An Open Letter: Death of “The Process”

May 20, 2015

Supervisor Paul Feiner

Town Board
Town of Greenburgh
Town Hall
177 Hillside Avenue
Greenburgh, New York 10607

Dear Supervisor Feiner:

I am appealing to you in my capacity as the Vice-President of the Fulton Park Civic Association with respect to the application filed on behalf of GameOn 365 Sports, LLC seeking a zoning amendment that will negatively impact the entire Town in the future, initially allowing construction of a prohibitive commercial sports complex on Dobbs Ferry Road in the R-30 Zoning District.

As you will recall, at the Town Board meeting on April 8, 2015, an overwhelming majority of community members attended to steadfastly voice their opposition to GameOn 365’s application. In fact, the overwhelming sentiment was that the proposed zoning amendment should be rejected. Nonetheless, you and Town Board members, Ken Jones and Kevin Morgan, decided to blatantly disregard the will of the residents of the Town of Greenburgh by moving the GameOn 365 application forward by commencing the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act process and referring the matter to the Town of Greenburgh Planning Board for an “informal” review. This belies your collective statements of impartiality and removes all pretext of keeping an open mind! I am writing to advise you that the members of my association, as I’m sure the residents living in the vicinity of the golf ranch property, are greatly troubled by your actions and the actions of Councilman Morgan and Councilman Jones. 

I had written you a letter on April 8, 2015, pointing out a number of deficiencies in the long form Environmental Assessment Form prepared by GameOn 365. Regardless, you, in concert with Councilman Morgan and Councilman Jones, and over the objections of Councilmember’s Sheehan and Juettner, decided to declare the Town Board’s intent to act as Lead Agency under SEQRA and provide notice of this intent to interested and involved agencies, giving GameOn 365 the necessary ammunition to seek real financial investors. I believe this is purely endorsed semantics to move GameOn 365’s proposal forward! I reiterate that preceding any further with the SEQRA review is improper until the errors in the EAF are analyzed and corrected. To continue with the review would create a flawed environmental review process since the involved and interested agencies cannot accurately assess the impact of the zone change or the scope of the underlying project. Or, is that the actual plan? I ask that the Town Board immediately withdraw its intent to act or become Lead Agency, and, at the very least, require GameOn 365 to amend its EAF until the errors I previously pointed out are corrected.

The next troubling aspect of your actions is that you have continually acted as an advocate for GameOn 365. Although you contend that you are neutral and that you are merely following “the process”, there are many examples where you have chosen to proceed in a biased manner.  One example is that you have continually taken the position that the traffic impacts relating to Dobbs Ferry Road are not significant and that the project would not result in excessive traffic.  However, this is substantially different than the position that you took with respect to the Fortress Bible Church.  At that time, you were very concerned about the volume of traffic the Fortress Bible Church would add to Dobbs Ferry Road. The GameOn project would likely add more traffic, on a more regular basis, than the Fortress Bible Church proposal.

Your most recent statements that you were only concerned with site lines with respect to the Fortress Bible Church are directly contradicted by the record in that action and will invariably and rightly be part of any litigation concerning the proposed traffic impacts. Your statement that you spoke with the Chief of Police on occasions regarding the Fortress Bible project is also contradicted by your testimony in that case. These contradictions demonstrate that you are anything but neutral. Past performance has proven when you have a project you support, such as GameOn 365, you will do anything to move the application forward; but where you have a project you are against, such as Fortress Bible, you will do anything to oppose it including destruction of evidence and lying under oath. It is no wonder people have lost confidence in the process in our Town!

You have also continually questioned whether the traffic impacts studied by House of Sports should be considered when analyzing the GameOn 365 project. Despite your assertions to the contrary, the GameOn 365 facility will attract a similar amount of traffic as House of Sports. Furthermore, the number of spectators and participants will not in any way be limited by an alleged lack of seating or otherwise at the GameOn 365 facility. There is no doubt that when children come to GameOn 365, their parents, relatives and friends will attend practices, games and tournaments in large numbers.

The manner in which you have driven this process forward demonstrates bias and that you are acting as an advocate for GameOn 365.  As stated above, you have voted to declare the Town Board as Lead Agency, despite the deficiencies in the EAF and substantial evidence and testimony that property in the R-30 zone should not be zoned for commercial use. The only reason to have moved the environmental review process forward at this time is because you are in favor of the GameOn 365 application!

