Hearing on plan for Alms House continues April 16
The city Planning Board is not expected to decide this month whether to accept a site plan for 66 affordable housing units at the former Alms House property on Flatbush Avenue, a city official said.
City Planner Suzanne Cahill said the Planning Board will continue a public hearing on the proposal at 6 p.m. Monday, April 16, at City Hall. But she said there would be no decision made because the board has allowed 10 more days after that date for people to submit written comments to the Planning Office.
On March 19, a dozen residents at another public hearing raised concerns about the proposal by RUPCO, a low-income housing provider based in Kingston. Their concerns focused on how the project would affect the neighborhood and the amount of affordable housing already located in the city.
Afterward, the board voted unanimously to keep the hearing open for written comments through the close of business on April 30 and for the public hearing to continue on April 16.
Under RUPCO’s proposal, the site at 300 Flatbush Ave. would be renamed Landmark Place. The former Alms House, which dates to the 1870s, would contain 34 apartments, and 32 more units would be housed in a four-story building that would be constructed on the site at a lower elevation.
RUPCO would purchase the property from the Ulster County Economic Development Agency for $950,000.
Critics of the proposal say the city provides more than its fair share of housing for low-income tenants and that the project would be a burden on city taxpayers. But RUPCO’s attorney, Michael Moriello, has said those issues have already been addressed by planners, who declared in May 2017 that the project would not have a significant environmental impact. He said the only issues that are germane to the current hearing concern the site plan itself.
Constructed as a place to house the city’s poor, the Alms House later was used as a tuberculosis ward in the 1950s and most recently housed Ulster County offices.