City won't appeal ruling on Alms House vote
KINGSTON, N.Y. » The city will not appeal a judge’s recent ruling that a simplemajority vote by the Common Council last summer was sufficient to change the zoning of the former Alms House property to allow apartments there, Mayor Steve Noble said Tuesday.
“After conferring with corporation counsel, it is my understanding that there is no fitting basis for an appeal,” Noble wrote in an email.
In October 2016, affordable housing agency RUPCO asked the Common Council to rezone the former Alms House property, at 300 Flatbush Ave., from single-family residential to multifamily residential to accommodate a proposal for dozens of apartments. A few days before the council voted on the rezoning request last July, neighbors of the site submitted petitions challenging the proposed change. City officials accepted the petitions as valid, which triggered a requirement that a “supermajority” of at least seven of the council’s nine members vote in favor of the rezoning for it to take effect.
The vote on July 11 was 5-4 in favor of the rezoning, so the measure was declared defeated. About a month later, RUPCO filed a lawsuit against the city, contending the council acted improperly when it accepted the protest petitions as valid.
In a Dec. 19 decision, state Supreme Court Justice Richard Mott ruled in favor of RUPCO, saying the city acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” when it determined the protest petitions were valid and sufficient to meet the threshold for requiring a supermajority vote.
“As we are all now aware, the court has determined that certain defects in the protest petitions render them invalid,” Noble wrote in the email. “... Based on the court’s decision, the simplemajority vote of the council to approve the amendment for a zoning change was sufficient and, in accordance with the court’s decision, the matter will be returned to the Common Council at the January meeting for proceedings consistent with the decision.”
The mayor said that means council President James Noble, his uncle, will declare the July vote sufficient for passage. The resolution then will go to the mayor, who said he expects to sign it.
“I anticipate that the project will then go before the [city] Planning Board,” the mayor wrote. “I encourage community members to become involved in this process and voice their opinions.”
The Planning Board must approve RUPCO’s proposal for it to proceed.
RUPCO has proposed buying the former Alms House property from the Ulster County Economic Development Agency for $950,000 and creating a 66unit apartment project there called Landmark Place. The proposal has raised concern among neighbors, including about the possible impact of the project on the city’s sewer system and the safety of residents in the neighborhood after Landmark Place is filled.
RUPCO wants to create 34 apartments in the existing vacant Alms House structure and 32 more units in a four-story building it would construct on site. The housing would be open to individuals 55 and older, and more than half of the units would offer support services to a mix of homeless populations with special needs.
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 most recently housed the Ulster County offices.