via YNN

Poughkeepsie home owners that don’t keep up their vacant properties are looking at hefty new fines. YNN’s John Wagner has the details.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — If you live in the City of Poughkeepsie, you can get a lawn mowed by professionals for around fifty bucks. But if left uncut and you’re an absentee owner of a vacant property, the city’s now charging $1,500 a visit to take care of property violations.

“We’re putting our foot down to let them know the city is not going to stand for these nuisance properties to deteriorate even more,” said City of Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik. “We have to board them up, we have to shovel the snow, we have to pick up the debris and that becomes very costly.”

Poughkeepsie’s Common Council voted in the attention-grabbing penalty in hopes banks and runaway owners take notice.

“The banks tend to pay their taxes because they don’t want to lose a property to a tax sale,” explained City of Poughkeepsie Corporation Counsel Paul Ackermann. “This is going to be added in there and they’ll realize last year the taxes were ‘x’ amount and this year they were ‘y’ amount due to administrative fees.”

“It’s taking us longer to pick up the garbage, to mow the parks, to sweep the streets, because we have to stop our regular duties to break away for violations,” said Mayor Tkazyik.

The city is hoping to have fewer break aways once owners see $1,500 added to their standard cleanup bill. Realtors caution that owners must be notified properly for the fees to hold up in court and blame the longer process to foreclose for some of the blight.

“The owners move out, it takes years to foreclose and meanwhile, the properties are in limbo,” said Mark Raphael, the president and CEO of Associa River Management in Poughkeepsie.

When Mayor Tkazyik took office in 2008, only around 20 homes were known vacant, now that number has ballooned to more than 300. They’re an ugly site leaving neighbors stuck in a quagmire.

“It impedes sales,” continued Mark Raphael. “And then the people who want to sell, can’t sell. And then they walk away from their house, and it’s just kind of a never ending cycle.”

“Until the economy starts coming back, until the real estate market starts coming back, until we see an increase in the value of homes, that’s when we’re going to see this tide turn,” said Ackermann.

In the meantime, officials say they’ll do what they can to keep the Queen City looking pretty.

via Mid Hudson News

POUGHKEEPSIE – Rep. Nan Hayworth toured Poughkeepsie with Mayor John Tkazyik Monday afternoon, riding throughout the municipality on a hybrid city bus.  They were joined by city council President Gwen Johnson, Councilwoman Anne Perry, and other officials.

Tkazyik said he wanted to show the congresswoman the progress being made in his city.

“With all of this growth, expansion, and positive things taking place, I wanted to be able to show congresswoman Hayworth everything that is going on – a city that is on the move, revitalizing itself, and open for business,” he said.

Sites visited included Poughkeepsie Commons, a residential facility on Hudson Avenue that is still under construction, designed for low income, senior, and veteran housing. LCS Facility Group on Cottage Street showcased their renovated and restored office buildings.

The old Dutton lumberyard was another stop on Hayworth’s day trip. This waterfront property, a former brownfield, will be transformed into nearly 400 units of waterfront condos. Work is expected to be completed in about five years.

Poughkeepsie residents will enjoy a new riverside park bundled with the Dutton project, connecting southwards to nearby Walkway Over the Hudson, Children’s Museum, and an extended Greenway network of trails wending to Fishkill, Beacon and Cold Spring.

“It has been such a delight and learning experience to discover the potential within Poughkeepsie that is being realized, and will continue to be, by the projects that are underway,” Hayworth said. She expressed a desire to assist civic business leaders by not imposing excessive burdens upon their endeavors.

Hayworth currently represents the old 19th Congressional District. She seeks re-election in the newly redistricted 18th, which includes the City of Poughkeepsie. “This is the latest of many journeys I’ll be making to Poughkeepsie, and I look forward to many more,” she promised.

“You look at it now, it’s a barren wasteland,” said Dutchess Regional Chamber of Commerce President Charlie North, gesturing towards the vacant Dutton lot. “With the assistance of the city and the private sector, coming in to make an investment, his will become a park and a livable piece of property, that will generate commerce throughout the Hudson River Valley.”

via YNN

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — The future of the City of Poughkeepsie’s waterfront was the focus of a tour given to Congresswoman Nan Hayworth on Monday.

Hayworth, along with Mayor John Tkazyik and Charles North from the Dutchess County Chamber of Commerce, walked along the Hudson and discussed future developments on waterfront properties.

From affordable housing for senior veterans to a nearly 400 unit condominium complex on the old Dutton Lumberyard, Mayor Tkazyik says all these projects are costly. He is hoping the city will be able to obtain some funds from the federal government to help pay for some of these projects.

Congresswoman Hayworth says the city is proof that when an investment is made, the economy can improve.

“The Walkway on the Hudson, the greenway that we see developing here and that they hope to extend further. These are ways in which the City of Poughkeepsie has proven that when the investment is made, jobs follow,” Hayworth said.

