Paul Feiner: Three Card Monty – The Deception Continues - Part 2

A Super Stop & Shop will be constructed and open in what will be known as Premier Plaza, on Rt 119, an obvious “nod” to the old Premier Theatre location. It will include 33,600 square feet of other commercial and retail space. Robert F. Weinberg, president of Robert Martin Company, said he hopes the Stop & Shop will open by the end of the year. “The location will be especially convenient for east Tarrytown and west Elmsford residents,” he said. ABG wants to know how this will help the Greenburgh residents near Manhattan Avenue that need a supermarket but have nothing? The center will sit near hotels, offices, and homes and is “the beginning of a new era of thinking” about mixing property uses, Weinberg said. “It's starting to recognize that you can put several uses together, and you can reduce traffic,” he said. “You have to think about how can we improve our way of life without using more energy.” While the super supermarket will seemingly not be near that many residents, there's a reason he said this. The use of buzzwords, such as consolidation, less energy, mixed usage, reduce traffic, new era of thinking, will always bode well in quotes. A “New Era in Thinking”. Isn’t that how Westchester's nuclear program began?

The town originally approved site plans in 1983 for two office buildings, but granted a special permit for retail use in 2009. A future second phase of the project includes plans for 7,500 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 48,000 square feet of office space and 174 parking spaces, according to town documents.

In the 2009 election Thomas Bock ran against Alfreda Williams for the County Legislative seat vacated by Richard Brodsky. During that campaign, Bock, stated he was looking to preserve neighborhoods and limit the amount of impervious space throughout the Town, as well as keeping residents informed about development plans around them. After a back-room deal between then County Legislator Lois Bronz, Paul Feiner and Westhab was brokered to purchase the former King’s Inn hotel, with plans moving at unprecedented speeds to build a six-story apartment building in Fulton Park without neighborhood input. When their neighborhood association discovered this, they met with Feiner and his Board, who claimed this wasn't a “done-deal” and Westhab may have to find another location! According to several members of the neighborhood association, Feiner had promised to turn the homeless facility it into a senior citizen living facility if and when the homeless population were gone. Characteristically, Feiner reneged.

During his campaign, Bock also brought up a plan originally proposed by the County and supported by Supervisor Feiner and his Board to build just over 1,000 units of residential apartment buildings (12) in the unincorporated section of Greenburgh along Rt 119 from the Marriot Hotel all the way to Rt 9 in Tarrytown, utilizing these unused parking spaces in corporate building parking lots. This would require numerous zoning changes, which Supervisor Feiner has repeatedly proven he has no qualms doing for the right price. How would they pull this off, and for what price? The proposal mandates changing the current zoning laws for required parking spaces of the existing buildings along the entire Rt 119 corridor to require fewer spaces for each building. The Stop and Shop payoff, apparently brokered by the law firm DelBello, Donnellan, Weingarten, Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP, was to build an limited sidewalk near the Halston House apartments between Benedict Avenue and Rt 119. The value in 2009 was about $238,000. While Bock lost the election, his opponent and now County Legislator Williams, still appears to have no knowledge of this plan. ABG's original post about this was on Monday, December 14, 2009, entitled “Sucking the Life Out of Route 119”.

To be clear, the Marriott hotel will lose parking spaces that they had to pay to develop, pave, stripe, plow, maintain, etc., to conform to code to get approval to build the hotel back in the 1980’s. Now, because Feiner wants to change the makeup of Rt 119 (and Central Avenue), as well as help a developer (read: good friend), he, goaded by Town Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden (job security) and the Robert Martin Corporation, have agreed to proceed. So, we wonder if any palms are getting greased?

Let’s start by examining the Marriott Hotel property for this proposal. They now maintain the Marriott doesn’t need about a third of their parking spaces. The Town will “allow” Robert Martin to “acquire” the property to build two twelve-story apartment buildings on that space. Whether  Robert Martin sells the properties or manages them, they'll make big money either way. To ensures this happens as flawlessly as possible, the Town Board will make themselves the lead agency to fast-track all permits and requests, and change the zoning for the amount of parking spaces necessary for their newly designated ‘multi-use’ property. Residents of the apartment buildings will go to work in the morning, freeing up these proposed cross-utilized parking spaces for Marriott customers. But doesn’t a hotel have the same type of activity of an apartment building, people are up and out in the morning and return at night? For the most part, yes. So, let’s go next door to 660/670 Tarryown Rd (Rt 119). This is a regular office building. After the apartment building next to them empties out and its residents go to their jobs, vacating their parking space, employees of the office building would come to work utilizing the just-vacated parking spaces. It might work. But what if the apartment building has total occupancy and the office building is completely rented out? Where will people park? When do you plow? What if you car pool or take the bus? If you live in a real neighborhood and not an office park, you can drive to nearby streets to find a parking space. And what of families with several cars, motorcycles, boat trailers, etc.? This plan doesn't allow for that. Too bad.

And what of the Town's antiquated infrastructure? The water runoff and flooding throughout the Town has been caused by exactly this same kind of over-development we’re about to experience here. The 9A corridor is evident of this every time it rains a bit more heavily than normal. They will pave what little open space is left, leaving little room at all for absorption. They will install large new piping that narrows down and joins into existing antiquated Town and Village storm and sewer piping, feeding more water into the Saw Mill River, ultimately causing more flooding when we have any significant rains.

Fortunately, the increased traffic on the Rt 119 corridor will never be an issue. Why not? Because every traffic study they will provide will be worded/crafted to say the area roads can handle the estimated increase in traffic due to the six lanes in front of the project. What happens when those same spacious lanes are reduced to two lanes at Tarrytown's Rt 9 or Elmsford’s Village Square? We all know the real answer, but its how the report will read. Or, it will say the area’s already congested roadways will continue to receive an F rating. This should not be confused with school grading but does have the same unintended connotation. They will offer to build a sidewalk near the property for walking, but as everyone knows, Rt 119 is not a walking paradise. Even with sidewalks, there is no way you’ll see much walking done by those who need to go grocery shopping. This is being done strictly to promote the future apartment buildings, the additional bus route via the Tappan Zee project and a major development of what's left of the undeveloped portion of the unincorporated portion of the Town of Greenburgh by The Paul. And don't forget about the 400+ condominiums being added to Avalon Green off of Taxter Road. Or the 400+ condominiums being built at Eastview (the old Union Carbide).

The lists of issues continue unanswered with air quality, added noise, deliveries day and night, job creation, tax revenues (and certiorari adjustments), more retail space, more impervious space, lesser quality of life, not enough parking, etc. This is just the beginning - don't be fooled. They will say, as mentioned by Robert Martin's Robert Weinberg, that this will reduce traffic and travel because people living there will have access to food and whatever limited retail stores may occupy the retail space. The bus schedule will need to be stepped up, which is another part of the warped vision. The buses will be traveling every five minutes on an elevated roadway alongside of Rt 119. It will also require the removal of numerous homes and businesses through the use of imminent domain. So we're going to destroy existing homes to build new homes. It’s counter-intuitive! No wonder The Paul is for this. Greenburgh needs real leadership, management skills and a Board with integrity, not more of what we already have. It's time for Paul Feiner to go!