-cause eviction” legislation, which would redefine not renewing a lease as an eviction and require landlords to provide lease renewals unless there is good cause not to, such as breaking laws or lease conditions by the tenant, or the landlord wishing to put up a relative in the space; landlords could also just pay people to get out.
Drawing upon a program New Paltz teacher Melissa Feldmann experienced growing up, she is putting in place an in-school postal system. Students — and teachers and administrators — will be able to write letters to one another, maintaining social connections even among people no longer sharing the same classroom. Those letters will be sorted and delivered by some of the same children who will be learning a particular set of communication skills that can feel forgotten in an age of text messages and tweets.
It seems like there’s always construction somewhere on campus at SUNY New Paltz. That fact can slip under the radar because what’s built on state land isn’t subject to Planning Board review like every other project in New Paltz, because local zoning rules do not have to be considered in any way.
For the first time in generations, there are going to be significant renovations to the facilities under control of the Ulster County Board of Cooperative Educational Services, better known as BOCES. The open question is how the bills for the project are to be paid. BOCES administrators came to the November 3 School Board meeting in New Paltz to explain alternatives: either trustees of the eight school boards in the county decide how to finance their proportional share, or county voters can decide on a bond package by voting on a referendum.