Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee Gets Blasted

The Town of Greenburgh seems to thrive on limiting the access of its residents and taxpayers, allowing developers and our elected officials to almost do as they please. This has been witnessed time and again throughout the Town. Then there are certain developer/law firm/friends of Paul that have unfettered access to the corner office. Once the meeting/phone call takes place, the yellow brick road is magically transformed into gold for them.

Breaking from Town tradition, the Town's Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (CPSC) offered numerous public opportunities for the residents to raise questions, points, criticisms, and such of the plan. In fact, Mr Feiner wanted the Committee to travel to different areas of the Town doing a dog-and-pony show. The Committee resisted so as to be able to hold the meetings at Town Hall and be both recorded and televised. We applaud the Committee's decision to do this.

Under the guidance of former Town Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden, who has since left our Town to do something in Stamford, CT., and the Chairmanship of Francis Sheehan, Town Councilman, there were many ideas incorporated into this plan that were unwelcome. One such idea of major concern was that of incorporating the use of "nodes"* in the future. During the first round of public sessions, the CPSC heard from many concerned citizens. But did they listen?

Apparently not. Resident after resident, especially from the Edgemont area, which will see beau coup nodes in their area, took to the podium to bemoan that after a year of waiting, little has changed with the unveiling of the revised Comprehensive Plan. Many stated they heard but didn't listen to what was being said. Noticeably absent were two very engaged citizens from the Committee, Madelon O'Shea and Ella Preiser. Could they have been boycotting this meeting? ABG doesn't know for sure. However, we do know that neither favored the "node" conception. That idea was the brainchild of former Town Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden. Many believe he is responsible for many of the negative changes taking place in the Town including the idea of nodes and are glad he is gone.

Town Councilman Francis Sheehan, Chairman for the CPSC, sent out this email following a morning and evening public session to get feedback from the public on the latest offering:

"The Town's Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (CPSC) heard more than six hours of comments and questions Tuesday (4/28/15) 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. on the Second Draft of the Comprehensive Plan. The turnout at both sessions was terrific. Everyone who wanted to speak was given unlimited time to do so, even after the end time had passed.

Rather than continue the Public Hearing on May 14, 2015, as previously scheduled, the hearing will be postponed to a date to be determined and later published. The Committee wants to consider the six hours of comments in the coming weeks and edit the document to address issues raised. The edits will be made available before the Public Hearing is continued so we may receive comments at that hearing on the Plan as edited.

The CPSC appreciates everyone who took the time to attend the meeting yesterday. The Public Hearing worked as it should: we heard from the public and we will be acting on what we heard.   

Francis Sheehan, Councilman

Chair, Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee"

Mr Sheehan's email is correct about the turnout, although the evening session had more people than the earlier session. To their credit, they let everyone speak for an unlimited amount of time and there was an occasional back-and-forth with speakers and Committee members. Mr Sheehan's email closes with, "we heard from the public and we will be acting on what we heard." We certainly hope so. There is some good information in the Town's proposed Comprehensive Plan. Yet, it might all be for naught if the Committee only heard what was being said but didn't really listen. If they did, this plan may help us curtail Mr Feiner's wholesale gifting of Unincorporated Greenburgh to developers and friends. Only then will we see A Better Greenburgh.

*The Town would create what's known as overlay zones called  "nodes" to allow for retail/multi‐story, mixed use buildings that would include residential units and flexible parking standards (no or very limited parking). Picture 4-corner intersections along Central Avenue and later the Unincorporated Town as a whole as having these nodes. It is claimed that the overlay zone should also include design guidelines or standards to foster a uniform standard of high quality development throughout the corridor.

Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee Invites Phone Calls

In addition to the opportunities to speak about the Second Draft of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan on Tuesday, April 28, 2015, 1:00-4:00 p.m. and 7:00-10:00 p.m.at Greenburgh Town Hall, the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (CPSC) has arranged for 914-989-1538 to be staffed during the hearing for those interested in calling in questions or comments instead of attending.  

We hope everyone who can attend the April 28 meeting attends either the afternoon or evening session so we may hear the comments and begin considering them.  However, today we were able to relocate a scheduled group and free up the Town Hall auditorium on May 14, 2015, 7:00 – 10:00 p.m., at which time the Committee will continue tomorrow's hearing to accommodate those who have scheduling conflicts on April 28.  