The formation of a “committee” for the purpose of hiring of a traffic consultant and planning consultant, is also highly suspect, is not typical in a SEQRA review and further establishes that you are treating the GameOn 365 application differently than other applications. The usual process for a zone change petition is for the applicant to submit studies in conjunction with a draft Environmental Impact Statement that the Town professionals can then analyze. It will be at that time that the Town could hire a planning consultant, traffic consultant and other professionals to review the applicant’s studies. The public would then be given the opportunity to hire its consultants to analyze the applicant’s studies and present information during the SEQRA review. It is entirely inappropriate for the Town to conduct studies on its own, prior to the applicant submitting its own studies and draft Environmental Impact Statement. This is true even if the applicant is paying for the studies, which further taints the process. What is even more disturbing is that if the Town’s consultants ultimately conclude that there are not any significant impacts from the project, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Town Board to reject or modify the application during either the SEQRA or site plan review process.

The supposedly “informal” referral of this application to the Planning Board is also not typical of a petition for a zoning amendment. As you are aware, Town Code § 285-64 requires the Planning Board to make a formal recommendation addressing specific areas of concern with respect to any petition for a zone change before the Town Board holds a public hearing. However, there is no provision for an “informal” Planning Board review in the Town Code. If you are seeking an advisory opinion from the Planning Board, I believe such advisory opinions are improper and illegal. Your attempt to somehow sidestep the formal recommendation process by asking the Planning Board to conduct an “informal” review is again contrary to the process and shows that you are taking a biased approach with respect to this particular applicant.

The bottom line is that communities throughout the Town of Greenburgh are against the GameOn 365’s petition for a zone change that will forever change the landscape of Greenburgh town wide. Yet you, Councilmen Jones and Morgan continue to support it at all costs. I insist you all to reconsider the current direction the Town Board has taken with respect to GameOn 365’s application and dismiss it.

Thomas Bock, 

Vice-President, Fulton Park Civic Association

I Can Do This Forever

Do what? Jerk the tax-paying residents around until they get exhausted? Mr Feiner may not say this, but he certainly practices it. He continues to hand-hold any developer interested in building in the Town as they submit their project(s) for approval. He does this by having his Town Board vote to be the Lead Agency on every project put forth that he favors. We imagine he gets fed up at times and says to himself, “When are they going to learn and stop interfering with my plans? I can’t be voted out of office because no other party will put up a candidate to run against me. Hell, even the Democrats couldn’t beat me! I just wear them all down. I can do this forever!”

Two years and five months ago, as well as five years ago, issues came to the forefront that Mr Feiner has still not acted upon. Nor has the Town Board. These issues, completely unrelated and very different, highlight the tenacity of Mr Feiner when he wants something and meets with resistance. He will fight whomever is against him simply because they are against him. Think rope-a-dope.
 
Two years ago, ABG attended an Edgemont Civic Association (ECC) meeting at Edgemont High School. An Edgemont resident in attendance got up and voiced his opinion about how many massage parlors were opening in the Town of Greenburgh and Edgemont in particular. He asked for that Association’s assistance in helping to close them. Some of the reasons included the clientele, possible sexual slavery, prostitution, unlicensed massage “therapists” as well as other issues were highlighted and made for a compelling argument against them. More immediately, he was concerned for his young daughters being exposed to this when they went to a nearby or adjacent business.
 
Robert Bernstein, an Edgemont resident, attorney and ECC President, along with Community Activist Ella Preiser and others, drafted a bill that would give the Greenburgh Police Department real teeth in going after these establishments. If they were legitimate, they would have nothing to fear. If not, the Police, Fire and Building Departments would have the ability to close them down. Publicly Mr Feiner said he was against the massage parlors. But is he? His actions, or lack of, belie what he says. Another Feiner tactic.

We imagine he told Town Clerk Beville to slap together some kind of meeting about sex trafficking, invite the usual suspects and he’d send it out on the GBList to make it seem like they really cared. We wonder if anyone has questioned his use of the GBList since Worthington Woodlands Civic Association President Dorrine Livson had sued the Town under an Article 78 for access to the GBList and won? We also imagine his response to be, “Just do as I say and let me worry about the GBList and Livson.” Emails sent.
 
