City gains two affordable units in process
The Beacon City Council agreed on Monday (Dec. 16) to allow the building inspector to issue certificates of occupancy for 64 apartments on Tioronda Avenue, but not before setting conditions for the move and stressing it should not be considered a precedent.
The vote to grant certificates of occupancy (COs) to Bernard Kohn, the developer of 9 acres at 248 Tioronda Ave., was 5-2, with Pam Wetherbee and Dan Aymar-Blair voting “no.”
(File photo by J. Simms)
Kohn asked the council in July to authorize the COs because he said he had been unable to find a tenant for an unbuilt commercial structure at the site. Kohn constructed the apartments in two buildings but did not build the commercial structure at the same time, a condition of approval for projects within the Fishkill Creek development zone.
In September, the council adopted amendments to the creekside zoning requirements that permit COs for residential buildings before commercial with “good cause shown” and with conditions as the council “deems appropriate.”
The five-page resolution granting the request includes a summary of the site’s long history, including, under a previous owner, Planning Board approval in 2014 for a 100-unit development. In 2017, the council revised zoning requirements in the Fishkill Creek development district, sending the project back to the Planning Board, where in 2020 it was approved for 64 apartments and a 25,400-square-foot commercial building.
In 2021, Kohn sought a variance to the “concurrent construction” requirement for the commercial structure but withdrew his request three months later.
The resolution also takes the developer to task, noting that Kohn conceded that his marketing efforts “could have been more robust” for finding a commercial tenant. By failing to address the situation sooner, it said, he had “placed council members in the middle of a dilemma” not of their making.
However, because of the statewide housing shortage and around $300,000 in annual property taxes the project will generate, the council members relented.
“This council looked at this and determined it was a unique set of facts,” said Nick Ward-Willis, the city attorney, on Monday. Future applicants should know that “if a similar set of circumstances were to present itself,” the council would not view them in the same way, he said.
Conditions for the approval include two additional below-market-rate apartments (a 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom unit) that Kohn said he would provide as a make-good. Including the six units required by the zoning code, the development will have four 1-bedroom and four 2-bedroom apartments at below-market rates.
In conjunction with Hudson River Housing, a Poughkeepsie agency that administers the city’s below-market-rate program, Kohn must hold an open house for those units only, provide the city with a plan to market the units and, within 45 days, appear with Hudson River Housing at a City Council meeting to discuss the units and how people can apply for them.
Kohn agreed to continue marketing the commercial building and must provide written updates on Jan. 31 and March 31 and appear at a council meeting in the spring, if needed.
Council Member Molly Rhodes noted Monday that the rail trail proposed along the dormant Beacon line adjacent to 248 Tioronda could “transform the potential, especially of the nonresidential part of that property.”
“We need that third building to make any money on the property,” said Jay Blumenfeld, a project official. “The first two buildings, that’s essentially to stabilize the property. To actually make a dollar, we need that third building to produce something.”
Mayor Lee Kyriacou said the council in 2025 should revisit the commercial requirement in the Fishkill Creek zone because he fears business development there and in other parts of the city could threaten Main Street.
So the commercial requirement in the Fishkill Creek zone “could threaten Main Street” but the TOD at the waterfront won’t? Does that sound contradictory to anyone else?