POUGHKEEPSIE – Mayor Rob Rolison is charging that decisions made by the City of Poughkeepsie Industrial Development Agency and Common Council leadership “have done more to impede the Poughkeepsie Landing project than push it forward.”
The Bonura family has been working on approvals to redevelop the vacant industrial wasteland at the DeLaval site on the Hudson River for 18 years.
But now, the mayor said the city agencies have stalled the project once again resulting in the developers taking the city to court.
Rolison said the city council failed to meet with Bonura, Jr., the principal in the project, “in any meaningful way over the years few years. He also pointed to a resolution adopted by the IDA on June 13, 2018 that tabled the matter and put everything on hold.
The final straw came, the mayor said, with “the council’s action last month, rescinding all the prior approvals and killing the project if Bonura didn’t act within 45 days.”
Rolison vetoed that, but the common council overrode it.
The mayor is not the only city official concerned about the current situation.
“It’s fine for a handful of Poughkeepsie’s ultra-wealthy residents to oppose the development and, as one might expect, they pull the strings of several members of the Common Council,” Alderman Matt McNamara said. “Where the rubber meets the road, however, is when taxpayers have to foot the bill for cleanup costs paid by the developer in reliance on those prior approvals. Like everyone else, I want to see forward progress, but I really feel as if council leadership was not transparent in leading us down this path.”