Written comments are also welcome up to two weeks after the Public Hearing is closed.  They may be sent to PlanZone@GreenburghNY.com.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Francis Sheehan, Councilman

Chair, Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee

Public Hearing on Draft Comprehensive Plan

A Public Hearing will be held to discuss the Draft Comprehensive Plan at Greenburgh Town Hall on Tuesday, April 28th at 1:00-4:00 PM and 7:00-10:00PM.

One of the guiding principles in the Draft Comprehensive Plan is to “preserve the character of existing residential neighborhoods”.

This is important because the Town's zoning codes must follow the Comprehensive Plan according to New York State law.

Please attend the Public Hearing and ask the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee to protect our residential neighborhoods. This is your opportunity to offer input toward the direction we want our Town to proceed with zoning, development, “flavor”, etc.

If you cannot attend, you can email your opinion to the Steering Committee:
planzone@greenburghny.com 

or call (914) 989-1538 on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 from 1-4PM or 7-10PM.

Urban, Suburban, Exurban

Thomas Madden, our Town Planning Commissioner/Commissioner of Community Development, and Chief Bottle-Washer for Anything Planning, was recently interviewed about Greenburgh’s participation in a mid-Hudson sustainability planning consortium made up of Greenburgh and Orange County. Yes, that’s right, Orange County. It seems like another scheme that he, along with The Paul, will be participating in to be able to say the Town is concerned about sustainability.

This move reminds ABG of when the Town investigated combining the Town’s Police Department with the Dobbs Ferry Police Department. It makes no sense to combine these two departments. The only reason it had been done was because there was funding money made available for this specific study. A more realistic study for a combination of police departments would be of the Hudson River towns into one department, or all of the Village police departments joining the Greenburgh Police Department. Regardless of the best departmental combination plans, these obscure studies are thought to be “free” because it’s either state or federal grant money. And who pays the state and federal taxes that fund these wastes of time?

Madden said that, “The diverse geography and topography made it a unique model for sustainability studies. It has urban, suburban and exurban areas, open space, agriculture, mountains, river valleys and coastal regions.” For those of you who don’t what ‘exurban’ is, two definitions explain it as “A region lying beyond the suburbs of a city, especially one inhabited principally by wealthy people,” or “A region or settlement that lies outside a city and usually beyond its suburbs and that often is inhabited chiefly by well-to-do families.”

ABG wonders if the city Madden would be referencing could be White Plains or Yonkers for suburbs beyond the city? But what of the rest of Madden’s definition? Greenburgh is not an urban town or region, in spite of his and The Paul’s best efforts to overdevelop every square inch of it and turn it into an urban area. We no longer have agriculture in the Town as a “sustainable” business model. Open space in Greenburgh has become a thing of the past. As for the well-to-do-families, would he be referring to the people in the Villages or in other areas such as Boulder Ridge?

Yes, there are mountains, river valleys and “coastal” regions (Hudson?). Unfortunately, The Paul has relinquished most of this formerly open space to developers who routinely request spot-zoning changes, which he and his Board routinely grant, and then move forward by building oversized developments where they shouldn’t be. The Brightview Assisted Living Center in Glenville is another glaring example in this long list of abuses! There is also severe flooding throughout areas in Greenburgh that had never experienced any water problems until The Paul’s wholesale overdevelopment of Unincorporated Greenburgh took place.

The Town Board has made sure that there are regulations and fees for just about every little thing any business might want to do, discouraging business growth or even inception in our Town. Now Madden is endorsing a plan of proactive environmental initiatives promoted in the region, saying, “ No population should be disproportionately burdened by impacts of pollution.” Translation? He and The Paul will be looking for ways to fine businesses under the guise of environmental correctness whenever and wherever they can. This is nothing more than a smokescreen to try to raise more money in the Town instead of correcting the problems The Paul has created for taxpayers.

This Sustainability Consortium, created by Thomas Madden with his friend from Orange County, also touched superficially on how “climate change” has contributed to rising flood plains. Flood levels predicted for 2050 are happening now. Local governments would use zoning laws to prevent residential and commercial construction near flood prone areas and require that building be done at higher ground levels. Storm water runoff can be alleviated by efforts to propagate more permeable surfaces where it accumulates. Translation? Nothing will be done in Greenburgh under The Paul’s administration! The Town has stalled every effort to move forward with a Comprehensive Plan, which would fix current zoning in place and stop The Paul from his routine spot-zoning changes developers have come to rely upon. Most of the flooding has been created by The Paul and his Board’s disregard for the current zoning and the reasoning behind it, their lack of infrastructure maintenance and improvements, and The Paul and his Board’s unyielding and blatant disregard to the communities and taxpayers they are supposed to serve.

