Elmwood Country Club Update

At Wednesday's Town Board meeting (4/13/22), Mr. Feiner read a statement that the Board will comply with the 2016 Town Comprehensive Plan and the Zoning Ordinance in making its decision in regard to the former Elmwood Country Club.

NO INCREASE IN DENSITY IN RESIDENTIAL DISTRICTS

NO DOWNZONING IN RESIDENTIAL DISTRICTS

The Town will support ALTERNATIVE (H) - 113 SINGLE FAMILY HOMES with the required land transfer.

He stated that there was an extensive amount of documentation received by the Town Board. Letters and emails on this project were sent to the Town by the following:

Involved Agencies: Conservation Advisory Council, Westchester County Planning Board, NYS Dept. of Transportation, Greenburgh Planning Board, Greenburgh Parks & Recreation Advisory Board.

Interested Parties - Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations, Elmsford School District, Fairview Fire District, Worthington-Woodlands Civic Association, Fulton Park Civic Association, Secor Homes Civic Association, Ardsley-Sprain Road Civic Association, Historic and Landmarks Preservation Board.
Residents of Greenburgh.

The Commissioner of Planning with the Town staff and the Planning Consultants will draft the Town’s Findings Statement within 2 weeks. The official resolution will be voted upon in MAY after the Town accepts the Findings.

It is apparent that the responses from Greenburgh residents were instrumental in the Town Board arriving at its decision. Thank you to all who participated in the SEQR process (Scoping Committee), sent emails and attended and spoke at the Public Hearings.

– Dorinne Livson, WWCA

Elmwood Preserve — Honor Promises to the Community

As Town Board members, I trust you will be discussing in public all of the issues before arriving at a decision regarding which Alternative should be approved for development at the site of the former Elmwood Country Club. The public deserves to know how and why the Board arrived at its decision regarding this application. Executive Session discussions would be inappropriate.

The community learned on April 5, 2022 that the applicant is now urging your Board to adopt Alternative 1 “as the best and most viable alternative.” Alternative 1 would include 159 townhouse units, sold as “fee simple,” with 15 units set aside as affordable and 14.2 acres of land dedicated to the town for recreational purposes. It would be helpful for the public to know whether it was the Town Board who urged the applicant to include an alternative with affordable units, since the applicant summarily ignored the public’s request in the Scoping Document to study the possibility of affordable units and totally dismissed any discussion in the DEIS. It would also be helpful to know why affordable housing units were not introduced in the other Alternatives.

In its March 14, 2022 letter, the Westchester County Planning Board stated it supported Alternative I, in part, because of the inclusion of affordable units. However, Alternative I was not the County’s first choice. The letter made it very clear “we would have preferred that Alternatives C, D and F could continue to be considered.” The County’s letter also questions the number of affordable units and notes that work is necessary to ensure these units are properly marketed and integrated. In fact, Greenburgh has no regulations in place to deal with marketing or integrating affordable homes in One-Family residential zoning districts or in Planned Unit Development districts. The way the applicant has placed these proposed affordable units in three buildings of five units each while all the other buildings of luxury housing contain four units shows a total lack of integration and any understanding about how not to stigmatize those who would be living in these affordable units if Alternative I were adopted.

We learned on April 6, 2022 that the Planning Board is now stating that Alternative I “provides the greatest overall benefit to the Town.” Interestingly, the Planning Board’s recommendation doesn’t ring 1000% in favor of Alternative I, and it readily endorses Alternative H (113 one family homes) as a second choice. The Planning Board’s recommendation makes very clear “its disappointment that only one of the five alternatives contains affordable housing.” The Planning Board “strongly recommends that affordable housing be included in any approved alternative.”

We noted with interest the email to CD&C Commissioner Garrett Duquesne, dated April 5, 2022, from the Westchester County Department of Planning mentioning that all of the FEIS Alternatives “would generate more than 150 gallons per capita per day” which is the limit defined in the County’s sewer law. The public needs to know how this issue will be addressed.

We are also aware of the New York State Department of Transportation letter, dated April 7, 2022, regarding the Elmwood Preserve project. The DOT letter refers to traffic issues with each of the Alternatives in the FEIS and indicates six mitigation measures which have not been addressed. The letter states: “It is critical that these mitigations be included in the SEQR process prior to final determination.”

How can the Town sign off on the SEQR process if issues with sewage and traffic have not been adequately addressed?

