RUPCO files lawsuit over Alms House denial
RUPCO is suing to overturn the city Planning Board’s denial of a site plan to convert the former Alms House at 300 Flatbush Ave. into affordable housing units.
The lawsuit was filed Monday prior to the board reconvening its Aug. 20 meeting to formally deny the application.
RUPCO officials were not immediately available to discuss the lawsuit, but did issue a one-sentence statement. “Our attorneys filed an Article 78 with the Supreme Court of the State of New York County of Ulster to seek judicial review of the planning board actions,” said RUPCO Chief Executive Officer Kevin O’Connor.
An Article 78 lawsuit seeks judicial relief from an administrative decision.
RUPCO has proposed converting the former Alms House into 34 apartments and constructing a fourstory building on the site for another 32 units. The housing would be made available to people ages 55 and older, with some units provided for homeless and special needs residents.
The board on Aug. 20 voted 3-2 against approval, with Charles Polacco, Jamie Mills and Bridget Smith Bruhn opposed, while Wayne Platte and member Robert Jacobsen approved the plan.
At the board meeting Monday, planners did not provide a basis for their Aug. 20 votes on the controversial project, but gave what appeared to be prepared statements.
Polacco said his concerns about density and infrastructure had not been satisfactorily addressed.
Mills said she felt “there are still significant environmental impacts that this project will have” and contends it does not meet city comprehensive plan goals of “walkability,” as well as failing to comport with historic architectural standards.
Platte said the “application as presented complied with the city of Kingston zoning law and also fell within the parameters of ... what the Planning Board was allowed to consider.” 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 Ulster County government offices.
RUPCO in April completed a $950,000 deal with the Ulster County
Economic Development Alliance to buy the property.
RUPCO in December won a lawsuit that found a 5-4 vote by the city Common Council was enough to allow a change in zoning of the property from singlefamily residential to multifamily residential. City lawyers had maintained that the change needed supermajority approval that required 7 votes in favor.