The Sustainability Consortium that Madden has created by utilizing $865,000 acquired from power companies’ cap and trade fund is nothing more than a spending spree to favored vendors. $780,000 of the $865,000 went to Ecology and Environment, Incorporated, headquartered in Lancaster, NY, to create this sustainability study and consortium. That left about $85k for the Consortium to utilize for environmental purposes. It’s enough money for Madden to get more pet projects that secure his planning position and get his consortium off the ground. Then he’ll need to have more government funds allocated to keep it “sustainable”. Pun intended. He and The Paul will use this consortium to pander to a few and validate changes they wish to control throughout the Town as the Comprhensive Plan makes their spot-zoning increasingly difficult. We don’t need our planning department going after The Paul-like slights-of-hand. There’s been enough Three-Card-Monty’s played by The Paul and his Board. This consortium must be stopped before the residents and businesses are required to pay for it after the funding ends. We can only hope.

Town Ignores Toll Brothers’ Ardsley Chase Violations

Seemingly nestled in the bucolic Village of Ardsley, Toll Brothers, luxury homebuilders, have been selling pre-built lots and future luxury homes in their new development, Ardsley Chase.

These are actually in the Town of Greenburgh. What ABG has learned however, is that while the development may be luxury homes for future residents, the Town is completely abandoning our existing residents in the surrounding area. This is not a new circumstance that the Town administration might say they were unaware of or hadn’t heard about until now. Letters and emails have been sent and phone calls made. Efforts made to enlist the Town’s help rectify the wrongs perpetrated by the Toll Brothers and their various sub-contractors have fallen on deaf ears at Town Hall. No surprise in the Town of Developer Paradise.

ABG staffers took a quick tour of the site with several residents to see first hand some of the issues. While mud throughout the site limited our access on foot, there were no gates offering the site any security or limiting our access. This is one of the complaints from residents. Trucks seem to be accessing and exiting the construction site at all hours of the day and night without regard to noise ordinances, “normal operating/business hours” nor weekend courtesies of allowing residents a respite from the noise, rumbling and traffic created by their trucks.

We attended a resident meeting recently about the Brightview Assisted Living Facility, who have proposed a sweeping Town-wide zoning change to accommodate themselves and other developers, with theirs being a new, 4-story, 90 units facility smack dab in the middle of single family residential communities. When queried about construction noise, traffic and obstructions to their daily lives, they insisted in very soft-spoken and calming voices that they would adhere to the Town’s extremely strict blasting, noise, building and site specific regulations for parking, etc., during construction. It was like listening to Allison Steele on the radio. Residents were correctly skeptical. Especially when representatives from other neighborhoods confirmed the Town did not enforce any of the regulations, allowing developers the “run” of the neighborhood. At this point, the President of the Glenville Civic Association (the area near Benedict Ave & Rt 119) and others from the neighborhood complained about the construction violations that the Town did not enforce during the entire construction of the new Stop and Shop across from them on Rt 119. In fact, when they complained with calls to the police department, they were told little could be done.

Blasting at the Ardsley Chase site, while mostly completed at this point, has resulted in damage to numerous neighbors near and far, forcing them to place claims with their insurance companies and the Town. These construction blasting victims were all told by their insurance companies their claims were refused because the cracks, “nail pops”, pipe leaks and related damage were caused by their homes settling. To contest the decision would require hiring engineers, having studies performed which is just not cost effective when its all said and done. 

Toll Brothers has refused to repair the damage to the homes. The Paul and the Town’s various departments expectedly refuse them help, even going so far as to not return resident’s phone calls. Ironically, the Town mandates developers to maintain insurance bonds to pay for damage caused by construction. These should be viewed like the Town’s AAA Bond Rating. It’s valueless if you are not going to use it. ABG has learned that Fulton Park had the same problem when Westhab was blasting and when the NYS Truway Authority blasted as they added sound barriers along I-287; Glenville had the same problem when Stop and Shop site blasting was happening; Dunnings Drive residents had the same problem during construction of Watch Hill; the same thing at Nob Hill and Avalon Green’s surrounding residents. Nothing was ever done by the Town to remedy any of this. Now Glenville needs to prepare for Round 2!