As a multi-decade resident of Greenburgh, I believe “planning and zoning” are the foundations of a community. That is why from the date of being appointed to the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (CPSC) in March 2007 until the plan was adopted in September 2016, I had unmatched attendance at CPSC meetings and devoted an untold number of other hours working with CD&C Commissioner Duquesne to refine the plan. The CPSC made promises to the community. When the Town Board adopted the Comprehensive Plan, it too made promises to the community.

I urge the Town Board to uphold the promises made to the community. Do not downzone the existing zoning on the former Elmwood Country Club property and permit increased density and multifamily housing in this one-family residential neighborhood. Please uphold the existing zoning on the site and permit only one-family housing to be built with necessary land transferred for recreational purposes.

Members of the surrounding community have already publicly stated that they would support workforce one- family housing being built on the Elmwood site. Appoint a committee to amend the Zoning Ordinance to require workforce housing in one-family zoning districts. The amendments could be in place before subdivision plans are submitted for this property. Any reputable developer would accommodate building workforce homes.

The current owner, Jonathan Grebow bought the Elmwood property knowing what the existing zoning permitted. And it is not the first time he didn’t get everything he wanted. A Journal News article from 2017 noted that in 2014 Mr. Grebow bought a 108-acre former country club property in New Jersey for $10.4, planning to build 34 single family homes on the Mahwah site and 353 multifamily homes, including 71 affordable units on the Saddle River site. After long negotiations Mr. Grebow agreed to build 44 single family homes. After obtaining approvals he sold the project to Toll Brothers which paid $20 million more than he had paid for the property. Not a bad profit!!

– Ella Preiser

Open Letter To The Supervisor and Town Board

Dear Mr. Feiner and Town Board members,

I would like to share my concern about the development issue that is before you this Wednesday November 14th, namely the proposed development of the Elmwood Country Club.

The developer is granted an as of right for 119 homes on the property, but is seeking a zoning change (downzoning) so they can build a 175 unit Townhouse development.

My neighborhood (Hilltop Farms) is the first neighborhood east of the development, after the Sprain Parkway. I have several issues of importance about this, but my primary concern is the increase in density and the impacts of traffic on our neighborhood.

As I’m sure you are well aware, there is already significant rush hour congestion around the Dobbs Ferry Road / Hartsdale Ave intersection, as well as on E Hartsdale Avenue, all the way down to the 4 corners area. Adding the anticipated number of commuter cars to our already busy roadways will decrease the quality of life in our town. The traffic jams on these roads have already added to the commute times for residents. There will also be consequences for the traffic on Dobbs Ferry Road heading to both the Sprain, and into Ardsley.

The developer is claiming that an over-55 community will not have as many people heading out to work in the morning, but I think that might only be true when the residents reach full retirement age, and at that point, they might even seek to relocate and be replaced by a younger household. I am also concerned that a developer faced with slow sales of their $1,000,000 townhouses might move to create rental property on part of the parcel, and I don’t know if they would be prohibited from doing that. Speaking of the demographics, Senior communities are less likely to support bond issues such like the one currently proposed by our district.

The proposal by the Greenburgh Central School District to consolidate onto a campus that would have E Hartsdale Avenue as its primary egress/entrance, and that will also create traffic nightmares for people traveling our roads at least for 2 periods in the morning and
afternoon. Add into that a new Assisted Lving at Metropolis, and a proposed Assisted Living at Maplewood Swim Club and you can see where there can be serious problems.

There is also the problem of creating a zoning precedent if you were to down-zone Elmwood, and you would leave the door open for anyone else to demand equal treatment. We have several other large country club parcels that are ripe for development.  I don’t want to see our town so packed with housing, that we will see people looking to move away, rather than come here.

Now, passing over the myriad other issues brought to light with this proposal, taxes, cost to the town for upkeep of parkland with dubious suitability, loss of tax revenue due to townhouse vs. single-family homes and loss of revenue to both the school district and fire
district.

I am quite disappointed with the attitude and stance taken on behalf of the developer in this matter. They are trying to pressure the surrounding homes with scare tactics by threatening to remove any buffer between the neighboring homes. Indeed, if you look at their 119
home proposal, they have purposely not only placed a swimming pool behind every home, but they have drawn the bordering homes to the north in a disproportionate manner, making the backyard tiny and the front yard huge so as to place the homes as close to the setback as possible. I don't think this type of tactic escapes notice, and furthermore, this developer has no future interests in the town, seeking only to pave the way for another company to come in and build, and that builder might have no interest in any kind of “vision
statement” proffered during the permit process. The object here seems to be to generate the maximum profit possible with little regard for the effects on the surrounding community.

