Hello, Collar City! This is Issue 36, dated May 24, 2019.



Hey, everyone! In this issue: last night's city council finance committee meeting, another land bank roundup of land bank happenings, a scuttled arboretum plan, code enforcement matters, First Columbia news, and more.

City Council Finance Committee

Barbara & Lukasz Jackawska will pay $500 to buy 658 Third Ave, a one-family home that they intend to renovate for $15K and then occupy.

Starlight Lending LLC (principal: Donald J. Lucarelli) will pay $100 for vacant land at 562 Third Ave, where they intend to spend $130,000 to build a new single-family home.

Starlight Lending will also pay a total of $1,000 for two vacant parcels on Manor Blvd; it intends to build single-family homes on both of those lots, too.

Yenny Reynoso will pay $6,000 to acquire 373 Ninth St, a two-family home that she will renovate for $10K, then occupy.

Kiani Conley-Wilson will pay $500 to buy 411 Tenth St, a vacant lot that she intends to spend $1K transforming into a garden "for personal and public use."

Ydna Moore and Marcus Page will pay $1,000 for 17 Erie St, a one-family home that they would renovate for $30-40K, then occupy.

Shannon Webb will pay $300 for 45 Stow Ave, a vacant lot to be "used as an area for my 5 year old daughter to use until a small home can be built there." She'll spend $1K "for topsoil delivery, spreading, and seed."

112 Wade Rd LLC will pay $7,001 to purchase 404-406 Ninth St, a building it will renovate for $70,000 into four apartment units.

Land Bank Roundup

Special thanks to the 151 of you who help to stave off TL's extinction through your contributions via Patreon . The parcels, which are pictured and further described in a memo from planning commissioner Steve Strichman ( available here ), are (i) a sliver of land adjacent to Congress St. between Sixth and Seventh avenues, (ii) a larger parcel on the north side of Federal St., next to Fifth Ave., and (iii) a parcel at the corner of Northern Dr. and Seventh Ave. in Lansingburgh.The LDC is "a little more flexible" than the city in its "ability to put a deal together," Strichman told the council, when asked by council president Carmella Mantello about the justification for these transfers. "We are, right now, trying to move the Local Development Corporation more into an active role in economic development."The LDC, which once ran a popular facade grant program but is saddled with debt service payments and remediation costs related to the former King Fuels site in South Troy, had been somewhat somnolent until recently, when it became a partner in two recent requests for qualifications for the redevelopment of 1MSQ and the Taylor Apartments site, respectively. (In years past, the LDC has also issued small-business loans, some of which are still active, but it made only one last year, according to an annual report, and has not made any this year.)Under an agreement, the city's industrial development authority pays the LDC a fraction of the administrative fee it receives from real-estate developers for city industrial development authority board–approved projects, if the LDC helped to facilitate the deal.The Congress St. parcel would likely be transferred to The Rosenblum Cos., since it abuts a larger vacant parcel that the developer purchased around January (see TL16 ). If that occurred, and if Rosenblum then obtained tax breaks from the city's IDA for a project at that location, the LDC would earn a slice of the IDA's administrative fee.Strichman also said that the LDC's early involvement in these sorts of deals "helps us steer the [projects] to the city IDA"—and away, he implied, from the county IDA, a rival tax-break-giving agency—"which allows us to have control over whatever [payment-in-lieu-of-taxes] agreement is developed.""There's nothing set for" the Federal Street property, Strichman said. The LDC would hire a realtor to market the Northern Dr. property, which has been listed on the city's foreclosure list for multiple rounds but not yet received any attractive offers. "We would be trying to not have a storage facility or automobile repair [shop]," Strichman said. "We want something there...that enhances the appearance" of the neighborhood.Strichman did not identify the price at which the LDC would attempt to sell any of the parcels, though he mentioned that the assessor's office typically values an acre of vacant land at $50,000 and that these parcels are all smaller than that.Council member Jim Gulli and council president Mantello questioned why it would be preferable to transfer the Northern Dr. parcel to the LDC when the city itself could also list the property with a realtor. (The LDC can sell the property faster, not needing to discuss the sale at future council meetings, Strichman said.)The property transfers will again be discussed at a regular council meeting in two weeks., deputy mayor Monica Kurzejeski said. She specifically mentioned Canal Ave, Project Rd, 112th St, and Third Ave as streets that will likely be on the list. The city has cross-checked the list with National Grid, since "we know they're doing a tremendous amount of work in the city" right now, she said., council member Anasha Cummings asked the deputy mayor if the administration has given up on finding a full-time engineer. The city has not given up, the deputy mayor said, and the position has been advertised "for a very long time." She added: "In the meantime, I still have to have engineering done."Kurzejeski also spoke about how using CHA, the city's engineering consultant, gives the city access to rather specialized engineering experts (in traffic or aquatics, say). "It's been a good partnership with them," she said.. The properties have all been available for multiple proposal rounds. The proposals are as follows:Applications are included in the meeting's agenda packet . A new batch of city foreclosures will be made available in July, according to the city assessor's webpage., Strichman told me at the meeting. As I reported in TL35 , four of the six members are Strichman, Dylan Turek (the city's economic development coordinator), Katie Hammon (the Downtown Troy BID's executive director), and Heidi Knoblauch (chair of the city's IDA, CRC, and LDC).. The plan is to demolish the vacant, two-story building at the site and build a three-story, mixed-use building with a contemporary design (see TL31 for renderings).The low, winning bidder for the job is City Restoration, Inc., which has a Second Avenue address in Troy. Tony Tozzi, the land bank's director, said three developers the firm has worked with in the past, including Bonacio Construction, spoke favorably of its work.The project at 791 River will be reviewed by the city's zoning board of appeals on Tuesday night and, if area variances are approved that night, reviewed by the planning commission on Thursday night. The land bank is concerned about obtaining swift (one-night) approvals. If the planning commission delays approval to next month, the land bank's attorney said, the organization's third-party administrator could pull the project's state funding "and we're done.". Stabilization work by contractor Duncan & Cahill has started already. The cash donation amount was increased from $75K to $83K because multiple liens on the property, which may or may not be enforceable, were discovered during the closing process.. SEAT was the only firm to respond to an RFP issued by the land bank for this type of support. The contract lasts until the end of next year.