City mulls zoning change for housing
City Laws and Rules Committee members have endorsed a zoning change for 19 properties on Golden Hill, Lawton Park and nearby lands.
The proposal was discussed during a meeting Wednesday, with officials saying the change from the single-family RRR designation to R-6 would allow developers to submit plans for a multi-family project that offers affordable housing.
“Affordable housing or housing of all types is desperately needed for our city,” said Alderman Donald Tallerman, D-Ward 5. “These two areas ... seem to be the best candidates to develop multi-family housing for the residents of Kingston.”
The list includes 10 parcels, with Ulster County owning the largest property of 41 acres that includes the former county jail and several other county services on both sides of Golden Hill Drive. The city of Kingston owns one parcel of less than an acre, and six other parcels are privately owned, while ownership was not listed for the remaining two parcels.
Of the 9 parcels listed under Lawton Park, there are three owned by Lawton Wood LLC, two with owners that could not immediately be identified, and four with private ownership. These include some parcels that are landlocked, including a 10.6-acre parcel behind homes on Pettit Avenue.
“There are developers that are looking at ... properties to potentially develop” among parcels on the Lawton Park list,” Tallerman said.
“What we’re doing here
is kind of making it easier for developers to propose a site plan,” he said. “When you’re a developer, there are many uncertainties about whether you’ll get approvals for your plans (and) one large hurdle is zoning.”
The rezoning effort comes as the Ulster County Housing Corporation has been meeting privately to discuss whether the former jail site, which accounts for 19.9 acres of the 41-acre parcel, should be sold to any of five potential developers. Corporation board members, which include some county legislators, have declined to release the names or proposals
that have been submitted.
Officials noted that much of the property is currently off the tax rolls or assessed at rates for vacant parcels.
“A second but less important reason here is this will help our tax base and provide more income to the city in the long term,” Tallerman said.
“These two areas lend themselves to multi-family based on their location because the bus goes right up Route 32,” he said. “The Ulster County bus depot is right up on Golden Hill and now with the new Empire State Trail that’s being built along (Route 32) ... it’s really two great areas to develop significant housing. Not ones or twos but dozens of new homes, hopefully over 100 new homes.”