Senior housing plan update sought
Previous recommendations are 10 years old, city planner says
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> The city’s Recreation Commission and the Ulster County Planning Board are each being asked to update recommendations they provided for the proposed Kingston Meadows senior housing project.
Kingston Planner Suzanne Cahill told the city Planning Board during a meeting on Monday, Nov. 21, that the recommendations were approximately 10 years old, dating back to when the senior housing project was first presented. She said the Recreation Commission had provided a recommendation regarding a payment in lieu of parkland fee in January 2011, while the county Planning Board had issued a set of recommendations in 2012. Some of the county recommendations may already have been addressed but planning staff felt it was appropriate to have them updated, Cahill said.
Cahill said the developers were also still working with city staff to address various issues, including access to the planned housing site by emergency vehicles.
Much of the discussion during the meeting, though, centered around the developers’ desire to begin site work as soon as the project receives its final approvals from the Planning Board.
Cahill said the developers wanted to do the work to make sure the soils on site are compacted sufficiently to make way for future construction but they have not yet secured funding for the entire project.
“I do have reservations about that,” Cahill said. “We have experience with some developers locally that have initiated projects and the sites have sat fallow and in…not optimum states.”
Kingston Meadows, which is being developed by Hudson Valley Housing Development Fund Co., is proposed to comprise 58 onebedroom apartments and two two-bedroom units in a three-story building to be constructed on property behind the Best Western Plus hotel on Washington Avenue. The project has been before the city Planning Board since at least 2011.
The housing is to serve persons 55 and older.
Project attorney Javid Afzali said funding for the construction of the senior housing depends on the developers having final site plan approval from the Planning Board. He said the developers have missed out on funding opportunities in the past because they did not have the necessary approvals.
Afzali said he is working with city staff to resolve the issue related to the start of site plan work, including considering time limits on the approvals or issuing a reclamation bond. The bond would require the developers to put forward money that the city could use in the event that the site needed to be restored to its original condition, he said.
Margaret O’Leary, a principal of Hudson Valley Housing Development Fund Co., said her organization has created more than 500 units of housing in three different counties.
“We’ve never abandoned a project,” O’Leary said. “This is our mission. This is our work. And we complete it because that is our reputation, that is our standard.”
The project is to be built on 10.29 acres of a 23-acre site. The building site is to be elevated using soil brought in from other areas of the property.