“We want to express to the Congresswoman the needs of the city and how important these projects are. We know she’ll be fighting for us in Washington and here at home,” Tkazyik said.

Tkazyik also says two water mains in Poughkeepsie need to be replaced.

via Forbes

“Rankings (of 100 largest metros):
Median Income: 8 Cost of Living Index: 86 Housing Affordability: 67 Commuting: 4 Pct. Owning Homes: 15 (72%) Crime: 3 Education: 34
Costs are high, but so are incomes. And the crime rate is one of the country’s lowest”

via Mid Hudson News

POUGHKEEPSIE – The City of Poughkeepsie appears to be onboard with the Dyson Foundation’s proposal to buy the Upper Landing property along the Hudson River and develop it into a public park.

Poughkeepsie City Administrator Michael Long met with Dyson Foundation Executive Vice President Diana Gurieva at the site Tuesday to discuss the plans.

Upper Landing is a former industrial site purchased by the city from Central Hudson in 2005. It contains two of Poughkeepsie’s most historic buildings, both gutted and in need of extensive restoration.  The thin plot measures 2.7 acres alongside the Hudson River, just north of the Children’s Museum, across the Fallkill Creek. Directly north lies the Walkway Over the Hudson. The property remains unused, due to lack of municipal funding.

“We talked to the city about this project, but they don’t have the money to improve the site,” Gurieva explained. “They own it, but can’t do anything with it. We started putting together the idea of buying the property.”

Mayor John Tkazyik expects the common council to approve the deal.

“This is just a continuation of the compliment of what the Walkway Over the Hudson has brought to the City of Poughkeepsie,” Tkazyik said. “This is going to be a direct link between Waryas Park, the Walkway, and the new proposed elevator that we can anticipate in the spring of 2013.”

Dyson will pay the city $675,000 for the property and also make payments in lieu of taxes.

Community Development Block Grant funding from HUD is expected to provide about $250,000 for the city to build a small pedestrian footpath crossing the Fallkill Creek to the adjacent Children’s Museum, Long said.

Several handicapped spots, near the site’s two historic buildings, are the only parking spaces offered. A long-gone Dutch mill built around 1700 was augmented between 1740-1780 by the Hoffman House residence. The colonial stone dwelling today is gutted with extensive white mold plaguing the basement.

Reynolds House, also gutted, was erected next door around 1820, which doubled as a company store for several docks and factories which once lined the waterfront – back in the heyday of 19th Century river commerce.

Restoration of both edifices constitutes the second phase of Dyson Foundation’s proposed re-development project.

via YNN

The Dyson Foundation reveals plans to buy the historic but unused Upper Landing property from the city of Poughkeepsie to build a public waterfront park. Our John Wagner has the story.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Offering to pay 675 thousand dollars to buy a 2.7 acre parcel from Poughkeepsie, the Dyson Foundation says they’ll do the work the city wanted done, for free–investing an additional million dollars to create a waterfront park.

“First thing we’re going to do is make the property much more presentable from North Water Street,” said Mike Duffy, a Dyson Foundation consultant. “We’re going to restore the gates, put up the pillars so it looks like it originally did.”

“There’ll be meandering ADA accessible, wheelchair accessible paths, picnic tables, educational displays,” said Diana Gurieva, the executive vice-president of the Dyson Foundation.

The unused property sits a third of a mile from the Poughkeepsie Metro-North station and would create a direct path to the Walkway.

“There’ll be benches around the edge of the plaza and it will just be a great place to gather on your way to the elevator or coming back,” said Duffy.

The Dyson Foundation expects to finish the park by the middle of 2013, just in time for the opening of a high speed elevator that will run from the Walkway Over the Hudson down to a waterfront path.

“The waterfront is one of the most important assets that the city of Poughkeepsie has and we really feel that the long-term economic welfare of Poughkeepsie needs to start at the waterfront and we hope to help make that happen,” said Gurieva.

“It’s a true gift to the city of Poughkeepsie, we’re very excited about it,” said Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik. “It’s going to restore these two beautiful historic properties.”

Two of the first five buildings built in Poughkeepsie, The Hoffman House and Reynolds House, sit on the parcel. The project’s first phase will stabilize the buildings, the second will seek public input and support to transform them.

“People have mentioned everything from a museum, to a visitors center, to a cafe, to restrooms for people who will be using the Walkway,” said Gurieva.

The city council has plans to vote on the sale next Monday.

The Dyson Foundation is a private, family-directed charitable grantmaking foundation established in 1957. Headquartered in Millbrook, New York, the Foundation awards grants throughout the six counties of the Mid-Hudson Valley. During the past 10 years, the Dyson Foundation has awarded 289 grants totaling $23.4 million to nonprofit organizations based in the City of Poughkeepsie.

via YNN

Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik is calling on Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman for help, after the state received a proposed settlement with mortgage lenders of one-hundred and thirty six million dollars. Our John Wagner has the story.

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — There’s a growing number of abandoned properties in Poughkeepsie, which are lowering the tax base, while increasing the city’s burden.

