POUGHKEEPSIE – Laura Strait, the last petitioner remaining in the lawsuit to prevent the Pelton Partners from re-developing the Pelton Mansion in Poughkeepsie may have misled the court about her physical address. Recently obtained information indicates that Strait does not live at 112 Mill Street, despite making such a claim in the lawsuit to stop the development. If that is the case, she may not have standing to challenge the project.
Strait asserted that she lives at 112 Mill Street and the proposed development of apartments on the other side of Fallkill Creek would negatively affect the viewshed from her residence.
A document search of the Strait property on Mill Street indicates the primary physical address for the homeowner is in the Salt Point area of Pleasant Valley. When a Mid-Hudson News reporter visited the Mill Street address on Thursday, he learned that the two-family residence had been the Pelton Pin Factory in 1850 before being converted to the Barone family residence in 1938.
While no one appeared to be in the first-floor apartment on Thursday, there were signs of activity in the second-floor residence at approximately 5:15 p.m. Despite a car in the driveway and lights on in the apartment, the reporter’s knocking on the door went unanswered. A few minutes passed and the reporter walked away from the residence toward the Pelton Mansion. Within 10 minutes, the car that had been in the driveway at 112 Mill Street was observed leaving.
The reporter returned and canvassed the area in hopes of speaking to a neighbor. One individual who lives on the block told the reporter that Strait rents the second-floor apartment to a tenant while the first-floor apartment is rented on a short-term basis through Airbnb. A statement from Laura Strait describing the rental. “Although we do not live on site, we are readily available,” the post from Laura Strait says. It concludes by saying “We are a phone call or text away.”
The attorney…
Read the full article here