Irish center requires new OK
Planning Board rules previous site plan approval has expired
The developers of the Irish Cultural Center, proposed for construction on Abeel Street in the city’s Rondout District, must obtain new approval of their site plan before the project can proceed.
During a meeting Monday evening, the Kingston Planning Board unanimously adopted a resolution stating the previous approval, granted on April 16, 2018, had expired and that a written request for the approval simply to be extended would instead be treated as a new application.
The resolution also noted that documents, submissions and comments previously made about the project, as well as factual decisions by the board, would remain a part of the record and con-
tinue in full force unless circumstances have changed since the previous site plan was approved.
In September, the developers of the Irish Cultural Center were given a month to provide a legal basis for extending the expired site plan approval. The Planning Board’s decision on Monday came after its members met in a closeddoor session with city Assistant Corporation Counsel Daniel Gartenstein.
“We’re going to treat this as a new application,”
Planning Board Chairman Wayne Platte Jr. said afterward. He said he was relying on the opinion of the city’s Building Safety Department.
Deputy Fire Chief Tom Tiano, head of the former Building Safety Division, said his office received an application for construction of the Irish Cultural Center several weeks after the site plan initially was approved, but it was not accompanied by building plans. He said he informed Bob Carey, one of the developers, who indicated he was not ready to submit those plans. Carey did ask, though, whether a permit was needed to dig a hole for the foundation,
Tiano said.
“At the time, city of Kingston did not have a requirement for an excavation permit,” Tiano said. “He did not need, nor require, a building permit to dig a hole.”
Such a requirement has been drafted since then, but not yet enacted.
Prior to the Planning Board’s vote, some residents urged its members to more thoroughly review the Irish Cultural Center project before granting another site plan approval. They urged the board to require a full environmental review, and some said they do not trust the developers.
Lynn Woods said she
never heard of excavating for a 16,000-square-foot facility and then not building it.
“This whole process, there have been so many red flags,” Woods said. “And I think at this point ... it’s not a red flag, it’s a siren going off.” She also said she is concerned, as a taxpayer, with potentially having to pay to remediate the site if the project does not go forward.
After excavation began at the site, at 32 Abeel St., neighbors and other residents complained the work was causing excessive noise and damage to surrounding properties, including the city-owned Company Hill
Path. In August, the developers were cited by the city engineer for violations at the site. Those violations have since been corrected, according to city officials.
In response to the excavation, the Common Council adopted changes to the City Code intended to provide more oversight and regulation of such work when it takes place on private property. Those changes allow the city engineer to issue appearance tickets for violations of Kingston’s Stormwater Management and Erosion and Sediment Control section of the code, while the other expands a section dealing with excavation hazards.
Still pending is a proposal to require a building permit when excavation is done in preparation for construction, enlargement, alteration, improvement, removal, relocation or demolition of any building or structure, as well as a proposal to require the city engineer to review any work involving excavation before a building permit could be issued.
The 16,213-square-foot Irish Cultural Center is to include a 171-seat theater on its ground floor, which would be built into the hillside facing West Strand and Company Hill Path; and a restaurant with a pub space, among other amenities.