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Community Corner

FASNY: CONSTRUCTION NIGHTMARE

October 9, 2013

Dear Mayor and Common Council members,

FASNY'S  construction section of its DEIS was astounding in the magnitude of the building process that would occur if the special permit is approved.  FASNY "intends to provide information on a regular basis during the construction period on the nature and intensity and schedule of construction activities occurring on the Project Site."

To build this 230,863 square foot campus, the amount of grading work is tremendous.  "20,000 cubic yards of fill will be imported to the project site."  To better understand what this number means it may be helpful to visualize what an equivalent amount of fill would look like.  Four cubic football fields (one foot deep) would be the equivalent of 20,000 cubic yards of fill!

Transporting this amount of fill involves using 25 cubic yard trucks. 800 of these trucks would be needed.  DEIS states that 20-25 of these trucks a day would come to the site at the rate of 3 trucks every hour.  DEIS estimates that it would take 6-8 weeks to complete the grading.  The construction traffic is estimated at 75 cars and 25 trucks arriving and departing from the site.  

When I asked a retired 20 year veteran of the White Plains building department if this was an accurate representation of the DEIS, this was his response:

YOU DID A VERY GOOD JOB DESCRIBING A CONSTRUCTION SITE OF THAT MAGNITUDE....BTW WHEN I READ THAT THEY WERE GOING TO SUPPLY YOU WITH INFORMATION ON A REGULAR BASIS DURING CONSTRUCTION ON THE NATURE, INTENSITY, AND SCHEDULE OF THE CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES !!! ..." DON'T THINK SO" !!!... WILL NEVER HAPPEN.....ON PROJECTS ONE TENTH THE SIZE THE BUILDING DEPT. HAS A HARD ENOUGH TIME GETTING EVEN SIMPLE AMENDMENTS FROM THE DEVELOPER ......I GO THROUGH IT ALL THE TIME !! AND WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO ISSUE COURT APPEARANCE TICKETS !!!....WHAT RECOURSE WOULD YOU HAVE ?? ..... ONCE AGAIN I HAVE NEVER SEEN A DEVELOPER BE ACCOUNTABLE TO ANY ONE THEY DIDN'T ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ....SO NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN WITH THESE PEOPLE NO MATTER HOW "NICE " THEY BECOME !!...ALWAYS GO FOR THE THROAT , THIS IS FOR KEEPS....JUST SOME HARD CORE CONSTRUCTION ADVICE.

This is an objective view from someone who is well-versed in the realities of White Plains construction.  It's a frightening scenario especially now that the special permit decision is looming.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  The actual construction on the buildings will require many times the number of trucks and automobiles than what's needed for the fill.

Again, vote NO to FASNY's special permit.

Thank you,

Anne M. Casey, M.D.

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