On the practical side, I think that the 119-home proposal that cost a million dollars on this parcel would be a potential great benefit to the town. It will attract business to the Route 119 corridor and hopefully we will see an increase in quality shopping and dining. Those 119 homes will pay full freight to our tax rolls, and hopefully not add as much traffic to our roads.

Thanks for taking the time to hear my thoughts. I urge you to disallow a proposal that would lead to a request to downzone the Elmwood property.

Sincerely,

Paul C.
(Full name and address of writer intentionally withheld.)

Dying A Slow Death Until They Die In Office

The governor has sent “tax relief” checks to property owners in the guise of helping the beleaguered NY taxpayer. The Town has not. What may have helped the governor would have been to announce that instead of trying to buy your vote, he’s announcing an infrastructure overhaul that has been needed for the last hundred years or so to address the cacophony of issues plaguing New York: failing roadways, flooding, failing railways, crumbling bridges, ruptured water mains, outdated airports, traffic congestion and more. Instead, this move highlights the kick-the-issues-down-the-road practice all politicians subscribe to because it’s not sexy stuff. They profess these issues will be addressed but later become someone else’s problem if they ever leave office. But in New York, as in Greenburgh, you have to die in office to officially leave. It’s killing us.

The twin “Honda” bridges (aka New Tappan Zee) across the Hudson River exacerbates the ineffectiveness of what is transpiring with our government’s stale and feeble thinking. We recently saw two tractor-trailers jackknifed on the bridge, stalling traffic for over an hour. No one was surprised. Let’s face it, with the volume of traffic travelling that roadway, we know we can expect more. So, when the planning stages produced two bridges with a new rubberized surface much slicker in the wet weather than the previous concrete, no rail, no real HOV lanes, a bike path, viewing areas, eagles’ nests, and other millennial contrivances, traffic volume and flow appeared to have been a glaringly absent topic.

We experience daily this thinking at local, state and federal levels as project after project transform into boondoggle after boondoggle. The difference locally and in our Town is the failure to “play the game” and think outside the box is destroying what was once a dynamic Town! And, at the same time, every NY politician – mostly all democrats – have remained in office for far too long. Regardless of New York’s issues and us specifically, we have the same archaic, stale and ineffective thinking bombarding us daily. An example would be any project will have 10% low-income, ground floor retail (which over and over again stay vacant) and apartments above the retail for Millennials and of course with no parking as we’re continually told Millennials don’t drive or own cars. Yet, when you look at Hartsdale Avenue going into the center of Hartsdale, there is not nearly enough parking for those people living in those apartment buildings! When it rains and there is flooding, they must (re)move their cars to higher ground. Some thought a recently passed weak Comprehensive Plan would help the residents. It was so watered down it became a laughingly simple political document that won’t protect the integrity or longevity of the Town.

Project after project gets approved by a reticent Town Board incapable of breaking free of the servitude that grips them to their master. As long as they are instructed to vote in favor of a project, pass a code change or waive the craftily enacted standards that favor developers, they will remain on his Board. Falter from that narrative and be jettisoned in the blink of an eye, commonly referred to as being “Sonya’d.” After Town Board member Sonya Brown publicly exposed Mr Feiner’s racial bias against the minority community in the Fairview section of town, she was shunned by the Town Board, ignored by many in Town Hall (also fearful for their jobs) and dropped from the re-election ticket for now-Councilman Ken Jones. Mr Jones learned quickly that to get along he must go along. Sadly, we had been hopeful that he would exhibit a modicum of independence only to have the electorate be disappointed yet again as he tows the Feiner -line.

The Elmwood Country Club was sold to a developer who has an arsenal of attorneys at their beck and call who know how to play the approval game in Greenburgh. We’re told they met secretly with Mr Feiner and probably his Town Board as Mr Feiner laid out the groundwork they needed to follow to ensure successful completion of their yet to be proposed project. First, meet with his arch-enemy, the President of the Worthington Woodlands Civic Association and get a buy-in from their President and ultimately their members. You’ll recall that they were the ones who successfully stopped Mr Feiner’s GameOn 365 from erecting (really inflating) an 83 ft tall “sports bubble” at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road where the former Frank’s Nursery had been. Stung by this embarrassing defeat after several residents exposed Mr Feiner and GameOn 365’s collusion, Mr Feiner has worked tirelessly to find any way possible to get the flawed and failing GameOn 365 project to reach fruition. Why follow this same path of failing ideas? Do as I say, not as I do.

