No action yet on tax breaks for new hotels
Agency delays vote after opponents speak out
The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency has delayed voting on more than $1.6 million in tax breaks requested by Hudson Valley Kingston Development to convert four Uptown buildings into small hotels.
The application was discussed during a Wednesday morning board meeting at which about a dozen members of the public said the developer was not providing a unique service worthy of sales and property tax waivers.
“This is a developer who’s buying a number of properties throughout Uptown [to build]
boutique hotels,” Tanya Garment said. “They are going to have a huge advantage up here, almost ... a monopoly.
Sari Botton said giving tax breaks for four highend hotels would encourage developers to displace people from affordable housing.
“If Ulster County wants
to be truly progressive, then we need to think about doing things differently so that we don’t wind up with a completely gentrified city that is just a playground for the rich and loses its character,” she said.
Hudson Valley Kingston Development, whose principal is Charles Blaichman, is planning boutique hotels at 301 Wall St., 41 Pearl St., 270 Fair St. and 24 John St. — all within a few blocks of each other in the Uptown
Kingston business district. The projects are expected to cost a combined $8.7 million and have a total of 43 guest rooms.
The developer’s application to the Industrial Development Agency seeks a 10year property tax waiver of about $1.4 million, though Hudson Valley Kingston Development still would pay about $1.75 million.
The company also is seeking a $184,000 waiver of sales taxes related to renovations and a mortgage
recording tax waiver of about $48,000.
Blaichman said last month that the tax savings will help make the businesses a “first class operation” that reflects well on the city.
“The reason I’m asking for assistance is that I think with some assistance I could make it a better place,” he said. “... [Given] the money that we want to spend and the level of service we want to give, it (the tax relief) would help make it a better project.”
Ulster County Legislator Jennifer Schwartz Berky on Wednesday submitted a petition to the Industrial Development Agency board from the group Kingston Citizens. org asking for the review of the tax relief application to be extended.
“We’ve received about 140 or more signature so far,” the Kingston Democrat said. “Their request is simply to slow down the process until more of the questions being asked by
the public here ... can be answered.”
The Hudson Valley Kingston Development projects are part of a sudden boom in plans to bring boutique hotels to the city’s Uptown area. Hotels also are planned, by different developers, in the Crown Street building that the Kingston school district currently uses for administrative offices and the Herzog’s Supply Co. warehouse at North Front and Fair streets.