Town cancels meeting about Route 28 proposal

TOWN OF KINGSTON, N.Y. »

The town has canceled a planned March 16 meeting about proposed steel and concrete fabrication plants on Route 28 “in light of recent coronavirus issues.”

The meeting, which was to be held at M. Clifford Miller Middle school in the neighboring town of Ulster in order to accommodate the expected large audience, has been called off out of an abundance of caution, town of Kingston Supervisor Paul Landi said in a prepared statement.

“The reason for the cancellation ... is in light of recent coronavirus issues in the area and the fact that prior meetings scheduled to discuss this project have drawn a mass gathering of the general public in a relatively confined space,” Landi wrote.

He said the state Department of Health had advised against mass gatherings.

“This is not a declaration of emergency, and there is no cause for alarm,” Landi wrote. “This notice is also not guidance as to whether there should be other meeting cancellations under different circumstances.”

There were about 170 cases of the coronavirus known as COVID-19 in New York state as of Tuesday, including one in Ulster County. That case is in the town of Rochester.

Landi said the March 16 meeting has not been rescheduled and that no other town meetings have been canceled or postponed.

The application for the 850 Route 28 project calls for two 120,00-square-foot buildings in which steel and precast concrete bridge decking would be manufactured.

The proposal by developer 850 Route 28 LLC, which is led by U.S. Crane owner Tom Auringer, has been controversial in the community due to potential environmental impacts and the planned 24/7 operation of the plants, among other things.