Friday, June 12, 2015
~ From the Town of New Castle

Last Spring over 250 community members attended workshops to discuss what you liked and didn’t like about New Castle. These ideas and thoughts have been transformed into goals and objectives related to a vision for our community’s future. Pace Land Use Law Center is hosting a public workshop on Monday at 6:00 p.m. at Bell School to share the transformation of your ideas into goals and objectives for the Town’s Comprehensive Plan. The meeting will include a presentation by Pace followed by breakout sessions so if you are interested in a particular topic, come and talk about that topic. Interested in more than one, you can talk about more than one. Our future depends on you!  We hope to see you there. For more information and to refresh your sense of what we told Pace last year, see New Castle Master Planning Public Engagement Report, July 2014

Excerpts from the report; video of the presentation
Monday, March 9, 2015
by Christine Yeres

At the end of February, representatives from the County’s Planning Department visited a Town Board meeting to give a brief summary of long-awaited baseline data on New Castle, significant material in master planning.  The extensive report resides on the County’s website; it begins:

While much of the Town’s civic life revolves around New Castle, no residents have a “New Castle” mailing address. Community identity can vary between the five school districts serving the Town, the proximity to either the hamlets of Mount Kisco or Millwood, or even just a resident’s mailing address (the zip code with the largest area is Chappaqua, while other portions of the Town have an Ossining, Millwood or Mount Kisco address).

Reprinted from: Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Editor’s Note:  Below are excerpts from the New Castle Master Planning Public Engagement Report produced by Pace Land Use Law Center from sessions conducted in May and June of this year with close to 300 participants.  For each of five topics—Commercial Development, Environment & Habitat, Pubic Works & Infrastructure, Public Services & Recreation and Housing—Pace facilitators asked residents, “What’s good now”?  “What’s not working?” and “What are some strategies to overcome what’s not working?”  Pace did not conduct a survey; its informal discussion groups were a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, effort to identify what residents considered “priority issues, assets, and challenges facing the town.”  The report is just shy of 300 pages, much of it in simple list form, with some narrative summary, analysis and conclusions.

Brodsky promises to work closely with Master Plan “commercial development and hamlets” group
Saturday, November 15, 2014
by Christine Yeres

The Town Board officially enlisted local brain power to serve on a Business Development Advisory Committee (“BDAC”) headed by Town Board member Adam Brodsky. The group is charged with assisting the Town Board “by identifying and recommending policy initiatives that will strengthen our existing businesses, attract new and desirable businesses to New Castle, and help our community revitalize our existing business hamlets.”

October 17, 2014
by Christine Yeres

At last Tuesday’s Town Board meeting, New Castle resident Dan Googel brought to public attention a concept first floated around 2005, when Mt. Kisco needed to reline a sewer main running south through New Castle along the east side of the railroad tracks between Horace Greeley High School and North Greeley Avenue in downtown Chappaqua.  Gravel was laid down along the path so that trucks could come and go.  At the time, former Town Administrator Gerry Faiella thought to ask the county to replace the gravel with asphalt once the project was completed and even lay an electrical conduit for low path-lights someday.

Monday, September 29
by Christine Yeres

Supervisor Rob Greenstein is eager to show that his hands are off the master plan review, but last week he demonstrated again that his hands have never been off it.  Operating through the town planner, Sabrina Charney, he continues to make decisions without either informing his other TB members or consulting the Master Plan Steering Committee, whose members were appointed by the Town Board to run the master plan review. 

When asked in last week’s TB meeting whether the members of the Master Plan Steering Committee had given their input on the RFP for a professional consultant to help with the master plan review process, no TB member or its counsel seemed to know.  Yet Greenstein was prepared to issue the RFP that night.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014
by Betty Weitz

Thank you, Editor, for making clear that I do not live near Chappaqua Crossing.  I live towards the western side of town near Supervisor Greenstein. See Op-Ed:  On “Rural Elegance,” the real “brand” of New Castle, NCNOW.org, September 29, 2014.

