Fire training facility among priorities in 2018
Priorities for the town of Ulster in 2018 include working through a proposal to convert the current townowned fire training center into a county facility, determining whether a 20 megawatt electric generating facility should be permitted and building on a commercial resurgence along the business corridor.
Supervisor James Quigley said during a telephone interview Tuesday there is no shortage of big-ticket issues to address, beginning with the proposed conversion of the fire training facility on Ulster Landing Road into a county regional facility.
“The Ulster County Planning Board ... is putting together a neighborhood meeting at the fire training center,” he said.
Quigley added that use of an adjacent police firing range, which already has outside users, will also be addressed for compliance with a 3-year-old agreement on the amount of days weapons training is allowed. That agreement called for only 110 days of use.
“Over the last two years, the range days morphed into 136 days on the calendar,” he said. “There were days that people made reservations where they did go shoot, but we still need to get a better handle on that and that’s what we’re going to do going forward.”
Among issues that could reach a new phase in 2018 is the effort to clean up Buck’s Junk Yard in Eddyville. The case has been ongoing since 2010, with the town winning a state Supreme Court decision earlier this year to have the site close. Quigley said there may be more action needed to remove junk from the property at 1015 state Route 213.
“It’s clear to me that they’ve ceased operations as a scrap yard, but the site has not really been cleaned up,” he said. “I think we’re going to have to pursue that more, and, at the end of the day, we’re going to have to figure a way to accomplish that. It’s going to be challenging given that ... the (court decision) didn’t say ‘clean up your site.’”
During 2017, there have been completion of expansion efforts for the U. S. Route 9W c o mmer - cial corridor, as well as f r e sh bui l dings going up for longs t a nd i n g businesses, which much of the activity centering on automotive sales. At the north end, two car dealerships have completed new facilities in Lake Katrine, while, at the south end, another dealership has begun construction of a showroom and repair facility across from its current showroom on East Chester Street Bypass.
“The car companies understand that they need dealers who have modern attractive facilities to draw customers,” Quigley said. “They need comfortable seating for their service customers. They need a pleasant sales environment, and you’re seeing the pressure from the manufacturers on the local dealers to improve their facilities.”
Quigley said the recent Christmas buying season that had traffic showing up at sites other than the Hudson Valley Mall was an indication of changing shopping practices that benefit the town.
“What you’re seeing is the consumers response to a newer, fresher retail offering,” he said. “In a ( plaza with) Barnes and Noble or in the Kings Plaza, a consumer can almost park right next to the front door, get out of their car, walk 150 feet into the store, get what they want and leave.”
Quigley also said sees the willingness of existing businesses to reinvest in the town as a signal to other forms of commerce that the community has an economic future. However, these will also require time and energy from officials and have already attracted attention from people who either oppose the projects or want the town to conduct extremely stringent reviews.
“We’ve got three solar farms pending before the town Planning Board and the Town Board,” he said. “We also have the (electric generating) plant. Both of these projects are going to require a good amount of work in communicating to the community the pros and the cons.”