“From boarding them up, to responding to calls of complaints, to dealing with sanitation violations along the property,” said City of Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik.

When residents fall underwater on their mortgages, the city drowns in the blighted aftermath.

“People are walking away from their problem that they can no longer handle and this problem is now becoming the municipality’s problem and we can not afford to handle this alone,” said Tkazyik.

“Opportunities for arson, opportunities for illegal activity, for gang activity, drug activity, prostitution, I mean the list goes on and on and on,” said Mario Johnson, explaining all the issues that comes along with vacant properties. “We don’t want to see that in our city and I know the mayor doesn’t want to see that,” said Johnson, the program coordinator at Nubian Directions for their YouthBuild and Americorp programs.

The mayor says by checking water usage records the city identified more than three-hundred potentially vacant properties. That number is around four percent of the total. And with banks far away and owners long gone, little can be done to enforce building violations.

“Even if we do get them to court, the ones that have walked away from the buildings don’t have the money to pay the fines so we win a judgment in court and we end up applying it to the tax lien for the property,” explained Gary Beck, Jr., building inspector for the City of Poughkeepsie.

The Mayor says now that lenders have to pay out twenty-six billion dollars in civil fines–with a slice going to new york state, some of that should be funneled to cities to deal with the discarded homes.

“Those that may need to be demolished immediately or properties that may need to continue to be boarded up,” said Tkazyik.

“We have to continuously go back and board and secure because they break in, they move in they occupy it for a little while,” said Beck. “They’re stealing the copper out of all the buildings.”

In the mean time, community groups are trying to help out. Nubian Directions bought an abandoned Winnikee Avenue home in July. They’re teaching their students to renovate. And once they rent it out, it will earn the nonprofit a small income.

“We can rehab, get some nice stable families into the community,” continued Johnson, “so obviously the community has a chance to come back.”

via Forbes

“Educational jobs at Vassar and the Culinary Institute of America, combined with a fast-growing medical center, helped put this Hudson River town in the Top Three. Above-average median household income of $59,000 is expected to rise another 19% by the end of 2016.”

via Mid Hudson News

POUGHKEEPSIE – Mayor John Tkazyik of Poughkeepsie Monday requested that a portion of the $26 billion settlement between the federal and several state governments, including New York, and several leading mortgage lenders be directed to municipalities to address vacant and abandoned buildings that are a result of the mortgage crisis.

He made his request to US Attorney General Eric Holder and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

“While New York homeowners have been severely affected by the recent foreclosure crisis, another victim of the crisis has been urban cities such as the City of Poughkeepsie,” Tkazyik said. “Property owners who no longer can afford their properties often choose to walk way and abandoned them and the lenders either choose not to foreclose or are unable to foreclose. This leaves the abandoned property on the backs of taxpayers to maintain and address,” he said.

There are over 300 potentially abandoned properties in the city, of which 100 have been confirmed vacant, abandoned and a public nuisance, the mayor said. “These properties are centers of crime, a public safety hazard, a drain on neighbors’ property values and a general blight.”

Tkazyik said cities like Poughkeepsie “are innocent victims of the fraudulent mortgage industry that has created this foreclosure crisis, and we need help.”

via YNN

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — “The redevelopment of Poughkeepsie’s waterfront will be the change that will be noted for decades, a generation to come,” said Michael Long, city administrator for Poughkeepsie.

In 2009, an initial plan for 586 apartments on the site of the former Dutton lumber yard rendered mixed feedback. Called monotonous, monolithic and accused of obstructing river views. So the developers from the O’Neill Group went back to the drawing board.

“Those concerns of height, density, parking, the adequate open space and recreation area for the walkway park trail, a lot of those concerns have been met,” said Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik.

Instead, 384 one, two, and three bedroom units in town houses and 60 foot tall condos. The developer is cleaning up industrial brownfields and will go before the common council for an environmental review by the end of March and to the planning board soon after.

The project will run close to one hundred million dollars, generating more than 30 permanent positions and 500 construction jobs, according to the State Department of Labor. And even those who don’t live at One Dutchess Avenue will have access to a public park along its entire waterfront.

“They will be looking out over the entire riverfront,” said Louis Kaufman, the project manager from The O’Neill Group. “And that’s the best safety issue you could ever have.”

The City of Poughkeepsie controls 46 acres of waterfront property and with it, their future. Officials say they’re working to make sure they have a smart and comprehensive strategy in place.

“To include a waterfront esplanade so that they’re can be a walkway on the waterfront to go from the Town of Poughkeepsie to the Town of Poughkeepsie on the other end,” said Long.

The condo project would restore 1,400 feet of shoreline and play a larger role in restoring Poughkeepsie’s outlook.

“We’re probably looking at a quarter of a billion dollars worth of investment in the City of Poughkeepsie over the next three to five years,” said Long.

“The perception will be,” continued Kaufman, “the Poughkeepsie riverfront is vital, exciting and a place where I can live.”