Letter to the Editor: Once residential zoning is granted, how can town deny more residential?
With seven comments since Friday
November 12, 2010
by Robert J. Greenstein
Dear Editor,
A letter by Michael Merchant in last week’s NewCastleNOW.org titled “Commercial data storage facility at Chappaqua Crossing makes no sense,” elicited a very interesting comment about what the developer’s likely direction will be.
That comment caused me to re-think my own letter titled “All of Chappaqua Crossing must be fee simple” that appeared the same week.
The comment reads:
The commercial data center concept is just a decoy, so I certainly would not worry about it. SG has no intention of any commercial development plan. Their plan is very simple. Get the residential re-zoning and in one year come back to the town, show “no marketability” options for commercial and use that to get permission to knock down the Readers Digest building and add 300 more condos.
Opening the door to residential may be opening the floodgates
In my letter, I had suggested that the town board allow the developer of Chappaqua Crossing to construct the 60 fee simple townhouses and 20 affordable condominium units without the 119 market-rate condos, and keep the proposed commercial office use of 640,000 square feet. However, I now believe that unless board members are able to guarantee residents that by opening the door to residential zoning, the developer will not return for more residential, the board may be putting our town at grave risk by granting any residential zoning change.
Town board members have told us they fear that Reader’s Digest office space will become a “black hole” if we don’t permit Summit Greenfield to build a residential development. I would argue that the opposite is true. Our real “black hole” is the lack of a significant commercial base. To allow the developer to build a residential development that has the potential to displace the very last large piece of business-zoned property and further erode our commercial base will create an even bigger “black hole.”
It should come as no surprise to the developer that we want to preserve commercial zoning and reap the benefits of commercial tax revenues. As the town board has stated repeatedly, the Reader’s Digest property is the town’s last large business-zoned property. And property zoned for business is the better return in revenue for the town. Residential development costs the town, in services to future residents, including schooling. With 97% of properties residential and 3% commercial, already our town weighs heavily on the residential side. We need to preserve as much commercial/business property as possible. These commercial revenues ease the burden on residential taxpayers.
Even now that the developer has agreed to make the 60 town houses “fee simple,” with each of those units paying (according to the developer) $20,000 in taxes rather than a condo-level tax of $7,000, the additional $780,000 might sound like big money to the town, but on the school side of taxpayers’ lives, that $780,000 pays for 31 students at $25,000 each. Thirty-one students are all that are needed to wipe out the additional revenue. And if the townhouses sell for less than the $700,000 to $1 million the developer uses in his calculation of the tax benefits to New Castle? Do the math. Schooling costs remain the same.
Developer has signaled his preference for residential zoning
The developer has signaled his preference for residential from the beginning of this petition for rezoning, when he asked initially for 348 units, then 278, and claimed that density bonuses would permit him to build double that number. The developer may have agreed to 199 right now – still too many, in my opinion – but he will always want more because housing units make him more money than commercial/office rental and let him shift the costs of residential to us.
If the board allows the developer to build residential condos on the Reader’s Digest property, I believe he will return for more, further displacing the office uses. Whether because his condos are selling poorly and he needs more of them to make his bottom line work, or because they are selling well and he would prefer the far greater return-on-investment of residential than the office rental side of the project provides, he will petition for more.
Once residential zoning is granted, how can the town deny more residential?
We now have the protection of the commercial/office zoning to call upon in denying the request for residential. Once residential zoning is granted to the developer, on what grounds can the board deny the request for more residential?
Unless the board tells us that they can guarantee the developer will not, once he has residential zoning, seek in future to displace commercial office space with more residential housing on the site, the town’s only protection may be to deny the residential rezoning, thereby ensuring that the developer gives his attention to leasing the office space and gets the commercial tax revenue to rise.
The town board must decide the rezoning issue in a way that causes Summit Greenfield to concentrate on what the town really needs – commercial revenues. If it’s true that the developer needs the money from the residential to fund the commercial development, as he claims, then it is abundantly clear that Summit Greenfield is not the right developer to work with the current zoning. We cannot afford further erosion to our commercial tax base. We do not have to change the zoning for the developer. The developer must change for the zoning.
Robert J. Greenstein
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Need to catch up what’s happening with Chappaqua Crossing? Visit NCNOW’s archives for a complete list of all articles and letters to the editor on this subject, in chronological order, newest to oldest, by clicking HERE.
chappaqua schools are already on the decline; are armonk schools already better? And they have IBM to help lower their taxes. What do we have? NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING. We don’t need more residents; we need some corporate money to get us back to where we used to be. Our education system is on the decline. The roads are falling apart and the traffic is miserable. If I could afford to sell my house, I would. In the meantime, I agree with Mr. Greenstein and will do anything to prevent this project from moving forward. And yes, I live in Chappaqua
The board is very skittish about the “black hole” of the empty RD space. Yet nothing the developer seems to be planning addresses that black hole anytime soon. It’s irresponsible of the town board to rely on the success of the developer’s risky housing scheme to finance the upgrade of the RD office space. Let someone who can afford to honor the existing zoning do something with the site. Out of the way, Summit. Town board, keep them on the straight and narrow. Commercial is what benefits the town economically, not the transformation of the site into residential.
