New Paltz planning board advances Huguenot Street visitors center review

Though some of its members expressed misgivings about a proposed Huguenot Street visitors center, the Village of New Paltz Planning Board last week agreed to move the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) forward and schedule a public hearing for the plans. Representatives from Historic Huguenot Street brought forward plans for a visitors center last summer, one they say is necessary to allow them to continue their mission in an appropriate space. “Despite New York State’s really rich colonial and pre-colonial history, we’re the only national historic landmark district in the state telling a comprehensive American story of the Lenape, Europeans and enslaved Africans,” said Liselle LaFrance, president and CEO of Historic Huguenot Street during a planning board meeting held on Tuesday, April 7. “And that these thousands years of history are woven into the fabric of not just New Paltz, but the Hudson Valley and the United States.” The ten-acre site, which features seven historic stone-house museums, a reconstructed 1717 French Church, the community’s original burying ground and a replica Esopus Munsee wigwam, was originally founded in 1894 and has been preserved as an educational and historic center ever since. But while Historic Huguenot Street is rooted in history, its supporters say it must adapt. “A strategic planning process that began more than a decade ago clarified that our future really depended on expanding our narrative and modernizing our ability to host, educate and fund our operations,” said LaFrance. “The proposed education and visitors center is critical to generating sustainable revenue with the goal of maintaining the historic buildings, artifacts, and archives.” When presented last summer, the facility was mooted at approximately 7,400-square-feet, with an outdoor patio, an amphitheater, over 100 parking spaces, and internal road for buses and vehicular traffic behind the Deyo House. Public and Planning Board opposition to those plans was fierce,