Kingston advisory board reviews draft CPF intake form, hears New Paltz lessons on willing-seller, appraisals and stewardship

The Kingston Community Preservation advisory board on Wednesday discussed a draft intake application for the city's Community Preservation Fund (CPF), reviewed a monthly real-estate transfer tax update, and heard a detailed presentation from Karen, chair of the Town of New Paltz CPF committee, on how other localities handle appraisal costs, stewardship set-asides and outreach to landowners.

Board members were presented with the most recent monthly figures for the city's real-estate transfer tax receipts and a change in the taxable threshold. Staff said the board will now assess the transfer tax on sale prices above $425,000; the report covered roughly $17.6 million in sales for the reporting period, 51 property transfers of which 12 were subject to the tax, and a transfer-tax take for the month in the range of $27,000 (records in the meeting materials gave $27,009.51). The board also discussed how that revenue will be split for management and stewardship uses under the CPF guidelines.

The bulk of the meeting centered on refining the draft CPF intake application the advisory board will use to screen proposals before sending candidates to the Common Council. Board members and the guest speaker pressed for an explicit'but narrowly worded'willing-seller prompt in the intake so the application does not invite nominations of third-party parcels where the owner has not agreed to negotiation. "The key thing is willing landowner," Karen said, arguing the municipality and partners need a clear signal that the property owner is open to negotiation before committing staff time or appraisal costs.

Karen described practices her committee uses in New Paltz and elsewhere in the Hudson Valley: work with land trusts and conservation partners early, use parcel scoring and maps to prioritize geographic clusters, and build a modest budget line for a small number of appraisals per year. She said her committee interprets the CPF stewardship allocation (commonly described as "10% for stewardship") as a percentage tied to project costs and urged Kingston to decide how to interpret that allocation early in the policy cycle. She also warned that, in her experience, CPF funds generally cannot be used to pay for appraisals or surveys until there is a binding commitment or contract with a willing landowner; outside partners such as land trusts frequently cover up-front appraisal costs.

Board discussion that followed identified practical items to revise in the draft intake: require applicant contact details and a tax parcel ID; add a question that prompts further information if the applicant is not the property owner (to filter non-owner nominations); attach a short project description, preliminary budget, site photographs, letters of support (where appropriate) and a parcel map; and include a clear statement about what the advisory board's review will and will not do, since the board is advisory and not a contracting body. Members agreed to develop a shorter "pre-application" intake to gather minimal screening information for the Common Council and to plan a subsequent meeting on prioritization using the CPF parcel map.

Several board members and the guest discussed mapping and scoring. Karen recommended clustering high-score parcels for maximum conservation value, and suggested direct outreach (letters or mailings) to high-priority landowners as a proven way to generate interest. She noted legal ambiguities that other towns have faced'for example, how to interpret the stewardship 10% rule and whether CPF funds may be used for due diligence expenses'and said Kingston should consult its attorney and partner land trusts on those questions. She offered to share her committee's matrix of application steps and other materials for Kingston to adapt.

The meeting closed with operational items: the board asked staff to prepare an updated map that distinguishes parcels already preserved from those that remain eligible, to circulate a revised pre-application and to invite representatives from local land trusts and conservation groups to a future meeting about priorities and partnership. The only formal action taken during the session was adoption of the previous meeting's minutes; the board called the vote and the minutes were approved without recorded abstentions.

The advisory board scheduled prioritization, mapping and partner outreach as the next topics for upcoming meetings.