The owner of a planned restaurant nearby says the Planning Board failed to consider the impacts of the large mixed-use project, which consists of a 420-car garage, 143 apartments, a 32-room boutique hotel, a pedestrian plaza, and 9000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
The Kingstonian — a proposed mixed-use development in the heart of Kingston’s Stockade District — cleared a significant hurdle this week when the city’s planning board ruled Monday, Dec. 16 that developers had adequately addressed in their paperwork the project’s potential negative environmental impacts.
A real estate investor with extensive holdings in Uptown Kingston has filed an action with city zoning officials that could derail or at least seriously delay a proposed mixed-use development project in the Stockade District.
Mayor Steve Noble said this week he’s reached a compromise solution on the thorny issue of affordable housing at a major residential, commercial and parking complex proposed for Uptown Kingston.
The city’s zoning enforcement officer handed developers of the proposed Kingstonian project a victory last week when he rejected arguments by an activist group that the controversial condo, parking and boutique hotel complex eyed for the Stockade District didn’t need to include affordable housing to comply with the requirements of the zoning code’s Mixed Use Overlay District (MUOD) where it would be located.
Saying they anticipate a lawsuit over the Kingstonian, city officials say they will no longer discuss the controversial proposed project with an activist group critical of the plan unless attorneys are present.
City officials say that the developers of the proposed Kingstonian project have completed a series of studies on the environmental impact of the mixed-use complex eyed for Uptown. Now the city’s planning board will decide whether to accept those studies as sufficient, or seek a more exhaustive environmental review process.
“I don’t know anyone who is against developing the city property at the end of Wall Street,” writes a reader. “Nor do I know anyone who is against a true increase in parking spaces available to the community. What I hear and see are that people want a project that aesthetically fits the area; that benefits the community, and that addresses historical, societal, and environmental needs. The Kingstonian project, as it is currently designed, fails in most of these areas.”
The Kingston Planning Board may, at a special meeting set for Sept. 11, be ready to decide just how thorough a review the proposed Kingstonian condo-hotel-parking project will get. Or it may not.
Speakers remain divided on whether the project being pitched for the edge of Kingston’s historic Stockade District would contribute to economic growth, or simply accelerate the pace of gentrification.