Romeo Kia’s bid for tax breaks to get public hearing

Ulster County Industrial Development Agency officials have agreed to have a public hearing on a request from Romeo Kia for $535,111 in tax breaks for the construction of a proposed showroom in Lake Katrine.

A date and location for the hearing have not yet been scheduled.

The project was discussed during a video conference meeting Wednesday, March 17. Romeo Kia attorney Lucia Romeo said the dealership has been seeking for more than five years to move from its current site at 111 Schwenk Drive in Kingston to 1670 Ulster Ave. (U.S. Route 9W). She added that the original plan was to have the showroom at another location the business owns on Route 9W, but that was dropped due to construction costs.

The proposed showroom would occupy 19,991 square feet.

The proposed Kia site would be across from the Romeo Chevrolet showroom and repair facility on property currently used by the dealership as an outdoor vehicle storage location.

Both the previous and current proposed Romeo Kia sites have come under criticism from Ulster Town Board members. Last November, they voted to set restrictions on a lot-line adjustment on property across the road from the current facility.

During work at the proposed new location in March 2020, a tree-clearing operation removed perch trees used by a pair of bald eagles who at the time had two young eaglets in a nest only 400 feet from the property line. Only one of the fledglings ultimately left the nest. As a result, Town Board officials set restrictions that any new site work required code enforcement approval for each section of the project.

At the time, town officials said they had consulted state Department of Environmental Conservation guidelines when approving the site plan. Under the state Bald Eagle Management Plan, construction of “new buildings, roads, utilities or other permanent structures is not recommended within a quarter mile, or 1,320 feet of an eagle nest, if there is no visual buffer” and that “movements between both nests and foraging areas ... should be taken into consideration.”

Since September, the bald eagles have worked on the nest, including using perch locations on the Kia property, but it has not been determined if the pair laid eggs this season.

After the agency meeting, town of Ulster Supervisor James Quigley said Romeo Kia did too much clearing at the previous location, which left neighbors without a promised buffer. He added that stormwater drainage plans were not followed.

“They still have some corrective action to take on the (first) site,” he said. “They stripped the entire site, disregarding the setbacks that were on the site plan ... and then they essentially abandoned the stormwater protection plan that is a requirement of every development in the MS4 district, and they haven’t maintained it in four years.”

Agency officials have not set a date or location for requested tax breaks.