At the entrance to the new development at Birch Ridge and Ardsley Roads, the developer moved the telephone pole back about maybe two to three feet. 

Phone pole on west side of Birch Hill Rd was previously where the gray rectangle on the
sidewalk is. You can just barely see the edge of the bus stop sign on the northern side of the
pole between the second and third metal straps holding the metal pole to the phone pole.

Where it is however, creates a line of site hindrance that will make exiting the complex onto Ardsley Road extremely dangerous. We experienced this when we tried to exit. Add inclement weather, snow and ice conditions and you have a recipe for disaster. The County bus stop, which had been located on the western side (at the point we’re standing to take this picture) of Birch Street, was moved to make the entrance appear more inviting.  This makes the accessibility of the bus stop a serious issue and quite possibly an ADA violation. The new western-side sidewalk has phone poles right in the center of the sidewalk, blocking anyone trying to walk on it and forcing them to step into the roadway to go around it. This is extremely dangerous and needs to be fixed.

More importantly, the Birch Ridge Road’s line of site coming eastbound on Ardsley Road (toward Central Ave.) is too steep and in violation of AASHTO standards, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Ignoring important safety standards at this already precarious location mandates a foregone conclusion of multiple accidents, injuries and even death! Why haven’t our assorted planning and building departments in tandem with our elected officials addressed this? Why does The Paul’s Stepford Board continue to become the lead agency for every project, with the Planning Commissioner “going to bat” for every developer, and then ignore such routine violations when lives are unnecessary placed in harms way?

We passed two existing homes, one on each corner as we entered Birch Ridge Road that have had recent landscaping performed by the Toll Brothers developers. On the eastern side, the home had their driveway moved to access Birch Ridge Road. It used to open onto Ardsley Road. They allowed the developer to make this change and enhance the entrance to Ardsley Chase. Most importantly is that the county Bee Line bus stop and ADA compliant sidewalk that had been located there was removed and grass planted. It looks terrific with the new stonewall entrance to these $1.2M and higher homes. Tacked up onto the phone pole across on the west side of Birch Ridge Road is the indicator of the new bus stop. While the phone pole on this side had been moved back two to three feet, it is still in the wrong place!

A less critical issue, but serious to the existing homeowners is truck traffic continually driving over the edges of the entrances to their homes and drives, not only ruining the landscaping, but crushing the new water meters the Town recently installed! These new meters have provided some water pressure relief to these residents while creating other problems. While Toll Brothers has repeatedly repaired the damage caused by their trucks, ABG is sure once they finish with the delivery trucks and the building is complete, these residents only recourse will be to come to the Town to complain. Basically, residents will be required to fix it themselves since our Town has a habit of ignoring its current residents.

There are several water runoff catch basins and a pump system that is supposed to catch rainwater runoff and handle it to reduce potential flooding in the area. While it is a worthy attempt to right a wrong ignored everywhere else in the Town, there hasn’t been enough rain or storms to prove it works. One of the best ways to absorb water and control flooding is by maintaining and cultivating wooded areas as well as limiting impervious space.

According to Greenburgh’s arborist, Toll Brothers removed 18,000 trees, mostly poplar trees that were at least 100 feet tall! Poplar is sought after by lumber mills because of the consistency and quantity of straight lumber they will yield. It is also a very weather/water resistant wood. Toll Brothers only paid fines of $17k for the entire deforestation that took place. This amount would be easily absorbed by the lumber profits after selling these trees. They’ve replaced a small portion of the trees with evergreens, birch trees and other saplings that will not offer the wind and water protection these poplars had. What a shame the Town did nothing to inspect and ultimately protect the area – again!

Throughout the site are silt barriers erected to protect and prevent dirt erosion from rain and storms. We noticed that the many spoil piles of dirt randomly left uncovered is another unenforced violation the Town is ignoring. ABG is questioning the Toll Brothers intent, as these seemingly small violations are not really so small. They cumulatively highlight our poorly functioning Town departments and leadership, create an unsafe worksite environment and unnecessarily put workers and visitors lives at risk.

The pervasive consistency of inaction and malaise has evolved in the Town and its departments into a tangible laisser-faire working relationship with developers. They’ve turned a blind eye toward the developers while our Town continues insulting, costing us all and disrespecting the Town’s current residents – the “little guy”.  This must change. We can only hope.