The Hartsdale Neighbors Association sparked a debate about their 4-Corners (4C) and it’s need of renovation and uplifting, citing that it’s been a revolving door of failed businesses and desolate retail spaces due to the Town’s permit process, zoning, lack of parking and bereft planning processes. In light of the Edgemont Incorporation effort, word got back to the Town Board about new talks of a Hartsdale Incorporation based on what happens to the Unincorporated Town (which includes Hartsdale) should the Edgemont incorporation succeed. Concerns festered over what would happen to the Hartsdale community and the town budget, town services and staff. Mr Feiner and his Board were rapt as Inspired Spaces made a presentation of solutions for the failed and ignored area. They certainly embody their motto, “We seem to care.” But since the only real beneficiaries of remodeling of the 4C area is the landlords, we doubt these plans will get much traction.

But now that the Edgemont incorporation has been successfully stalled, Town politicians needed a new crisis to divert attention from what is really going on with finances, personnel, insider developer approvals and more. Thankfully, whenever in need and there is no apparent cause to latch onto, play the race card. This time it was espoused by Town Clerk Judith Beville, an African-American woman who charged in a series of emails that she, as an African-American woman, was being targeted by all of the members of the Town Board, but not her meal ticket Mr Feiner, that had racial overtones. She made sure to not bite the hand that feeds her so to speak.

Racism is no stranger at our Town Hall, at least during the Feiner Administration(s). And while these episodes have always been craftily ignored, swept under the rug or simply ignored, racism is alive and well at 177 Hillside Avenue. Regardless of previous events, Ms Beville sent a series of emails alluding to racism and then actually charging that this was done to her specifically because she was an African-American woman in a high-profile position in the Town. Whether or not it was true almost seemed inconsequential as she began to play to her base who showed up to the Town Board meeting on her behalf. There were other statements made about the Deputy Town Clerk that appeared to cross the line regarding HIPAA requirements, legal requirements and of course common courtesy. In fact, toward the end of the Town Clerk discussion portion of the last Town Board meeting, all of the Council members as well as Town Attorney Tim Lewis were repeatedly asking her to stop talking as she was probably violating HIPAA laws by discussing the medical problems of the former Deputy Town Clerk! Punishment for these transgressions? Not in Greenburgh.

While Ms Beville was unwilling to remain silent after the Board pleaded with her, Councilman Sheehan stated that the entire episode was not a racial matter and that the Deputy said she was going to quit because she had to keep training new people as well as continuing to do her own job as well. Because of the seemingly endless stream of trainings and her workload, she said she had had enough. Apparently, it was either Mr Feiner or the Town Board (or both) who decided to create and fill a new position at roughly $70+k per year with benefits without approval, a budget item or candidate search. THIS sounds like our Town Board. They also stated that the Town Clerk’s office would still have the same number of staffers working there, but training could now be done by Ms Beville. And yet Mr Feiner seems compelled to complain about the Fire Districts personnel issues. Those who live in glass houses should not cast any stones.

Word in the Town Hall hallways is that the Town Board doesn’t have faith that Ms Beville can adequately train those new people and that’s why they wanted to keep the former Deputy, even if it was in a different position. Maybe so. This isn’t the way to run a Town. It’s also proof of why we need term limits, even though those in office will never agree to relinquish their power until they've padded their coffers enough and are ready themselves to step down. When the Democratic electorate finally wises up, maybe we will see a change and get some new blood, new ideas and better thinking. Complacency is also alive and well in Greenburgh. It needs to change. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.

Letter To The Editor

To A Better Greenburgh,

A Scarsdale Inquirer article of 8/10/18, concerning the proposed development of the former Elmwood Country Club by the New Jersey based company, Ridgewood Realty, contained mis-information and omissions.

The “pre-submission conference” with the Planning Board that was requested by Ridgewood should NOT have been granted because there is no provision in NYS Town law enabling legislation or the Code of the Town of Greenburgh that allows an applicant seeking a map change and proposed rezoning to bypass the normal procedure of first going to the Town Board. According to the Code of the Town of Greenburgh, this type of meeting is allowed for site plan or sub-division approval only. It is not allowed for projects that require changes of zoning. All zoning changes must be approved by the Town Board.

