Kingstonian: Listen to the Community Fact Sheet

Watch the Documentary

Connecting the dots to help Ulster County's residents make sense of all of the shenanigans between 2016 and now that have led to the Kingstonian's proposed $30M tax break.

Listen to Community Voices

Kingstonian:
Listen to the Community
Escuchar a la Comunidad

The Kingstonian is a proposed $50M, 131-unit luxury housing complex, 32 room boutique hotel, 420 parking space complex with a walking bridge to the Herzog’s Plaza. The developers say that rents for a one-bedroom will start at $1,350 a month, and public parking will cost $1.50 an hour or $60/m.

A small number of business owners, property owners and real estate agents are pushing to have it approved and built quickly. However, many other people believe that the project, as currently constituted, doesn’t meet the needs of the existing community, especially the 50% of households who currently rent in Kingston.

The Facts:

Kingston's Housing Crisis...

Evictions in Kingston are up 65% since 2016

Kingston evictions are at the highest level since the financial crisis

Evictions in Ulster county up 42% since 2016

6,251 Ulster County families spend the majority of their paycheck on rent

Since 2002, Rents have increased by 50%, while wages have actually decreased slightly

The Kingstonian Will...

Take in $6M in grant money + an eventual PILOT agreement

Require a minimum income of $55,000 for one-bedroom tenants to not be rent burdened

Cost 100% more per hour than the current parking lot

Cost 300% more per month for a parking pass

Cause a net loss of 40 parking spots*

*According to analysis by community member Joan Horton

Since the Kingstonian RFP was awarded...

charles-blaichman-and-neil-bender-NYC-developers

Two NYC real estate developers have bought...

10 Uptown Properties for $16.3M (that we know of), including:

BSP
Catskill Art Supply
Kingston Opera House
Cioni Building
Woolworth's Building
Family Court
And more...

Doubling many rents and leaving storefronts vacant. This project is already having an impact on Kingston.

We believe this project needs to:

Provide affordable housing at the Kingstonian
Create living-wage, full-time jobs
Have hiring preferences for local residents
Have hiring preference for hard-to-hire-job-seekers
Guarantee protection against rent or property tax increases for Kingston families
Provide affordable parking for uptown workers
Fund guaranteed legal representation for tenants in eviction court
Actively seek out and listen to community input

By involving the community in the Kingstonian project, we can serve the needs of the community!

Community Voices

Alex Panagiotopoulos

Callie Jayne

Juanita Velazquez-Amador

Betsy Kraat

The four videos above were clipped from a recording by Clark Richters and brought to you by Kingston Citizens. Please consider supporting his work of documenting Kingston government meetings by becoming his Patreon. Documenting and distributing these meetings is an invaluable resource to our community!