The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency does some “housekeeping” before Kingstonian PILOT vote on January 20.

By Rebecca Martin

On Wednesday, January 20 at 9:00am, the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency (UCIDA) is poised to vote on the Kingstonian project deviated payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT), an unprecedented 25-year, $20+ million dollar deferment (and in the school district’s case, a loss) of property tax for luxury housing in the City of Kingston’s historic stockade district.

In July of 2020, the developer publicly unveiled their 100% tax exempt PILOT that at that time was valued at over $30.6 million dollars (that includes the PILOT and other public funding sources) in exchange for a parking garage. Although the developers and members of the Kingston Common Council insisted that there wasn’t any wiggle room to improve the project or PILOT conditions, after much effort and advocacy by the public, the developer added 14 affordable units, a couple of public bathrooms and reduced the amount slightly that is deferred over time.

READ: “The road paved by a $30.6 million dollar Kingstonian PILOT (in exchange for a parking garage): A timeline and next steps in October 2020

The request went out to the three impacted agencies for their consent that included the City of Kingston, Ulster County Legislature and Kingston City School District. Although the City of Kingston (8-0) and the Ulster County Legislature (17-6) approved the PILOT agreement, the school board, which represents 60% of the impacted taxpayers throughout Ulster County, rejected the proposal (6-3).

One of the things that we learned throughout this process were the negative impacts that a PILOT has on school districts. In a recent article called “Strife over tax breaks and tradeoffs: It doesn’t have to be like this” by The Benjamin Center (penned by Robin Jacobowitz with KT Tobin and Josh Simons) the author, a graduate of Colgate University with a BA in Education, a Masters in Education Policy from Harvard University and Doctorate of Philosophy, Education policy, Organization Theory and Qualitative Research from NYU, the Director of Education Programs at The Benjamin Center and an elected trustee of the Kingston City School District Board of Education wrote, “Public schools are dependent on property taxes for the majority of their funding. When an entity does not pay its full share of property taxes, that burden does not go away; unless cuts are made, costs get shifted onto other taxpayers. So when a PILOT is granted to a developer everyone else has to pay more. And even in an instance where a PILOT might contribute more than was being paid by the pre-PILOT property, that property is still not paying its full share.”

THE UCIDA’S CLEVER “HOUSEKEEPING”

Meanwhile, the UCIDA released their AGENDA for next week that revealed more concerns.

There appear to be two different items that can trigger a multi-agency review such as what occurred with the Kingstonian PILOT. The first is a deviation from the Uniform Tax Exemption Policy (UTEP) and the second, the inclusion of housing. Notice that on page 27-28 of the agenda, Resolution No. 1020 changes the housing policy so that the UCIDA doesn’t need all taxing entities’ concurrence.

The UCIDA could perhaps override the other agencies on the deviation. But when they added in the opportunity to fund any housing project in the housing policy last summer, they required agreement of all agencies.

During their recent governance meeting (and two hour executive session) they must have changed the housing policy (again) to have the same language as the UTEP for the PILOT deviation, sneaking it in under the heading “housekeeping” by adding an “F” after the “E” in the Schedule A (see header photo).

Furthermore, the authority for an IDA to even fund housing appears to be a complicated question. The state authorizing legislation for IDAs doesn’t clearly allow IDA support for housing. According to sources, the courts have, over time, considered certain housing projects to qualify if the project “promises employment opportunities and prevents economic deterioration”. Is the UCIDA giving itself the authority to support any housing and does it have the power to do that? Perhaps it is why, in the resolution approving the Kingstonian PILOT, that they do a little dance defining the project as “commercial”.

I guess we’ll have to see what the board members do on Wednesday and when this is over, we hope that our elected officials – with much public pressure – use this most unpleasant experience to deeply scrutinize the UCIDA’s practices.

The UCIDA meets on Wednesday at 9:00am. Please visit their WEBSITE to learn how you can view their meeting and participate.

Highlights from the UCIDA Public Hearing on October 1

There was good news (members of the Ulster County Legislature called for an independent, third party analysis as we did in our BLOG post last week. It’s the only sensible thing to do) as well as courageous and touching testimonies last evening during the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency’s public hearing for the Kingstonian project PILOT.