In a July 3rd letter to the Planning Board, Ridgewood blames the Town Board for delaying action on their application. The problem of the delay is not the fault of the Town Board. At a Town Board Work Session, a request was made to Ridgewood to submit their plans (site plans, landscaping, water course, steep slopes, utilities, roads, etc.) for the as-of-right 119 Single Family Homes development. To date, they have only submitted an engineer's rendering of the Single Family Homes. Ridgewood is the problem for the delay, not the Town Board.

In the article, Ridgewood claims that the Town House Condo proposal, an Adult 55+ Community, will generate $350,000 more tax revenue (Town, School, Fire District, etc.) than the Single Family Homes proposal. That statement is incorrect because of the fact that Town House Condo units are assessed at between 50-60% of their value as compared to 100% assessment of Single Family Homes. At comparable selling prices, the 119 Single Family Homes will generate more tax revenue than the 175 Town Houses.

Ridgewood also states that their traffic engineer says that “the traffic generated from the 175 unit development proved to be less than the traffic generated from the as-of-right 119 unit single family home plan”. At our Civic Association meeting, the Ridgewood CEO, made the statement that people over 55 do not go to work. That claim was strongly disputed by the association members. If that assumption is being used as a criteria for the traffic study, there is a major problem.

Our community strongly believes that a full comprehensive SEQRA review of the project should be conducted by an outside, independent consulting firm to study all the issues concerning this development: financial, density, environmental, traffic, alternative development options, etc., as has been done previously by the Town for major projects such as The Jefferson (JPI) and Regeneron.

Dorrine Livson
President
Worthington-Woodlands Civic Assoc.

Proposed Development Of The Former Elmwood County Club

Another large development saga has been slowly unfolding in the Town for about a year now. That is the sale and more importantly the development of the former Elmwood Country Club, located on Dobbs Ferry Road. The company that is undertaking the Elmwood development is the Ridgewood Realty Company of New Jersey. The two proposals to the public were to build either 119 single-family homes and the other is to down-zone the property from R-30 to R-20 so they can build 175 town-houses instead of about 120 town-houses for an adult of 55 years or older that sell for an average price of $900,000 each!

As an aside, if single-family homes are built, the Town will receive a taxable income of 100% from each home. Town houses on the other hand are taxed at a reduced rate of about 60% and produce less taxable income for the Town. Why is this important to us? Mostly to pay off guilty verdicts levied by the courts against Mr Feiner and his Board, such as the Fortress Bible Church discrimination lawsuit. Mr Feiner and his Board members were found guilty on seven counts including discrimination, lying under oath and destroying evidence.

Residents had been preached to by Mr Feiner of his plan to create the Dobbs Ferry Road corridor into a recreational corridor by allowing his friends from GameOn 365 to develop the former Frank’s Nursery property into an ill-appropriate 8-story sports bubble for mostly indoor tennis and soccer along with outdoor ballfields in a residential neighborhood zoned for residential housing. Fortunately, the Worthington Woodlands Civic Association, with help from others, were able to stave off this assault.

Town residents would have had to pay to use that facility even though they were also told they could use it at reduced rates but only during specific and limited times. The rest of the time would have been dedicated to leagues and non-residents from as far away as New Jersey and Brooklyn. In fact, some of those non-residents spoke, without providing addresses of course, in favor of the project claiming there were not enough soccer fields anywhere for them to play soccer. The obvious question was why don't they try to develop fields in their own hometowns?

While GameOn 365 has purchased the 16-acre Visioli Golf Driving range with additional prpoerty amounting to a total purchase of 32-acres on Dobbs Ferry Road, it remains to be seen how it can or will be developed – especially since the surrounding neighborhoods were vehemently against it as the land is zoned for residential housing, not commercial 8-story buildings. The Visolis had been in a contract dispute with their lessees as to who was responsible to pay the taxes, forcing them to be in arrears. Since Mr Feiner was favoring any deal the GameOn 365 partners could broker, the Visoli’s financial health or business’ viability was not of much concern. He just needed the headlines to keep appearing with his name in them. 

Another recent change is the former Frank’s Nursery property that was sold for $3.5 million to a developer named Capitol Seniors Housing, who will be building an assisted living facility at that location for about 100 residents. Sadly, after Mr Feiner and Mr Lewis claimed remediation of the former Frank’s Nursery property would be capped at $100,000, we now know that the cost to the Town will be just under $2 million! Is this why there are so many jokes about not trusting lawyers? Regardless, after back taxes are paid on the property including the remediation, the Town taxpayers will not see a profit on another piece of property it owned.

