Town Votes To Object To State Against Group Home

After another presentation from the Richmond Community Services, the state agency seeking to build a group home on 88 North Road in the Parkway Homes section of Fairview, the neighborhood made their case again for the over-saturation and changing landscape this project would cause if built. ABG noted previously that Councilman Ken Jones neglected to inform his neighborhood of this proposal. ABG isn’t sure if he was feeling guilty for that or truely believes what his neighbors were saying, but he made the motion today for the Town to officially object to the State to this group home being constructed at 88 North Road. As expected, and clearly unable to recognize and vote for adhering to Town law, The Paul voted against the motion. His reasoning was that he was for group homes. Unable to see that this was not what the motion was about, Councilman Jones explained that he heard the neighborhood speak and is following local Town law about having a minimum distance of at least 2000 feet between group home facilities. Councilman Sheehan concurred, saying the nearest property was just over 1,000 feet away. Had this been 2001 feet, he would have not voted in favor of the motion to object.

At this point, proceeding with the home is temporarily put on hold until there is a hearing with the State. There is an agreement in place to purchase the property assuming the State gives the green light for this project. While the arrogance of the State representative at the last Town Board meeting should shed no light on the possible outcome, we can only hope that the State sees the error in choosing this property and looks to situate near similar sized homes where there are no group homes or facilities – say in Boulder Ridge. The residents got their message across to enough Board members this time. The Paul clearly insisted that he wasn’t interested in representing the constituents, only his own personal views towards group homes. Sometimes, as a representative, you must go against your own beliefs and do the right thing. This would have been one of those times as the four to one vote to object was based on Greenburgh law. We can only hope.