So did he line up the players in a closeted session, possibly including Town Clerk Beville, Town Attorney Lewis, newbie Commissioner of Planning Garrett Duquesne and maybe a Town Board member or two? We imagine he gave them their marching orders: “Anything Bob Bernstein submits must get lost, discarded, proven useless or simple fought to stall for time. I need this to go away and if you all value your jobs, you’ll do as I say!” Hence, the apparent unending opposition by Attorney Tim Lewis, in particular, as he protects his meal ticket against Mr Bernstein’s proposed bill.

We believe the relentless verbal pounding Mr Lewis was receiving at every meeting by residents regarding his resistance to Mr Bernstein's bill probably forced Mr Feiner to develop an alternate plan or two (or three) in case Mr Lewis caved. The next step was to have the bill delivered to the Planning Board, who we’ve now learned are unqualified to write legislation. ABG wonders if Town Attorney Lewis instructed the Planning Board to "take their time" and stall this bill by formally asking the NYS Attorney General’s office to review it. That request was rejected by the NYS Attorney's office but succeeded to stall the bill for another 5-months, providing the Town Board the ability to say they are awaiting an answer from the state and cannot discuss the matter further. The Planning Board created their own law so now there are two versions to be decided upon. Mr Bernstein keeps asking to meet with the board members to discuss it but they keep ignoring him. ABG believes this was nothing more than another stall tactic by Mr Feiner. Remember, he can do this forever.

Then we come to the Zoning Change Proposal that will negatively impact the entire Town. The Town Board is split on the request made by Mr Feiner's friends from GameOn 365. This started five years ago when Mr Feiner sought to illegally hand the property over to Martin Hewitt, project manager for GameOn 365, for the proverbial “song”. When a threatened lawsuit halted that folly, Mr Feiner announced a referendum, which was carefully worded to ensure its passage. In the meantime, the Federal Courts rendered a guilty verdict against Mr Feiner and certain people on his Town Boards of violating the civil rights of the Fortress Bible Church, including Ardsley’s Diana Juettner, a current Town Councilwoman.

So with all of the back and forth about how to get the former Frank’s Nursery property to the GameOn 365 paper organization, Mr Feiner has launched his campaign, being their most committed cheerleader. The property is still suffering from numerous contaminants and requests by residents for the Town to remediate it were met with blank stares and Mr Lewis’ assurances that the remediation would cost no more than $100k. Hah! The study alone cost more than that and it was a truncated one at that. The auction specialist the Town hired to auction off the property ultimately said the Town must make the property whole before anyone would bid on it. Huh? That’s exactly what the residents had said!

A number of years ago the Town, under Mr Feiner, tried to take over the Visioli’s Golf Driving Range on Dobbs Ferry Road. Now he professes that he is trying to save it. Our guess is he suggested to Mr Hewitt that he try to purchase all of it or at least some of the Visioli property as they were in tax arrears and instead of a bubble, offer a fixed structure. Whether or not this conjecture is true remains a mystery, but the relentless actions by Mr Feiner to try to make GameOn 365’s proposal come to fruition are alarmingly suspect. However, the issue isn’t about GameOn 365’s proposal, per se. Rather, it is about changing the zoning to allow commercial entities to invade residential neighborhoods. Remember, he can do this forever.

It is truly a difficult thing to start and even sustain a business. We see area businesses shuttered in Greenburgh, the County and the State all too often. In fact, ABG staffers were at a meeting where the owners of Smashburger were seeking additional signs for an "under-performing" location. We thought they were in good shape. Apparently not. It’s the one in the shopping center with Shoprite on Central Avenue. You know the one, they want to add two more buildings utilizing existing parking spaces - the latest craze from town and urban planners. Could it be that Smashburger is under performing (read: losing money) because it is already so difficult to find a parking space anywhere near your intended location unless you were born into it? We don’t want to see this zoning change. We want to see businesses operate in the appropriately zoned area for it. Only then we will see A Better Greenburgh.

Game On 365’s Plans Set a Dangerous Precedent in Town of Greenburgh

On April 8 the Greenburgh Town Board held a meeting to hear the views of residents (and nonresidents, as it happened) about the proposal by Game On 365 to build and operate a large sporting facility on Dobbs Ferry Road, on the golf-driving range property that, Game On has an option to buy.

