Four months ago, a public hearing on a land-use moratorium turned into a three-hour public debate on the merits or detriments of the French-American School of New York (FASNY) building a campus on the grounds of the former Ridgeway Country Club in White Plains.
After Tuesday night’s Common Council meeting, a public hearing on a scoping document related to a proposed open-space recreation district turned into a similar situation, though on a slightly smaller scale than in March. The Common Council chambers were full, while they were overflowing in March, and the atmosphere was slightly less adversarial, but many of the speakers—including members of the Gedney neighborhood association who oppose the plan and consultants and an attorney representing FASNY—spoke on FASNY’s plans to build a campus on the Ridgeway property.
FASNY, which hopes to unite its three current campuses, in Larchmont, Mamaroneck, and Scarsdale, bought the Ridgeway land in January.
In addition to the Ridgeway property, the proposed open-space recreation district encompasses the Westchester Hills and Fenway golf clubs and certain parcels along the Hutchinson River Parkway. [The full scoping document and map are available for viewing at the city’s website at cityofwhiteplains.com.]
The scoping document calls for a study to be done on possible amendments to the city’s Zoning Ordinance regarding areas—including the Ridgeway property—shown as “parks and open space” on the 1997 Comprehensive Plan Land Use Map.
The Common Council designated itself as the lead agency for the environmental review in June. The scoping document’s guidelines call for various “impact issues” (traffic, visual, stormwater management, and others) to be identified and presented with “(1) a discussion of existing conditions; (2) potential significant impacts associated with the Proposed Action; and (3) measures designed to mitigate the identified impacts.”
Terence Guerriere, president of the Gedney Association, noted that the city’s Comprehensive Plan calls for golf courses on the areas in question, and that if golf courses are not viable, the “least-dense zoning” should be advanced, which the Plan says would be three-quarter-acre residential lots.
“Importantly,” Guerriere said, “the plan does not include, for these properties, any clustering of buildings, no residential clustering, and certainly no non-residential clustering.”
Michael Zarin, a White Plains-based attorney representing FASNY, said that many of the proposed zoning changes are “patently illegal” and are clearly intended to prevent FASNY from being able to, for example, construct ball fields on the property. Setback requirements proposed in the zoning changes, if applied to existing public or private schools in the city, would have prevented all of them, Zarin said, citing numbers from a review that his firm conducted on existing schools. No public or private school in White Plains “can even come close,” he said, to meeting the proposed standards. He questioned how the Council could even consider the changes “fair, practical, legal, or otherwise.”
Diego Villareale, a project manager with Armonk-based John Meyer Consulting, and Graham Trelstad, a senior vice president and director of planning at White Plains-based AKRF, an environmental consulting firm, both spoke on behalf of FASNY and said that the proposed zoning changes unfairly target the school and are intended to prevent their plans.
“The FASNY proposal, as it currently stands,” Villareale said, “is an example of a responsible proposal which complies with the current zoning while preserving over 60 acres of land and maintaining over 90 percent of the overall property in this purpose area.”
Dan Seidel, a Gedney resident who is strongly opposed to having FASNY become a new neighbor of his, asked the Council for more time for the public to submit comments, and he called for further hydrology and soil studies. Seidel, an attorney, hinted that this issue is headed for State Supreme Court.
Written comments on the scoping study must be received by 5:00 p.m. on July 18 at the office of the White Plains City Clerk, 255 Main St., White Plains, NY 10601.
There was also some residents that thought this was a waste of money but let's think ahead. This case will set guidelines for the whole city and every resident should be concerned. There are plenty of wooded areas throughout the city that could fall into similar predicaments. And it might just be in your neighborhood. You might not care about this project but this is how downtown got so overdeveloped. Enough of us didn't care enough to ask questions and consider that our streets would be over-travelled. I've learned to be concerned about ALL parts of our great city to make sure that it stays great. To those of you concerned about your taxes going up, I say this- I know that feeling. I've been there and I'm there. But what you haven't thought of is this- your taxes WILL go up if FASNY builds. They will NOT pay ANY taxes. They are exempt. They will not contribute toward garbage collection, police, fire. WE WILL BE PAYING IT FOR THEM. Before speaking about this or any other project, educate yourself.
The most ridiculous comment that FASNY continues to sing is how this is going to benefit the entire city. That's just ridiculous! HOW??
You CAN NOT allow zoning ordinances to become mere suggestions to be changed at the whim of every developer that whispers "lawsuit" if they don't get their way. Let that happen once and watch property values tank city-wide. People who buy property in a municipality need to know the zoning ordinances have "teeth" or they won't buy. THAT is what this is all about and if people from other WP neighborhoods don't "get it" they will when a developer scarfs up a block of residential space and proposes to level the homes for condos - creating concrete walls for their backyard view. Don't think it can't happen to you? Guess again. If you let developers bully you once with the threat of a lawsuit there will be 10 more behind them singing the same song. FASNY is playing games - pure and simple. They bought knowing full well that what they wanted to build required a special permit and that the city was within its rights to say "no". If they were stupid enough to sign contracts for something like that - that's their problem - not the city's and not the Gedney residents. My guess is that they said "Zoning Schoming - we're rich, we have deep pockets, we'll just FORCE the city to do our bidding by scaring them with lawsuits." After all - that's how other projects got forced through.
And I do care about other neighborhoods and their traffic. That is why I choose to not add to the congestion in the Highlands when I drive to the train station several times a day for my husband and children to go to and from work or school. Maybe I shouldn't, if I follow your mindset.
Yet the bulk of FASNY parents come from Scarsdale, Larchmont, Harrison & Rye, and Greenwich. I serve most of these areas and for people living there - White Plains - even Gedney - is a tough sell. When I suggest WP to some who can't afford what they want in one of these towns a large percentage of them will say - "but I want a GOOD area!" Many (but not all!) turn their noses up at White Plains as being too middle class, too pedestrian. Comparing the average sales price between Gedney and the towns that most FASNY parents call home: Scarsdale - the average price of SF home is 48% higher, for Larchmont, a more modest 33% more, for Rye/Harrison it was 44% more. This is pure theater. Sad to see that it actually works.
Ilk like you is why it's good to have a representative democracy - can't trust you lumpen with direct voting - too stupid - your kind would kill off the earth and think "we done good, ma!". and from where did you crawl out from under a rock: what town you hail from - cementville? urinetown? keep drinking your koolaid - sometimes we need pawns and fodder - we'll call you - you're not going anywhere.
If you think WP is so ridiculous than buy one of the houses whose value would be trashed at current market value and tell me how much you like a massive building and sports fields literally in your back yard.
But the real objection to the proposal is that it doesn't define what the point of keeping open space is. If the goal is to increase public access open space, the criteria clearly fail since short of buying the property and making a public park , WP will not have created any benefit. As a golf course it would provide paying access to members and the 5% built space limitation would probably prevent any improvements being made to the club aka a deal killer. To go ahead and build houses would reduce green space and again would not do anything for public access. A free 70 acre park and some access to sports facilities would seem to give the public access to a space which currently just a view for neighbors and a green blotch on a map for most residents. And with only 10% of the site being built on the FASNY plan would also seem to be pretty good at keeping a green space for the environment, as well as dealing with the flooding. So how actually does the proposal benefit the 52000 odd residents?
FASNY has no intention of maintaining the open space - nor does it have any INTENTION of deeding the space to White Plains....All it is doing is foisting the maintenance of property it CAN'T DEVELOP ANYWAY on the city of White Plains. This isn't a "gift" - its a dump job.