Legislator emphasizes merits of project
County Legislature Chairman David Donaldson touts tax breaks for the proposed Kingstonian project.
KINGSTON, N.Y. » Ulster County Industrial Development Agency board members are being pushed by county Legislature Chairman David Donaldson to recognize the merits of requested tax breaks for the proposed Kingstonian project despite objections from the Kingston school board.
The comments were made during an agency video conference meeting Wednesday, with Donaldson saying school district trustees did not have enough debate over developers’ request for $26.15 million in tax breaks for developers of the $54.89 million Kingston ian mixed-use retail and residential project.
“The problem here... is only one- quarter of the (nine- member) school board listened to what this development was going to deliver,” he said. “The others were all through hearsay or a little bit of reading here or there and then they voted against it.”
Donaldson spent nearly eight minutes complaining about the school board vote and extolling the virtues of the Kingstonian project, telling agency officials how difficult it has been to find someone to develop the corner of Fair Street and North Front Street.
School board members on Dec. 3 voted 6-3 against endorsing the tax breaks. Agency policy is to seek support from taxing entities that would be impacted by the project. But under state law, the agency is not required to abide by that opposition or support.
While the agency does not require county lawmakers’ approval to grant tax breaks, the agency board is appointed by the Legislature, which over the past three years has made changes in board membership based on objections to how applications and policies have been handled.
However, Donaldson told board members that their decisions should be made on their own assessments, but he did not directly say they should vote against the wishes of the school board.
“You are appointed by the legislative body but we appoint you because we want independence,” Donaldson said.
The Ulster County Legislature approved the PILOT deal on Nov. 17. The Kingston Common Council had signed off on a previous PILOT deal and it is consulting with a city attorney on whether it needs to vote on this again.
School board members have been receiving information on the Kingstonian periodically since the project was announced on Sept. 7, 2017. There have also been several presentations given to school district administrators, which included some board members, as well as a presentation to the full board in November 2018 and an hour-long presentation last month
by the Industrial Development Agency on specifics of the tax break figures impact over a 25-year agreement.
School board President James Shaughnessy, during a telephone interview following the meeting, said characterizations that district trustees were not informed are incorrect and unfair.
“We’ve been dealing with this thing for two years,” he said. “Everyone on the board considers that they were well-informed about it.”
Shaughnessy last week noted that recent criticism from developers about not being given an opportunity to make another presentation to board members did not explain that they wanted a private meeting that could not have been conducted legally.
“The developers wanted to make a private presentation to the board that would be executive session,” he said. “We were advised by our attorney that it was not a permitted topic for executive session and would be a violation of the Open Meetings Law. We informed the developers their presentation would have to be in public session. They never contacted me about presenting in public session.”
Under the proposed Kingstonian 25-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement, the school district would get $2.7 million in revenue while the developers would get a $17.49 million tax break; the city of Kingston would receive $1.17 million in revenue and developers would get an $8.46 million tax break; and the county would see $328,733 in revenue and developers would get a $2.26 million tax break.
Developers plan to use the existing Herzog-owned property on the east side of Fair Street and the city-owned vacant lot on the west side to construct a complex that has 129 market-rate apartments, 14 affordable-housing units, and 9,000 square feet of retail space. The plan includes 420 parking slots of which 277 slots would be for public use.