William J. Kemble reports in The Daily Freeman that while Greene and Columbia counties have struggled to attract hotels, developers want to put a fifth hotel on a one-mile stretch of U.S. Route 9W in Ulster. The Ulster Town Board wants to give the project's developer a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement. “We have an IDA that’s inclined not to do any PILOTs (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements) from what I’m hearing,” Ulster Town Supervisor James Quigley said. “If they don’t do a PILOT, we don’t have a hotel here.” Quigley won't say exactly which hotel wants to move in, but did say it is owned by either the Marriott, Hilton, or InterContinental Hotels Group, which runs the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza franchises. Currently between the Hudson Valley Mall and Route 9W's intersection with Tuytenbridge Road there are a Marriott Courtyard, a Residence Inn by Marriott, a Hampton Inn, and a Holiday Inn Express. The town board passed a resolution in favor of the new hotel, saying, “By encouraging the development and operation of the hotel at the project site, the town of Ulster and the county of Ulster can expand their tourism base by providing services and overnight accommodations for visitors as part of a balanced economy and can expand the tax base of the town.” Read the full story in The Daily Freeman.