KINGSTON >> For all the good work encapsulated in the city’s proposed comprehensive plan, it falls far short in addressing historic preservation and how to leverage Kingston’s history to further revitalization and sustainable development, a state preservation expert said.
Daniel Mackay, public policy director for the Preservation League of New York State, outlined his thoughts on the proposed “Kingston 2025” comprehensive plan during a meeting Thursday with the city’s Historic Landmarks Preservation Commission. He said the plan included a lot of information regarding “more cutting edge” and newer trends, such as putting an emphasis on climate change, sea level rise and multi-modal transportation.
“For all the good stuff and the sections of detail and emphasis that are in the 2025 plan, I feel like the plan falls significantly short in terms of historic preservation,” Mackay said.
He also said the city’s historic legacy has extraordinary depth and density, so “it’s a concern that the planning consultants hired for this effort do not adequately or even accurately represent the sort of preservation infrastructure that’s already in place in this community” or the opportunities for further advancing and accelerating preservation and economic development that builds on the city’s historic resources.
Among his concerns, Mackay said the introduction of the comprehensive plan should make note of Kingston’s four National Register Historic Districts as well as any recent historic resource surveys done by the city or its local partners. The city’s National Heritage Area and its Hudson River Valley Greenway statuses should also be noted because of the programmatic recognition they bring at the state and federal levels, he said.
Mackay also said the city needs to market the fact that there are tax incentives available for homeowners and others who want to invest in historic properties. He said there are federal and state incentives, but the city in 2004 also adopted a local tax-abatement program. That program defers the increase in a property’s assessment for five years when a homeowner makes improvements on an historic home, Mackay said. He said in the second five years, the increased assessment is phased in in 20 percent increments until full valuation is reached after 10 years.
“It’s a tool that will save people some money,” Mackay said.
He suggested the city also reach out to the local school districts and ask them to adopt the program.
In terms of economic development, Mackay said he liked the language in that section of the proposed comprehensive plan. What was missing, though, was an emphasis on making Kingston a rehabilitation ready community, he said. Mackay said there was talk of making the city “shovel ready” for new development but that the plan misses out on marketing the available incentives and opportunities for reinvesting in vacant or underutilized historic properties.
Additionally, Mackay said, the Historic Landmarks Preservation Commission and the Heritage Area Commission should resist efforts to combine or eliminate them because that would represent a dramatic step back for historic resource protection. He said getting rid of the Historic Landmarks Preservation Commission would terminate Kingston’s participation in the Certified Local Government program, eliminating a source of funding and technical assistance in regard to historic preservation.
Ultimately, Mackay said, the commission could take his opinions into consideration when drafting its own formal comments on the proposed comprehensive plan.
Commission member George Donskoj said the group also could form committees to further discuss other topics of interest in regards to the plan.
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