3 boards to weigh in on zoning request
City lawmakers are seeking recommendations from three boards before deciding whether to approve a request to rezone an East Strand property.
Members of the Common Council’s Laws and Rules Committee on Thursday voted to refer the zoning change request for 173-179 East Strand to the city Planning Board, the city’s Heritage Area Commission and the Ulster County Planning Board.
The three boards will make recommendations about whether the parcel’s zoning designation should be changed from single-family residential to general manufacturing.
Joseph Deegan, managing director of Deegan-Collins Commercial Realty in Kingston, said the property had been zoned for general manufacturing use in the past. He said one of the owners had the zoning changed to residential in 1987 because he planned to build singlefamily homes there. But that never happened, Deegan said.
“Nobody is going to build a house on this piece of property,” Deegan said, noting it abuts the city’s sewage treatment plant.
Deegan said his firm had a buyer for the property when it made the zoning request initially, but no longer. Regardless, he said, the zoning change is needed.
The previous prospective buyer planned to use the approximately 2.5-acre parcel to store roll-off refuse containers and associated trucks that transport them, according to the zoning change request.
The property currently is owned by the Millens Family Credit Shelter Trust.
“Right now, we’re not voting on the merits of it,” Alderwoman Lynn Eckert, D-Ward 1, said of the zoning request. “We’re simply referring it.”
Eckert said the matter will return to the Law and Rules Committee, which she chairs, after the city receives recommendations from the two planning boards and the Heritage Area Commission.