Monday, September 29, 2014
by Betty Weitz

“’There is a rural elegance to New Castle that is hard to duplicate anywhere in the metropolitan area,’ says Lois L. Mitchell, Town Supervisor of New Castle” in a May 12, 1985 New York Times article.  The article speaks of “wooded roads,” the “quaint” and “colonial” character of the Chappaqua hamlet and of the high quality of our schools.  The electric trains had recently been installed and she mentions the ease of commuting.

August 22, 2014
by Christine Yeres

On the afternoon of the August 12 public hearing on Chappaqua Crossing, Town Board, Planning Board, and Master Plan Steering Committee members met to speak with Tiffany Zezula of Pace Land Use Center about the recently released report on the community outreach sessions conducted as part of the Town Master Plan review.  Zezula confirmed that residents love where they live but also want downtowns with a greater diversity of businesses and housing, better walkability, traffic conditions, and looks.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Editor’s Note:  Planning Board members Bob Kirkwood (Chair), Dick Brownell, Sheila Crespi and Tom Curley met on Friday, July 18, to finish up the comments they must produce for the Town Board on the zoning amendments proposed for a grocery and retail at Chappaqua Crossing.  They also discussed whether—and how—to pose their objections to the application in a separate cover letter.  At the request of the Planning Board, the Town Board will meet with them soon to discuss the application.  The public hearing continues on August 12. The Planning Board’s discussion below is arranged by topic.

Advises the matter be run through a master planning process
Thursday, July 17, 2014
by Christine Yeres

Racing to finish their comments on the Chappaqua Crossing proposal before the July 22 public hearing, last Tuesday the Planning Board members Bob Kirkwood, Tom Curley and Sheila Crespi didn’t confine themselves to questions of size of the retail proposed, big stores versus smaller ones, how many restaurants, or additional uses such as garden or auditorium; they also expressed deep reservations about the project.

An outdoor session is planned for 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in Gedney Park on Wednesday, June 4
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
by Scottie Guerney

I attended the master planning outreach session last Wednesday. This morning meeting sponsored by the League of Women Voters drew approximately 25 residents. I have several positive comments on the process as well as some concerns.

UPDATED: Tuesday, June 3, 2014
~ from The Town of New Castle

Join us for a special event to explore the challenges, opportunities and choices that face New Castle, and help us set a course for the future.  We want to know your vision for New Castle as we update the Town’s Master Plan, which describes the community’s current conditions and blueprint for future growth and preservation.  We’ve planned an outdoor session at Gedney (Town will provide child-minding) from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 4. Rain place: The Rug-Room of the Community Center in Senter Street.

There will be an outdoor session at Gedney on Wednesday, June 4 from 10:00 to 11:00 (child-minding provided).
Saturday, May 24, 2014
by Brett Klein

For the third of the May community outreach sessions in the town’s review of its 25-year-old Master Plan, a group of about 55 New Castle residents gathered at Westorchard Elementary School on Thursday, May 15, to voice their opinions. The group included slightly more females than males and most seemed around 50 and over.

Tuesday, April 29, 2013
by Christine Yeres

Last week Rob Greenstein posted two non-anonymous comments to my article, Tensions surface over survey and funding, supervisor resigns his Master Plan hat, NCNOW.org, 4/25/14.  Both are critical of my fact-checking.  In one, he takes issue with my description of him as “an energetic proponent” of retail development at Chappaqua Crossing and the move of town hall to its cupola building; and—after recasting one of my “assertions” in the piece—calls it “so patently false that it is offensive and 100% wrong.”  To support his claim, in another comment he produces an email from Sabrina Charney.  In both comments, he urges me to check my facts, adding “you owe it to your readers—you owe it to the community.”  My responses follow. 

