A developer from Orangeburg has been developing final plans for converting a former Seventh-day Adventist Church at 24 W. Union St. in Kingston into a residential building and constructing two new residential buildings on adjacent lots.
The entity Union Church Hill LLC, headed by Alex and Pascal Elghanayan wants to use five lots and adaptively reuse a former church building for residential use. It also would construct two infill row-house residential buildings on adjacent lots. The project would create a total of nine residential units. The project is located between West Union and Abeel Street with pedestrian access to both streets and a proposed parking lot between Hunter and W. Union Streets.
According to Joseph Minuta of the New Windsor-based firm Minuta Architecture, three of the five lots will be used for residential purposes and two previously used for parking lots for the church will be used to meet parking requirements for the residential project. Minuta pointed out that a number of lot lines would be changed to make the project better confirm with lot requirements for the buildings and parking area. The church would be configured to have one apartment on the first floor and two apartments on the second floor. The new buildings each would have three apartments.
The proposal has been under review by the Kingston Planning Board and in June was reviewed by the Ulster County Planning Board (UCPD). The UCPB said that it supports adaptive reuse and infill developments of the type proposed but had some concerns about the project in its present form.
It said that details about the plans for outdoor lighting were missing from what the developer proposed and said that outdoor lighting would have to use LED fixtures and be fully shielded to avoid stray illumination. UCPB also pointed out that the plan did not meet accessibility requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, the Kingston Planning Board has said that the numbers of units in each building is low enough that ADA requirements do not apply to the project.
The UCPB said that the way the parking spaces are configured would “likely inconvenience residents” and suggested that Kingston officials waive the requirement for three visitor parking spaces and allow the use of on-street spaces to substitute for visitor parking spaces on the project site. The UCPB also expressed concern that the project wasn’t doing enough to reduce its carbon footprint.
“The city and the applicant should look at the ways the proposal is meeting the NYS Stretch Energy code and actively seek to reduce the carbon footprint of the facility using alternatives to fossil fuels such as passive solar and geothermal heating use of heat pumps,” the UCPB said. It also called for the project to include electric vehicle charging stations.
