Letter to the Town Board: Reinstate the retail-only moratorium

Joan Ripley, Second Story Books
June 12, 2009
by Joan Ripley

Since I won’t be able to attend the meeting this evening [Tuesday, June 9], I wanted to let you know how I feel about the proposed bank coming into the prime retail stores on King Street.

The moratorium that the town board passed over six months ago had only one thing wrong with it. It was 15 or 20 years too late. Back at that time I wrote a letter to the editor at the then thriving Patent Trader saying that if Chappaqua was not careful, its hometown would become a ghost town.

Letting the bank that already has two locations in New Castle (Chappaqua and Millwood) have a third prime location is counterproductive to revitalizing our downtown. How would this help? It would not add variety nor draw new people into town.

Why has Katonah done so many things right and thrived, and Chappaqua has not? It is a problem worth investigating. Our downtown area has too few different landlords who have been charging rents that are tied into the price of homes in our area rather than the traffic flow of customers. How can rents that approach Manhattan real estate work in our little community? We have a severe lack of foot traffic brought on by too few choices. The turnover of stores who think they can make it is very high. They come and go providing little continuity to building a strong market for shoppers. 

If the town offered tax rebates to landlords if they lowered rents to a reasonable level it would be a large step in the right direction. A vibrant downtown is vital (along with our school system) to making Chappaqua a desirable place to live and, thus, supporting our home real estate values.

Once our rent was doubled around ten years ago we essentially became a non-profit business. We continued at the bookstore because we all loved what we were doing, and we felt we were providing a very much needed service to the community. How many other merchants would be willing or able to operate in this fashion?

I firmly believe you ought to reinstate the moratorium on requiring ground level spaces to be only for retail business and not banks, real estate and law offices whose deep pockets can support high rents. Downtown Chappaqua has the potential to be a magnet for the area’s shoppers, but right now it has a long way to go.

Joan Ripley, formerly President of the Second Story Bookshop

Cc: NewCastleNOW.org