Uptown proposal faces new challenge
The owners of several Uptown properties have filed additional legal challenges against the proposed mixed-use development known as The Kingstonian, seeking, in part, to annul a state decision that the project would have no adverse impact on the city’s Stockade Historic District.
Attorneys Victoria Polidoro of Rhinebeck and J. Scott Greer of Poughkeepsie filed an Article 78 lawsuit and a separate verified complaint on Aug. 21 in state Supreme Court, challenging decisions made in the ongoing approval process for The Kingstonian, which is to straddle Fair Street Extension between North Front Street and Schwenk Drive.
The actions were filed on be
half of limited liability corporations that own Uptown properties at 61 Crown St.; 311, 314, 317, 323 and 328 Wall St.; and 63 North Front St.
New York City-based real estate investor Neil Bender controls most of those corporations, while the property at 317 Wall St. is leased to a third-party, CREDA LLC. CREDA plans to open a restaurant there, “but COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on the restaurant and hospitality industry,” Polidoro said in in an email Thursday.
The same property owners filed an earlier Article 78 lawsuit, seeking to overturn a December 2019 decision by the Kingston Planning Board that The Kingstonian would not harm the environment. That lawsuit
still is pending, but the court has been asked to hold off on issuing a decision until after the issue of whether the developer is improperly including a cityowned park in the project is decided, Polidoro said.
The latest court filing names the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the Empire State Development Corp., the Kingston Planning Board, the city, and the developers among the respondents, while the verified complaint was filed against the Kingston Common Council, Mayor Steve Noble and the developers.
According to the filings, the Article 78 suit seeks to annul a Feb. 14 determination by the state parks office that The Kingstonian would have no adverse impact on the Kingston Stockade district, where it would be located. The decision “was arbitrary and capricious”
because it overturned a previous determination from the state office set forth in letters dated Feb. 19, 2019, and Sept. 19, 2019, “without any rational basis for the new determination,” according to the suit.
The suit also says the new determination was made after a closed-door meeting between representatives of the state office and the respondents named in the filing. The suit says the meeting occurred after the first Article 78 suit was filed.
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and Empire State Development failed to fulfill their mandatory duty to consider alternatives to The Kingstonian project, the suit says.
The Kingstonian is to comprise of 143 apartments, of which 129 would be rented at market rates. In addition to the apartments, the project is to include
8,000 square feet of retail space, a 32-room boutique hotel, a pedestrian plaza, a footbridge crossing Schwenk Drive between the new development and Kingston Plaza, and a 420-space parking garage, with 277 spaces set aside for public use.
The project’s cost is estimated to be $57.9 million. The developers are to receive $3.8 million from the $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant awarded to Kingston by New York state, as well as other government funding. The Downtown Revitalization Initiative funding is to be used on portions
The developers are seeking to have $28.8 million in property taxes waived over 25 years and also receive exemptions for a total of $1.8 million in mortgage, sales and use taxes.
The verified complaint seeks to declare a portion of the city-owned land where
The Kingstonian is proposed to be built as parkland, making it subject to the public trust doctrine. That would prevent the city from selling or otherwise alienating the park without prior authorization from the state Legislature and approval by the governor, the complaint states.
The property is on North Front Street, across from the top of Wall Street, and “is a passive recreation area with playground games painted on the pavement, several picnic tables, a rectangular sitting wall, trees and other landscaping elements, and a walkway” that was identified in Ulster County tax records as a “picnic site,” the complaint states.
“In addition to the park, the city is also giving the developer a public parking lot,” Polidoro said, referring to the portion of the proposed development site that currently is used for
public parking.
She added that the developer’s parking calculations for the project “are questionable and do not add up” and that the majority of the parking space being created would be used for the proposed apartment, hotel and commercial uses, “resulting in a net loss of parking spaces for existing businesses, employees and visitors to the area.”
The complaint also seeks to void Noble’s execution of a memorandum of understanding with the developers for the project, as well as nullify a decision by the Common Council to add a property at 51 Schwenk Drive to the city’s MixedUse Overlay District, as requested by the developers.
The city, per its corporation counsel, does not comment on pending litigation, said Summer Smith, the city’s director of communications and community engagement.