Town Supervisor Barbara Gerrard’s July 27 Supervisor’s Report: Chappaqua Crossing review
July 30, 2010
Editor’s note: At the New Castle Town Board meeting on Tuesday, July 27, Town Supervisor Barbara Gerrard read her Supervisor’s report into the record. We offer here a verbatim copy of her report.
SUPERVISOR’S REPORT
July 27, 2010
By now many are aware that Summit Greenfield has submitted its second proposed FEIS - it was received in town hall late Friday, and our town planner, David Brito, has distributed copies to the various staff members who reviewed and reported on the DEIS and the previous FEIS for their analysis of this proposal. Mr. Brito will also be reviewing the document as he has been reviewing all the previous submissions for the Reader’s Digest property.
In addition, as with previous submissions, our consultants, the Town’s law firm, Wormser Kiley, our special counsel for this proposal, Robert Davis of Bryan Cave, and planning consultants Frederick P. Clarke, will be examining the impacts of this newest iteration.
This submission continues to contain the original Proposed Action, which envisioned 278 housing units, calling for 222 market rate units, 24 affordable senior units and 32 workforce units for families. However, this submission also contains a new Alternative I, called the Modified Project, which differs in several significant ways from the Proposed Action. The Modified Project reduces the number of housing units from 278 to 199, consisting of 179 market rate non-age restricted units and 20 affordable units meeting the County’s recent housing settlement requirement.
The Modified Project also retains 662,000 square feet of the existing office facility ( as opposed to 520,000 retained in the Proposed Action. The Town Board has repeatedly indicated that maintaining as much of our commercial base as possible is extremely important to the Town for sound fiscal reasons. The Modified Project also would provide the Town with 6½ acres of land that could be landbanked for future Town recreation purposes.
We will be examining this proposal in detail over the next several weeks. Our review will begin next Tuesday at our work session at which this will be the primary topic.
In addition, as previously mentioned, we will have a joint work session with the Chappaqua Central School Board on Tuesday, August 10, at 7:00 pm in this building. That joint meeting was scheduled before release of this proposal, but obviously it will be the focus of the discussion.
In addition, on September 28, 2010, we will have an information session for the public. As information is available, we will do our best to have it on our web site.
Our review will be ongoing and as we continue this process we welcome your input.
Yours truly,
Barbara S. Gerrard
To Supervisor Gerrard and the town board,
Please consider carefully the comments that have been made by concerned citizens of New Castle over these past few weeks. Several things are clear at this point:
1. The School Board is gravely concerned about the impact of residential development of Chappaqua Crossing on our school system.
2. With the current tax structure as it is, New Castle residents will bear the brunt of the cost of increased services as a result of this development (roads, teachers)—NOT the developer.
3. Homeowners like myself with children in the school see this entire project as something that has no upside for the town but a significant downside for our children.
4. Condo owners already in this town will suffer the impact of such a large new glut of housing on the condo market (which will result in lowered real estate values and in turn, lower taxes from current condo owners)
5. The nature of such a dense and sprawling development will severely impact the bucolic feel of our community and lead the way for greater encroachment and development of our land. This development will change the very nature of our town.
6. There are other options that the town can explore with summit greenfield that are mutually beneficial—an assisted living complex on the land, more commercial development.
I urge the town board to vote no to the building of condos at Chappaqua Crossing under the current proposals. It is the only responsible course of action given the breadth and gravity of the concerns launched by taxpayers in this town and school district.
