Editor’s note – our full report on Monday’s comprehensive plan meeting will be in the print edition of the Kingston Times, but for now, here’s the text of the “Vision for Kingston” in the draft of the “Public Visioning Report and Needs Analysis” of the Kingston 2025 comprehensive plan:
In 2025, Kingston will be a City of Neighborhoods — neighborhoods diverse in land use and diverse in population. Development will be focused around four cores: at the Stockade District; at the Rondout: at a future Hudson Landing Core; and at a new core in Midtown centered at the existing Ulster Performing Arts Center. These cores will be comprised of mixed-use centers with multifamily residential incorporated with ground-floor retail; pedestrian and bicycle-friendly streets; active use of sidewalks; traditional architecture and historic identity. These nodes will be connected not only by a network of streets supporting slow-speed/high-capacity vehicular travel, but by a network of on-road and off-road bicycle paths, and by public transit ranging from shuttle bus to trolley. Extending outward from the cores, lower densities of mostly well-maintained and predominately owner-occupied two-family and single-family residential neighborhoods will dominate, with occasional corner stores and well-designed townhouses and multi-family residential interspersed. Remote or environmentally sensitive areas will remain as open space, agriculture [or] forestry or used for clustered, very low-density residential. Employment opportunities will be diverse, from county government, historic tourism and specialty retail in Uptown; to arts and new media in Midtown; to cultural, water-related, restaurant and entertainment uses in the Rondout; and to clean, green industry along existing active rail lines and within Kingston Business Park.
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