Mayor Shayne Gallo (File photo)
KINGSTON, N.Y.? Mayor Shayne Gallo?s administration is pressing city lawmakers to opt into a state program that allows tax breaks for developers that convert empty buildings into residential or commercial sites.
Gallo said he supports the initiative, known as the Residential-Commercial Urban Exemption Program, which would allow for decreased assessments of improvements made to vacant non-residential properties when they are turned into locations for homes of businesses.
Gallo said the program would be an incentive for much-needed development in the city. If successful, the program would put vacant buildings to use, put them on the tax rolls, increase sales tax revenues and jobs and widen the city?s tax base, he said.
?We are encouraging the (Common) Council to adopt this as another tool for economic development,? Gallo said. He said the initiative will ?stabilize neighborhoods and also (improve) the quality of life to draw other developers into Kingston.?
City Assessor Daniel Baker spoke similarly.
?Here is a tool, and maybe someone will use it,? Baker said on Monday.
Baker said that the program could provide an incentive to redevelop the Kingston Hospital building on Broadway as a mixed-use site after it?s closed by HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley, which operators of the facility. He said the program also may work for vacant land that used to have a non-residential use, such as the site of the former Uptown parking garage.
Gallo this week is to announce a request for development proposals for the parking garage site. ?
Baker has suggested to the Common Council?s Finance/Economic Development Committee that, In order to be eligible for the tax break program, at least $1 million worth of investment be put into a building. In turn, a developer would receive a 100 percent assessment reduction on the improvements for the city portion of taxes for the first eight years, he said.
The improvement assessment would be reduced by 80 percent in the ninth year, 60 percent in the 10th, 40 percent in the 11th and 20 percent in the 12th. After that, Baker said, a developer would pay taxes based on the full assessment. Continued...
Baker said the reduced assessment would be for only the city portion of a tax bill, not county or school taxes.
The council?s Finance/Economic Development Committee may take up the proposal in August, according to Alderman Thomas Hoffay, its chairman.
?I think that it is worthy of serious discussion,? said Hoffay, D-Ward 2. ?We recognize it could be used as an economic development tool. I understand you have to have a certain amount of flexibility if you are trying to get companies to invest in your community.?
Alderman Robert Senor, D-Ward 8, who is chairman of the council?s Laws and Rules Committee, said he generally likes the tax break program. He said, thpough, that he will not support it if it is allowed for developers of low-income housing.
?I think the city has already done its share,? he said.
Source: http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2013/07/16/news/doc51e4a5d6517e1889561626.txt
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