Council rejects Alms House rezoning
Defeat imperils RUPCO’s plan to create 66 apartments on Flatbush Ave. property
The Common Council has denied the request to rezone the former Alms House property, where affordable housing agency RUPCO wants to create dozens of apartments.
The proposal to rezone the property at 300 Flatbush Ave. from single-family residential to multifamily residential was favored at Tuesday’s council meeting by five of the body’s nine members but was defeated because a supermajority of seven “yes” votes was needed.
The supermajority requirement was triggered because at least 20 percent of the owners of properties immediately adjacent to the Alms House property filed a petition that opposed the rezoning.
Voting in favor of the zon-
ing change were Lynn Eckert, D-Ward 1, Douglas Koop, D-Ward 2, Reynolds Scott-Childress, D-Ward 3, Nina Dawson, D-Ward 4, and Steven Schabot, DWard 8.
Opposed were council Majority Leader William Carey, D-Ward 5, Minority Leader Deborah Brown, RWard 9, Anthony Davis, DWard 6, and Maryann Mills, D-Ward 7.
The Alms House is in Davis’ ward.
RUPCO has wanted to buy the Alms House property from the Ulster County Economic Development Agency for $950,000 and create a 66-unit apartment project called Landmark Place. Thirty-four units were to be in the existing vacant Alms House structure, which last housed county offices, and the other 32 were to be in a new fourstory building on the site.
The proposal called for more than half of the units to offer support services to a mix of homeless populations with special needs, including veterans and frail or disabled seniors, and the housing was to be open only to individuals 55 and older.
“At this point, we’re going to go forward and look at all of our options and make the best decision,” RUPCO Chief Executive Officer Kevin O’Connor said after the council voted Tuesday. O’Connor said, though, that the agency was pleased a majority of council members favored the zoning change.
“I think we were trying to give the city of Kingston an opportunity here,” O’Connor said, noting the city has had no new senior housing built since 2001 while other communities in the county have built 469 units since then.
O’Connor said the Landmark Place project was a chance for the city to catch up and provide senior housing in a community that is rich with services and amenities. Prior to Tuesday’s vote, Mills said Kingston needs to update its zoning code to make it work for the entire city.
“We need to look at the zoning,” she said.
Carey said his vote against the rezoning had nothing to do with the nature of RUPCO’s proposal but rather the site’s potential. He said changing the zoning to multifamily residential would prevent potential future growth there.
Eckert countered that argument by noting the city has not received any application to rezone the property for other uses, such as commercial. She said the property has been aggressively marketed for commercial development for several years without success.
“I would like to emphasize tonight that this is a narrow question,” Eckert said of the zoning request. “It’s not appropriate to think about RUPCO or the specifics of the project, but rather the use of the property.”
Scott-Childress agreed, saying the council was to consider only the rezoning request. He said the vote simply was a procedural step to put the Landmark Place project before the city Planning Board for consideration about whether it was an appropriate development.
Scott-Childress said voting against the zoning change opens the city up to potential costly litigation, which could raise taxes for property owners.
Schabot said the property needs to be rezoned because it cannot remain designated for single-family residential use. He said without the rezoning, the city might as well put a “Condemned” sign on the Alms House building.
Constructed in the 1870s as a place to care for the city’s poor, the Alms House later was used as a tuberculosis ward in the 1950s and then housed the county’s Department of Health offices.