KINGSTON – Applicants for the Kingstonian Project, a mixed-use, residential/commercial development in the City of Kingston, presented changes to their application to planning board Wednesday evening.
The changes would result in 14 affordable housing units, bringing the residential total to 143 from 129, and would include another story to the project’s height.
Applicants said these affordable housing units would be spread throughout multiple stories, among regularly priced residential units and commercial ones. The extra story added will not be exclusively for the affordable units, just as a means to increase developable space.
Joe Bonura Jr., an applicant for the Kingstonian, said their decision to add affordable housing was prompted by the city’s need for it. After designing the initial plan, where the request for qualifications asked for inclusion of pedestrian access, parking, new commerce, and hotel rooms, they realized, at this point, affordable housing was also something that needed to be added to the project.
- “In the two-plus years since we’ve been working on this project, affordable housing has become more and more important; in that, rents have been rising, there hasn’t been a lot of new-inventory build, so we wanted to find a way to incorporate it,” said Bonura. “Finally, once we got the architecture of the building, such that the planning board and all the other review boards were happy with it, we realized that a compromise would be to increase the size of the building,” he said.
According to the applicants, the increased size and capacity of the building will have a minimal effect on parking, which was also increased as part of the amended proposal, designated scenic views and traffic.
However, the planning board still decided to table a lot line deletion and site plan/permit for the project Wednesday, pending further deliberations.
Planning Board Chairman Wayne Platt Jr. said there are still matters that need to be discussed amongst the board before moving forward.
“The traffic impact, which the applicants have talked about tonight, we have our own third-party consultant that is also analyzing the traffic; and also, any potential visual impacts that, with the addition of the other floor, with the reconfiguration of the building itself. Those are two aspects that are jumping out at us,” said Platt.
A public hearing on the matter will be held on November 18th at 6 p.m., the next regular scheduled meeting for the planning board, before any voting is done on the amended application for the Kingstonian.
