TROY — The city, we learned a few days ago, is set to approve an $850,000 settlement for a worker who fell from a ladder while prepping the old Leonard Hospital for demolition.
To which I can only say: Thank God a developer was stopped from building apartments on the New Turnpike Road land. That would have been just terrible.
As you may remember, Community Builders wanted to buy the 6.3-acre site from the city for $1. In exchange for that extremely reasonable price, the company planned to take on the demolition of the long-derelict hospital, which had become a serious public nuisance, and build up to 120 apartments for seniors and others needing affordable housing.
Instead, four heroes on the Troy City Council blocked the plan for the land on the city’s northern edge. All the members who voted against the sale, including current mayoral candidate Carmella Mantello, happened to be running for office that year, not that such vulgar calculations entered into their thinking.
Their vote was only about doing what was right and just. Obviously.
Oh sure, the vote ended up being costly for taxpayers. The city subsequently paid $2.5 million to raze the hospital and lost out on property taxes the apartment complex would have paid. Plus, there’s the hit to city insurance premiums from the latest settlement and at least two others following lawsuits by people injured at the site.
Money well spent! I mean, it’s not like Troy has lead water pipes to replace or other good uses for the cash. Plus, consider what might have been.
Instead of sitting vacant and overgrown, the land would have been home to disabled residents who otherwise might struggle to find accessible units, seniors and families, including some who were, horror of horrors, not wealthy. Many units would have been reserved for households whose incomes would have been above the city-wide median. Even…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply