As affordable housing issues take center stage in Kingston with a series of public hearings and heated debate over a major market-rate apartment complex being pitched for the heart of Uptown Kingston, a local activist group has published a study arguing that evictions in the city are reaching rates not seen since the housing crisis a decade ago.
Battle lines were drawn in the matter of the city’s most divisive development proposal in years when more than 200 people turned out for a public hearing Wednesday night on the proposed Kingstonian project. While members of the city’s business community came out strong in support of the proposed housing, parking and retail complex in the Stockade District, affordable housing advocates and other activists called for the city’s planning board to reject the $52 million project, claiming that it would fuel gentrification and lead to Kingston’s poorest residents being pushed out of their homes.
An East Kingston woman who reported an incident of racial harassment at a Town of Ulster Walmart has been fired from her job because of language she used in the aftermath of the alleged incident.
For decades, General Electric plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, both located in Washington County, north of Albany, dumped toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River. A costly and long-sought cleanup began in 2009. This morning, EPA Region 2 Administrator Pete Lopez announced that General Electric had met the cleanup requirements outlined in a 2006 agreement, though he said that doesn’t mean the company couldn’t be called upon to fund further cleanup in the future.
A meeting Tuesday night at Woodstock Day School about a controversial quartet of dumps in Saugerties drew about 30 residents, many of whom voiced their concerns about potential harm to their drinking water from the site, and also the impact of the noise associated with the constant influx of trucks laden with construction and demolition debris.
Woodstock Library Trustees plan to vote at their next meeting, 7 p.m. Thursday, April 18, on a $584,000 contract with Dobbs Ferry architect Stephen Tilly for designs on a new 12,000-square-foot library building amid lingering concerns by some that the board hasn’t been transparent enough and hasn’t given enough consideration to a renovation.
The construction at 51 Main Street in New Paltz has “gone stagnant,” according to building inspector Cory Wirthmann, and a letter has been sent to developer Dimitri Viglis giving him ten days to respond with a detailed plan how he’s going to wrap things up on this long-term building project.
A ruling by a state Supreme Court justice has halted the Town of Saugerties from enforcing stop-work orders issued by its building department to J. Karolys and Son, a local trucking and excavation company that’s now under scrutiny for disposal of construction debris on four properties in the town.
In New Paltz, people being detained by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sometimes doesn’t go unnoticed. Hundreds of people have written letters in support of Luis Martinez, or shown up to events in his support. Friends of Matthew Rojas rallied to hire an attorney to represent him. Thousands of dollars were raised for Joel Guerrero, the first resident known to have been detained regarding his status as a resident of the United States.
An East Kingston woman said that she and her family were the targets of a racist remark by a fellow shopper at the Town of Ulster Walmart last week. It’s the second time in recent weeks that controversy over bigotry has erupted on the Town of Ulster’s commercial strip.
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