Here are the highlights. Click on the images to review each individual testimony.

James Shaughnessy, City of Kingston resident

“In contradiction to what Dan Baker said (City of Kingston Assessor), PILOTs do not have a positive impact on school district finances. The school district is subject to tax cap legislation with limits the growth of our tax levy…when the new construction is under a PILOT, the growth factor is zero at the beginning of the agreement and it is not included in the growth factor at the end of the agreement. So the district’s tax levy limit is permanently reduced…the developers published a flyer yesterday that claims that the Kingstonian will yield its school district more than 41 million dollars in new revenue over 50 years and that is categorically wrong. The developers don’t seem to understand school district finances. They don’t seem to understand the impact of a PILOT on school district finances and frankly, the Mayor and the Common Council and perhaps Dan Baker don’t seem to understand the impact of a PILOT on school district finances.”
Ulster County Legislator Lynn Archer (District 21)

“I have spoken with several of my fellow legislators and we are all in agreement…we strongly encourage the UCIDA to engage an independent third party firm to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of the Kingstonian project and to present the results of these findings to the various taxing authorities. We are currently relying on the people benefitting from the project to provide the projected costs of the project without validation from an independent third party who has the knowledge of these types of complex endeavors….we all have a fiduciary responsibility to the residents of Ulster County and that an independent review should be undertaken immediately by a firm which routinely does these types of reviews for other IDAs.”
Justin Orashan, City of Kingston resident

“…my own concern, and the concern of an enlarged amount of community members here is the nuance of (those details) in the context of the given moment that we are in in Kingston…for anyone on this call who is housing secure or owns a home, if you’re not directly connected to the families who are really hurting right now, it’s really hard to understand how people are in pain and how this will not benefit all of our community, and how it will indeed hurt many of our community members.”
City of Kingston Alderman (Ward 3) Rennie Scott Childress.
Hold him accountable, Kingston.


“…a desperately needed parking garage at no cost to the taxpayers. These structures are expensive so the current project is an ingenious solution. A PILOT to support its construction is essential to its success.”
Sarah Wenk, City of Kingston resident

“Our schools can’t wait 25 years for revenue from this project to start trickling in. The developers own materials set out a 50-year timeline that is speculative at best, fantastical at worst. We are in the midst of a crisis now…our schools are facing huge budget cuts. The taxpayers of Ulster County are being asked to subsidize luxury housing for a possible benefit that won’t begin until after most of us are dead.”
Patrick Logan, Attorney
Rodenhausen Chale & Polidoro LLP 
Logan appeared on behalf of several property owners in Uptown, Kingston.


“I want to request that the IDA keep the public hearing open for…at least an additional 30 days to all for adequate public comment. Several weeks ago my office submitted a FOIL request for all of the IDA’s records relating to the PILOT application. We did not receive a response until approximately 4pm yesterday…my clients are in the process of hiring a third party financial analyst to review the information….to submit this analysis.”
Village of New Paltz Mayor Tim Rogers
(read by City of Kingston resident Jess Mullen)


“On September 15, 2020, the Kingstonian developers published the “Fiction v. Fact” document on their website which stated that “Developers and City officials are comfortable that the increased parking is adequate for peak demand and any excess employee and hotel parking can be accommodated in the adjacent plaza….Please review City of Kingston zoning code §405-34 (J.) “Parking space ratios.” Reading the code and using some simple arithmetic shows how the Kingstonian requires approximately 345 parking spaces (hotel: 34, apartments: 271, commercial space: 40). The developers also stated in their “Fiction v. Fact” document that “without the garage component, there would be no PILOT request as one would not be needed. The PILOT starts and stops with the costs to build, operate, and maintain the parking garage…If the project is only adding 75 (420 minus 345) public parking spaces — not even the 200 that the city asked for in their 2016 RFQ — the UCIDA should take an extra hard look at whether to grant a PILOT to build 75 parking spaces. Additionally, plans include charging users 3x more for parking ($1.50 per hour) than the city charged just a few years ago.”
Ilona Ross, Resident of Olive

“Joseph Bonura is a recipient of two 99-year PILOTS in the City of Poughkeepsie that will deprive that city of billions of dollars. It ought to shock and conscience of any observer that he has dared to come to Kingston and ask for a PILOT.”