Mayor Collins likes Patten apartment plan

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

Contacted by The Chronicle, Glens Falls Mayor Bill Collins spoke positively of Chris Patten’s proposed Washington Square 60-apartment project, though he pushed back on the developer’s characterization of the building at 391 Glen Street as “condemnable.”

“They’re not condemnable,” Mayor Collins said. “If they were condemnable we would have condemned them.”

But the mayor added, “I don’t know if anybody would invest in that brick house.”

As to the development plans, the mayor said, “They looked good to me,” though he emphasized he’s “not an architect.”

Mayor Collins said, “When I saw his plan, the front that was facing Glen Street seemed to be very nice.”

But the mayor said he defers to the planning board rather than throw his political weight for or against the project.

“I try to stay out of it,” he said. “You don’t want me as mayor having the power to say I like the project of this developer, I don’t like the project of that developer.

“You wouldn’t want only the mayor’s private developer friends to get the projects and not other people. That’s what you have a planning board for.”

Overall, the mayor expressed a growth mind-set for the city.

“There are people who don’t believe that Glens Falls should be growing,” Mayor Collins said. “They say we don’t need more apartments and houses downtown. I disagree. The more people we have, the more business we have. As long as it’s measured and appropriate growth, it is what we need.”

“We’re getting more and more interest in development. Glens Falls is on a roll,” the mayor said. “There are businesses and people coming into Glens Falls as never before. The growth is good.”

He cautioned, “As a city we need to make sure that we have smart, measured development that both provides housing and doesn’t hurt the environment or the overall aesthetics of the city.”

He noted the city is currently working on a new comprehensive plan that will look at “how to maintain the integrity of the city while allowing for growth.”

Speaking of Mr. Patten specifically, Mayor Collins described him as “passionate about what he’s doing and his investments he’s making in the city.”

Chris Patten: I’m making Glens Falls better

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

Chris Patten sees himself as an improver of Glens Falls.

“If I see an old rundown building and I think we can make it something beautiful and new and nice and more people can benefit from it than currently do, then of course I’m going to try to do something like that,” he said in a conversation with The Chronicle Monday.

He said people are already wanting to live in his proposed Washington Square apartments.

“Anybody that’s staying in my properties, they’re interested in moving from one of my properties into this new one,” he said. “The excitement and the hype from just my own tenancy alone is already there. It’s already sparked interest.”

Mr. Patten said, “The demand for apartment houses downtown is crazy. I have probably 78 units, and when we list a one bedroom apartment we get 20 to 30 applicants.”

“Walking distance to downtown Glens Falls is something everybody wants to be a part of. There’s a lot of hype and action downtown and people want to be there….

“The city’s done a good job with renovating and repairing all the sidewalks and making it more of a walkable city.”

Mr. Patten said a neighbor of the Glen-Washington-Harlem Street block came up to him after the planning board meeting and expressed his interest in having the project happen and 391 and 399 Glen taken down.

“He’s seen some pretty rough things happen, and he wants to see those buildings down,” Mr. Patten said.

Loves her 391 Glen apartment Patten project would eliminate

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

Last week developer Chris Patten told the Aug. 6 Glens Falls Planning Board meeting that no one lived at 391 Glen Street, one of the three buildings he plans to remove for his proposed 60-apartment “Washington Square” project at the Glen-Washington-Harlem Street block.

But it turned out that the six-unit brick building actually has two tenants: Joann Sullivan, who has lived there for over 10 years, and Denise Baldwin, who has lived there for nearly eight.

“That’s my mistake,” Mr. Patten acknowledged when The Chronicle spoke to him Monday.

“He’s never knocked on my door to ask,” Ms. Baldwin told The Chronicle Monday. “And if anybody drives by I have all kinds of plants and chairs where I sit outside all the time.”

Mr. Patten told the Planning Board 391 Glen “should basically be condemned.”

But Ms. Baldwin says she loves her apartment and describes her unit as “definitely not condemnable.”

“I’m comfortable in it,” she said.

She wasn’t feeling as comfortable when she read in The Chronicle last week that 391 Glen could be destroyed for the Washington Square apartment project.

“I started getting scared,” she said. “They’ve got to give us notice.“

Ms. Baldwin says she pays $850 a month for her apartment, utilities included, and worries that she won’t be able to find another comparable option.

“I started looking around, and studio apartments are starting at $1,000 a month,” she said. “My Social Security is $1,400. That’s tough.”

Mr. Patten in the follow-up conversation with The Chronicle expressed sympathy.

“If there’s a tenant that’s in that building and I think she’s going to get kicked out, I’m not going to make her homeless or kick her out on the streets,” he said.

“There’s a potential that I would offer her a new apartment in one of my buildings, or even this building that we’re talking about.”

Ms. Baldwin said that when she moved into 391 Glen, every apartment in the former single-family home was rented.

But later, she said, tenants of two studio apartments on the third floor were evicted “because there were a lot of problems with them with drugs and what not.”

Patten: On 391 Glen, its residents, his sympathy, calling it condemnable

“That’s my mistake,” Chris Patten told The Chronicle Monday after it turned out he erred in saying that no one lives at 391 Glen, a building he wants to demolish for his Washington Square Apartment project.

“He’s never knocked on my door to ask,” Denise Baldwin, one of the building’s two tenants, told The Chronicle Monday.

Mr. Patten says, “Knocking on tenants’ doors to let them know that we’re going to be potentially demolishing their building before we have even gone to a planning board or done any type of action to see if this is something that would even be considered as a project would be a little bit preliminary.

“We do our best. I’m only human. There’s so much to a project like this. I’m trying to figure out if something like this could even fit on a property this size and if it’s something that the boards are even interested in.

“Have I gone through every square inch of every building and looked through everything? No. That’s definitely not the case, because I’m trying to propose a concept. Once a concept’s proposed and it’s something that could potentially happen, certainly I’m going to do a little bit more homework.”

As for Mayor Bill Collins rejecting Mr. Patten’s view that 391 Glen is “condemnable,” Mr. Patten said, “From an investor’s standpoint, there’d be no way that I’d ever try to restore that property. There’s a ton of rotten wood. The foundation has been patched and repaired over the years. To me it’s too far structurally gone to actually repair the building.” — Ben Westcott

Mayor: No conflict in Ethan Hall being a project architect & chair of the GF Planning Board

Ethan Hall, the chair of the Glens Falls Planning Board, is the architect for Chris Patten’s proposed Washington Square project presented at an Aug. 6 meeting.

Is that a conflict of interest?

“No conflict if I recuse myself from voting. I made sure of that before taking the position over 20 years ago, but people still seem to want to say that,” Mr. Hall told The Chronicle.

Mayor Bill Collins agrees. “I think there will be people that will claim this is bad. But I don’t.”

The mayor said, “It’s hard to find volunteers that live in the City of Glens Falls that are willing to take the heat and make these decisions” who also wouldn’t have any conflicts of interest.

He stressed the independence of the other planning board members to make an unbiased decision even when the chair is involved in a project.

“They can all disagree with him whether he’s chair or not,” the mayor said.

Mr. Patten said of the situation, “That happens all the time. It happens in a bunch of different municipalities. He’s a respected local architect who owns his own business, and he should have the right to do business in his own city. He recuses himself. I don’t think it’s an issue at all.” — Ben Westcott

Doolittle blasts Patten

Will Doolittle headlined an Aug. 11 post “Patten is the wrong developer to shape our city” on Ken Tingley’s Substack blog The Front Page. Both Mr. Doolittle and Mr. Tingley are former Post-Star editors. “His buildings are bland, his comments ugly,” it said.

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