There are several other factors in play while these two developments are underway. We’ve learned that part of the Metropolis Country Club may be for sale soon as they are experiencing the same shrinking market that Elmwood had. In fact, we’ve heard that Hartsdale's Maplewood Swim and Tennis Club may also be up for sale soon due to the same issues. Finally, there have been rumors that the Knollwood Country Club’s shrinking base may force a partial sale of some or all of their property. It appears that millennials are not into golf, tennis and swimming as much as previous generations.

With the certain proposal for the Elmwood Country Club property, the Greenburgh Conservation Advisory Council met and crafted the below letter to the Town Board objecting to the down-zoning of the property which would result in an increase in density. This is important for several reasons: these Board members are “Feiner-friendly” as they are appointed by Mr Feiner; and because they recognize the harm that can be done by down-zoning. Down-zoning goes against the recently approved Comprehensive Plan that was 8-years in the making and cost taxpayers over $600,000. Mr Feiner cheered about it through email blasts, print media and at every public event he attended.

Here's the Greenburgh Conservation Advisory Council’s letter in its entirety:

TO: Greenburgh Town Board 

FROM: Greenburgh Conservation Advisory Council 

DATE: Feb. 12, 2018 

Statement of the CAC RE Proposed Development of the former Elmwood County Club 

The Conservation Advisory Council has discussed the proposed development of the former Elmwood County Club by Ridgewood Real Estate Partners. The CAC noted that one of the options being discussed is tied to a “down zoning” in the existing zoning of R30 on the property to R20 zoning, which would result in an increase of about 50 additional residential units. 

As a result, the CAC voted to issue a statement in support of the Comprehensive Plan, as adopted by the Town Board on Sept. 28, 2016. The Comprehensive plan states expressly, without qualification, there are no planned policies to increase density in residential zoning. 

11.6.4 Projected Sales & Net New Development No policies are recommended to extend existing one-family and multi-family residentially zoned districts into other areas of unincorporated Greenburgh. There are also no planned policies to allow a greater density of residential units or residences per acre in existing one-family and multi-family residentially zoned districts. It is anticipated that residential subdivision and site plan applications will trend in a manner similar to that depicted in the 12-year snapshot in Table 11.15, which had a proportionately higher percentage of new developments with lower numbers of new residential units. 

Under New York law, all Town use regulations such as zoning must be in accordance to the Comprehensive Plan. As stated in N.Y. TWN.LAW 272 – A (11) (a), “Effect of adoption of the town comprehensive plan. (a) All town land use regulations must be in accordance with a comprehensive plan adopted pursuant to this section.” 

The applicants request to increase density is not in accordance with the express provision of the Comprehensive Plan pertaining to density in residentially zoned districts. 

The determination to not allow an increase in density in the residential zones was in direct response to the valid concerns of the residents. Starting with the initial outreach meetings and at all subsequent public meetings the public comment consistently focused on the concerns about the impacts on residential communities resulting from allowing more dense housing options, such as road congestion, changing the look 2 

and feel from suburban to urban, diminished air quality and general diminishment of quality of life. A review of residents’ comments shows 256 complaints about traffic and 205 complaints against development. During the multi-year process of development of the Comprehensive Plan, believing in its importance, the CAC issue three reports to the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee which among other issues highlighted the impacts of increased traffic on air quality and quality of life. The determination provided in the Comprehensive Plan not to increase density in residential areas is consistent with public input, rational and environmentally sound. 

The CAC further notes that any change in zoning to permit more density would set a precedent for the possible future development of the remaining golf courses and other large parcels in the Town. 

Conservation Advisory Council 

Cc Judith Belville, Town Clerk 

Garrett Duquesne, Commissioner, Community Development and Conservation 

Ultimately, all of these assisted living and senior living facilities may have a detrimental effect on our school systems as many seniors, empty nesters, etc., typically vote against school budgets. With more and more people moving here and not feeding students into the school system and voting against the budgets, it will have a detrimental effect on property values. So Mr Feiner’s scheming may work against us again. 

With the hopes of Mr Feiner’s sports corridor dashed, the development of the Elmwood Country Club in tandem with the former Frank’s Nursery, and other spaces throughout our Town, it now appears that Mr Feiner’s new corridor will be a housing and/or residential corridor. Or will it? There needs to be a better balance without Mr Feiner in the mix. Let the Town, its zoning laws, Comprehensive Plan and neighborhoods control our destiny. It’ll make for A Better Greenburgh.