The proposal is to build a large building (for indoor sports), which was described by Councilman Francis Sheehan as being the size of the Sam’s Club structure in Elmsford, but more than 60 percent higher. In addition Game On will build an outdoor field and operate other facilities, including physical therapy rooms, a party room, a cafe and a retail store. Readers will remember that Game On had previously tried to build an 80-plus-foot high sports bubble on the Frank’s Nursery site, with Paul Feiner’s strong support, but that proposal failed for a number of reasons, primarily because the town did not legally own the site and the grounds were chemically polluted.

The meeting was emotional and contentious. Residents of the area were angered at the thought of such a commercial behemoth being foisted on them, in the middle of a neighborhood that consists of single-family homes of rather high quality. The golf driving range property is situated on land that is zoned residential single-family housing and operates as a legal nonconforming use because it predated the applicable zoning law.

Game On has requested that the residential zoning be changed to permit a commercial use in order to accommodate the sports facility that it wishes to build. As was to be expected, the neighborhood erupted in opposition. Such a facility - open during the day and into the late evening - with its noise, its late-night lights, its traffic, its appearance, its physical impact on the nearby homes, etc. - would destroy this quiet residential neighborhood and decimate the value of the homes there.

The meeting consisted of arguments pro and con the Game On facility. Those in favor, primarily soccer moms and dads and coaches, cited the benefits of it year-round sports facility. Those opposed cited the very real destructive consequences to the community,

But these were the wrong arguments.

The question of whether this large facility should or should not be in the Dobbs Ferry Road location is the second question to be considered. The first question is whether a 32-acre site in the middle of an area zoned residential should have its zoning changed to permit commercial use. That is a question of great consequence, with enormous implications. And that is a question that needs to be addressed before one considers the impact of a sports facility in that neighborhood. A zoning change is permanent. Game On’s proposed facility is temporary.

Suppose, as one example, that the proposed Game On sports facility is not successful, and has to close. And at some point it will close. Greenburgh, and the neighborhood, are then left with a huge building that allows a number of commercial uses in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The possibility - no, the inevitability - of this building and associated parking being used for other commercial purposes is self-evident.

Or consider another example. If the 32-acre site is zoned to permit cornmercial uses, its value multiplies by several orders of magnitude. The land Game On has an option to buy will immediately greatly increase in Value. Suppose that the Game On owners decide (or have already decided) that instead of risking the investment in a business, they can sell all or part of the property and make a huge windfall profit. They have the power, and perhaps the incentive, to do so.

In either of these eventualities the town will be essentially helpless. It is not difficult to stop a commercial development in a residentially zoned area. But it is difficult to stop a legitimate commercial development on a property already zoned to permit commercial uses. There is no hindsight available. To refuse a commercial developer in an area already zoned to permit commercial uses invites litigation that will be extremely expensive and probably unsuccessful for the town. And it is worth noting that the town board cannot prohibit an applicant from seeking variances horn the Zoning Board of Appeals to expand the permitted commercial uses.

And so I repeat. The question for the town board at this time is not whether the Game On proposal is good or bad. The question is what are the consequence of a change of zoning permitting commercial uses in a residential area, and should the town risk them?

It may help the town board to realize that a change from residential to commercial use is virtually unprecedented. If my memory is correct, it has happened only once in the past 50 or more years. That was when the old Union Carbide property (now Landmark at Eastview) was rezoned from commercial to residential in the 1980s. The property was never developed. At the April 8 meeting the town board held a public hearing on rezoning the property again to commercial.

It was obvious that the residential zoning was inappropriate since the entire area is commercial and therefore the zoning should correspond. But that is the opposite of the Game On situation - there the area is primarily residential except for some old legal nonconforming uses (and as to those. When they discontinue operations only residential development will be permitted) I urge the town board to consider what I call the first question - namely, what are the consequences of a rezoning and can the town risk those consequences? As an afterthought, there are other places in Greenburgh where Game On can build its facility. Landmark at Eastwood representatives have requested, and the town board is prepared to adopt, a zoning change that Would permit indoor/outdoor recreational facilities on the Landmark site, and Game On can easily build their sports facility there, only a short distance away from the Dobbs Ferry Road site. The only reason that Game On persists on the Dobbs Ferry Road site is because Paul Feiner is their advocate. It is past time to do right by the neighborhood of the proposed site, and most of all, do right by the town.

– Herb Rosenberg, Judge, Retired.

This article originally ran in the Scarsdale Inquirer and was submitted by the author.