Tiffany Zezula preparing committee members for May Master Plan outreach sessions; video of the meeting is embedded below
April 25, 2014
by Christine Yeres

Last Tuesday, Supervisor Rob Greenstein went from a Master Plan meeting directly to a work session where he updated Town Board members on the progress of the Master Plan review.  During his update, Deputy Supervisor Lisa Katz began a line of questioning that led to an outright shouting match between Greenstein and a member of the Master Plan subcommittee he heads on “commercial development and hamlets.” It ended in his agreeing to let his place on the five-member Steering Committee be filled by someone else whom the Board will appoint.  The next day, he emailed his group to announce that he would leave.  The subject box read, “I’m done.”

“What kind of town do we want to have ten years from now?” said Curley, in a personal Master Plan outreach.
Tuesday, April 21, 2014

Editor’s Note: Following last Wednesday’s public hearing on the Homeland Verizon cell tower proposed for Armonk Road, Planning Board member Tom Curley addressed the neighbors who had spoken passionately in opposition to the project.  “I’ve lived here for 20 years,” Curley began.  “I live over on the other side of town, in Millwood, and I came here for exactly the same reason I think everybody here has said they did too. . .

April 3, 2014

Editor’s Note: Each Master Plan Steering Committee member has his or her subject and sub-group members. They will soon examine the 1989 plan in each of their subject areas and reach out to interest other residents in weighing in on what should change, what’s worth preserving.  NCNOW has converted the PDF version of the plan, taken from the town’s website, into a copy-and-paste-able Word doc so that you can search the document and work with parts of it that might interest you.

April 4, 2014

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, Tiffany Zezula, Pace consultant to the Master Plan Steering Committee, gave NCNOW.org her permission to publish her summary of an April 1 meeting with committee members.  It includes a timetable, homework and an action plan for Steering Committee members and the volunteers —“Working Group Members”—assisting them in the public outreach Zezula will conduct from April through June. Her email and the video of the meeting are below.  [Correction: When originally published, the text below was a reprint of another article; it has now been changed to Zezula’s text.]

With 95 comments since publication
April 4, 2014
by Christine Yeres

Just as Pace consultants and Master Plan Steering Committee members have been unfurling the sails of The Good Ship Master Plan to learn where to take the ship by catching the winds of public opinion, Supervisor Rob Greenstein has been unapologetically drilling holes in its hull.  Fellow Town Board member Lisa Katz, who also attended the April 1 meeting, noted with alarm that the words “Chappaqua Crossing” were conspicuous by their absence.  A video of the session is embedded below.

Pace Land Use Law Center Team: Tiffany Zezula and Professor John Nolon
With 31 comments since publication
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
by Christine Yeres

In a roundtable discussion last Tuesday, Tiffany Zezula and Professor John Nolon of Pace Land Use Law Center explained the public outreach process they have been engaged to help conduct.  The two described the job of the Master Plan Steering Committee to formulate a comprehensive plan for New Castle, the Town Board’s role as ultimate decision-maker at the end of the 18-month process—and the ability of the outreach to focus also on pressing issues and pending applications.  “Not every community cares to hear from its public,” said Nolon, ”—and that’s what a comprehensive plan is.  The goal the community has for itself.  Where do you want to see yourself in five to ten years?  The comprehensive plan does that.  I applaud the town for thinking how to do an aggressive public engagement process.”

L to R: Standing are Town Planner Sabrina Charney, Maud Bailey, Rob Greenstein; sitting are Hala Makowska, Dick Brownell and Bob Kirkwood.
March 7, 2014
by Christine Yeres

On Tuesday, members of the Master Plan Steering Committee met with Town Planner Sabrina Charney to talk logistics on the roll-out of the Master Plan review.  Each of the them will re-activate the groups of volunteers who were put on hold during the committee’s sluggish start up period, comb through the 1989 “Town Development Plan” to see where it now falls short and needs updating, and meet with the Town Board and Pace Land Use Center consultants to discuss their results.