Bad Proposal Repackaged

It has now been confirmed that the 32-acre golf driving range owned by the Visioli Family on Dobbs Ferry Road has finally been sold to GameOn 365. You will recall that GameOn 365 was the proponent of installing an 8-story-plus permanent inflatable sports dome at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, the former Frank’s Nursery location. Community outrage and unity stopped this travesty from happening. Now, because of the relentless work of the Worthington Woodlands Civic Association, the Fulton Park Civic Association, the Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations and others, GameOn 365’s inappropriate proposal was squashed, only to see another iteration be born for the adjacent golf driving range. The new plan called for a much larger sports complex which included a 55 foot building, outdoor soccer fields, 90 ft. lights and retail shops. 

Many thought the project had finally been killed when GameOn 365 lost their bid for the Former Frank’s Nursery property and subsequently dropped their plans for the driving range. Obviously, they have not.

We proved in earlier posts that Mr Feiner and GameOn 365 had made backroom deals long before the former Frank’s Nursery property became available. In fact, when those emails were uncovered through the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, the GameOn 365 representatives were found to have told Mr Feiner that they should not be emailing each other as emails can be FOIL-ed and telephone conversations cannot. Is this type of deceit what we want or expect from our leaders? We certainly don’t want it but sadly have accepted that it is what can be expected from this administration.

As of this date, there is no additional information about the intended use of the property, which,as you may already know, is zoned Residential (R-30) - Single Family Homes. We expect to have Garrett Duquesne, the Commissioner of Community Development and Conservation (a contradiction of terms unless you know what you're doing) to inform us when plans to develop the property are submitted. He had promised the Civic Associations and the public that he would keep everyone informed about this project. 

The entire surrounding neighborhood, as well as other Town residents, signed a petition stating that they were against the project. The reason for the wide-spread opposition to this project: a change to the zoning code which would allow a commercial entity to be built in this residential neighborhood would set a precedent that would effect every residential neighborhood in our Town. It's too bad that Mr Feiner doesn't care about this. Only when Mr Feiner starts to care about all neighborhoods, other than his own, will we finally get A Better Greenburgh. 

Frank's Nursery Debacle: Board Tables Auction Again

The former Frank’s Nursery property on Dobbs Ferry Road has been Mr Feiner’s personal political monkey, whether on his back or out in front dancing with him since the property was acquired by the Town through foreclosure. The property has been used by him for deflection from critical issues as well as grandstanding whenever possible. In fact, it has been the one property where his only goal seems to be to gift the property to his friends from GameOn 365, a paper company with no assets, no investors and no hope - save one: Mr Feiner’s largess.

The first attempt at gifting the property to GameOn 365 was in the form of an illegal lease shortly after the Town acquired the property through foreclosure. When residents rallied through the threat of another lawsuit, Mr Feiner withdrew his lease offer to his friends. You see, foreclosed upon property must be sold by the municipality that acquires it. Mr Feiner, a non-practicing attorney probably knew this but forced the residents to vociferously point it out.

Mr Feiner then placed a referendum on the election ballot promising the Town $5-million if the public would pass the referendum. They did, giving Mr Feiner new ammunition to sidestep another law he didn’t like nor wanted to obey. What he hadn’t explained was the $5-million was over the course of 13 years and would allow GameOn 365 to “flip” the property once they purchased it. Mr Feiner insisted they wouldn’t do that. Hmm, how could he know what they would do in the future? Ultimately though, GameOn 365 decided to not move forward with leasing the property.

Regardless, he then tried to sell the property to them and at the 11th hour, another offer, in cash and twice as much was submitted to the Town with another threat of a lawsuit. During all of this, residents kept informing the Town of various contaminants and possible carcinogens that would be found on the property if they only looked. Mr Feiner ignored them all. The public insisted the Town remediate the contaminated property and Mr Feiner said, “No, we’ll make remediation a condition of the sale by the purchaser.” What he never publicly told anyone was the the Town may have acquired the property through foreclosure, but the Town never received a clear title for the property. Consequently, they could not sell it. This partially explains Mr Feiner’s initial attempt to illegally lease the property than to sell it.  

Under the guise of pretending to care, the Town authorized incredibly limited environmental testing be done where the two old heating oil storage tanks had been. Surprise, surprise, they found the soil in that area contaminated with, you guessed it, heating oil. Keeping their heads in the sand, the Board went along with Mr Feiner's scheme to now sell the property as is, requiring the purchaser to clean up the contamination. Ironically, Town Attorney Tim Lewis insisted the remediation would not cost any more than $100,000. Forget remediation. The testing alone blew right past pseudo-environmental expert Lewis’ number of $100,000. Unfortunately, while residents continued to clamor for more testing, Mr Feiner and crew just dug their heels in even deeper.

Amazingly, the Town Board continued the ruse by saying we should sell it to initiate the testing required for a sale. Sounds a bit like the famous Nancy line, “We have to pass it so we can find out what's in it.” Lo and behold, Harold Bordwin of GA Keen Realty, the Town’s chosen auctioneer for the property, said that prospective bidders were reluctant to bid on the property because of several unknowns. Unknowns such as what contaminants are on the property, how much of it is there, what the cost for remediation would be (Mr Lewis’ “expertise” aside), and then what steps would need to be taken to make the property whole again for development. The other consequential issue is the ever-present power lines that run adjacent to the property. As such, the figures for the property being discussed by developers were significantly less than the $3.5million offered two years ago by House of Sports in Ardsley for the property.

Another key factor in the entire debacle with what could have been a simple sale if Mr Feiner had followed the law is that of zoning. But out of the 60 or so developers expressing any kind of interest in the property, only 15 have signed confidentiality agreements to move forward with participating in the auction. But between the property’s soil contamination, groundwater contamination and zoning limitations, there was a lot of information that was intentionally not provided by the Town for bidders to move forward. Additionally, the neighborhood residents are adhering to their desire for the property to be used within the zoning that is currently in place for the property (R-30), which can be used for single-family housing, assisted living, public safety oriented buildings, libraries, and such.

After much anticipation, mostly awaiting the excuse that would be used to delay the auction this time, the Town Board held a special Friday meeting on October 31 to again postpone the former Frank’s Nursery property auction! It has already been postponed several times and many in the Town were curious when he would announce this postponement and the reason why? ABG staffers were convinced as were many others that the auction would be postponed or canceled because Mr Feiner could not control gifting the property to friends at GameOn 365. Regardless, this postponement was a fait accompli, a done-deal never going to see the light of day. It seems that several months will be needed to complete the real testing of the Frank's Nursery property before an auction or sale can take place. It’s disappointing because after the months pass, Mr Feiner will return to say the zoning must change for the Town to sell the property.

Many people with the best interest for Greenburgh at heart repeatedly told Mr Feiner and his Town Board that further, more encompassing testing and remediation would be needed before we could proceed. Mr Feiner and his Board refused to listen, instead believing Mr Lewis because his was the answer Mr Feiner told them they sought. Again, it’s disappointing. We as taxpayers deserve and should expect better from the Town’s elected officials. If we don’t receive it, we should vote differently in the next election. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.