MR. G. - you are clearly very well informed and we all owe you much gratitude for your timely and thoughtful writings. I have a question that was previously asked but never answered. Perhaps you can take a swing at it. As this recent letter suggests once we have some residential what’s to stop “more residential”. My question is even more basic than that. If the Town Board allows rezoning of Readers Digest/Chapp Crossing to include residential based in large part on SG , the developer, unable to find commercial tenants and to relieve financial hardship, what is to prevent residents from using that same argument (can’t sell my house, need extra income etc)and then try to rezone their residential (home) to commercial to use the home for commercial endeavors (dog kennel, restaurant, bed and breakfast? While we discuss fear of being sued by SG shouldn’t we also be concerned that residents can likely sue if SG is granted rezoning to alleviate economic hardship but a resident can,t? I say keep it commercial- period!
Dear Mr. longtimeresident:
That’s a great idea. I could use some cash, so maybe i’ll open a kennel to catch the coyotes who are eating the dogs around here and sell the pelts to those who still have money around here for fur coats. All facetiousness aside, let’s keep this thing commercial only.
What makes Summit Greenfield think they deserve privileged treatment? Who is providing any of us with privileged treatment for investments we have made that did not produce the hoped for results? This entire matter is total nonsense, the town board clearly needs to act in the best interests of the residents by refusing the requested rezoning in its entirety without further delay. The petition opposing the rezoning signed by 856 residents speaks volumes.
Longtimeresident, first, thank you for your kind words. To answer (& paraphrase) your question re: what’s to prevent residents from using that same type of hardship argument, the answer is nothing. You bring up a very good point. The Town Board’s action on this zoning request will absolutely establish precedent for future variance requests. And the Town Board must be VERY careful not to create undesirable precedent as they unnecessarily attempt to accommodate this developer.
Dear “Wish we Were Called Armonk”
This is off the topic but you mention in your letter that our schools are already in decline. What facts do you have to support that? We are 20th in the county in per pupil spending yet consistently ranked in the top 5 in the county in academic achievement.
I just want to thank Mr. Greenstein for his efforts at making the issues surrounding this project very clear. The issues you raise are NOT being raised by the Town Board. In fact this Board should be actively marketing to commercial enterprises. For too long we have not addressed the tax situation in this town in any serious manner. But what can one expect from a Board that believes it is reasonable to spend $200,000 on a gazebo.
From what I can tell, the Town Board, the School Board, and many other concerned citizens have spent a lot of time and money working to review the request for rezoning by SG. It strikes me that there has been a good faith review of the request by the town and its officials. Many reasons have been identified as to the adverse impact of granting the variance request and, as I read it, there has not been any identification of true net benefits to the town and its populace.
So why do our town officials continue to waste taxpayer money on this? Is it merely the fear of a lawsuit by a desperate but deep-pocketed investor, who perhaps made a miscalculation in the midst of the real estate bubble of the mid-2000s and now wants the town to bail them out by giving them an undeserved variance? I say to the Town Board, please put an end to this, give your final answer “NO!,” and stop wasting money in further reviews. If necessary, use the money saved by ending this now to build a legal defense war chest, if that is what it is going to take. Enough is enough.
Agreed, Greenstein! See my comment to the other RD article in today’s NCNOW re the black hole:
The developer seems to claim that he needs the profits from the residential to finance renovation of the commercial space to make it lease-able and thereby become a robust tax payer.
This may be so. We will never know the developer’s financial condition and business plan. What we do know is that he claims not to have the money to fix the commercial without procuring the profit from the residential FIRST. That leaves the town to share with the developer the risk that those profits will NOT materialize because of market conditions or developer mismanagement of the project.
So if the units cannot be finished, or sell for less than he is projecting, or sell not at all, we’ll be stuck with more problems than we started with. We’re ankle-deep in the RD black hole. The town board has the power to make a hole that will put us neck-deep.
I checked with my carpenter who can do the gazebo for $25K and make a nice profit for himself. For the other $175K, he can redo my two bathrooms and my kitchen. and put in some fancy hardware and appliacances. And I can redo my old living room furniture and dining room and three bedrooms. I even think I’ll have some money left over for new shrubs and maybe one of those small cars.
