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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. December 3, 2014:
The self-styled “Truth Police,” Marie and Ron Rhodes have sent this letter to the Mayor and Common Council, pleading with them to consider these quesrtions on the resumption of the French American School of New York hearings on the controversial campus the school is planning pending approval of a special permit for construction and the approval of the partial closing of Hathaway Lane on the site.
The hearings resume this evening at City Hall at 6 PM and will be televised on Cablevision Channel 75 (the government channel) or Verizon FIOS channel 44.
The letter:
So many FASNY Plan changes. . .resulting in so many questions. . .yet with so few answers
The Big Picture on FASNY. . .taking into account the City Staff comments in the recent Friday night 195 page Document Dump. . .plus all of the FASNY submissions to date. . .and the Common Council’s basic duty to protect WP residential neighborhoods from adverse impacts. . .→
So far we have found no mitigation, by the City Staff or FASNY, that eliminates the Risk of this FASNY proposal to the Health, Safety and Welfare of WP Children, Seniors and other citizens. . .due to the influx of Traffic from FASNY’s 1,200 students and staff, FASNY’s 10-year Construction, increased Fire Response Times and the resulting negative impact of FASNY’s 53-acre massive complex on resident Property Values.
The Big Picture on the Hathaway Lane Closure. . . in the most recent City Staff comments there was still no mention of any Benefits to the Public from the Closure of Hathaway Lane, a Public Street, which has been well-maintained and supported for almost a century with tax payments by the Public.
Why would the City ever contemplate giving a Public Street, against the will of the Public, to a Private Developer who is not offering any Public Benefits for the Closure and who is not paying any taxes itself to support City Services? And if FASNY ever were to come up with possible Public Benefits. . .let the Public determine if the Benefits offset all the Negatives associated with the Closure of Hathaway Lane.
Dear Mayor and Common Council,
So many FASNY Plan changes. . .resulting in so many questions. . .yet with so few answers. Looking over all the FASNY submissions, City Staff comments and all the unanswered resident questions the Common Council and Southend neighborhoods still have. . .in our opinion FASNY needs to submit new EIS’s (Environmental Impact Statements) for the Closure of Hathaway Lane and the North Street Entrance due to all of the Recent Site Plan changes including the number and length of new internal roadways, paved surfaces over environmentally sensitive land, more than 3 miles of impervious bike paths and the destruction of majestic old-growth trees that can’t be replaced with new saplings. . .
FASNY may even need to prepare a new FEIS when the Army Corps of Engineers involvement and requirements becomes clearer.
To date the City Staff and FASNY have identified many small individual “cosmetic” mitigations. . .i.e.
Suggesting computer traffic signals which do not reduce the number of FASNY cars and buses. . .while letting FASNY get away without disclosing to us their Total Vehicle Trips, see our #5 below. →
Do all these small “cosmetic ” mitigations add up to even one large significant mitigation? We say No! As they are just a bunch of minor mitigations that in total still result in the FASNY project threatening the Health, Safety and Welfare of residents and our Southend neighborhoods.
We believe our Neighborhoods are under siege by FASNY and their supporters. And we look forward to your Wednesday meeting (tonight, 6 PM) for you to address the insignificance of these mitigations along with a lot of our unanswered questions. We also have a couple of issues that are important enough for you to take a few minutes to address at Wednesday’s meeting.
1. How does the Common Council decide “what is the necessary and appropriate level of protection and promotion of the public health, safety, morals, comfort, convenience and general welfare” as stated in WP Zoning Ordinance 4.1.2?
Do you listen to neighborhood residents, their experts’ reports and the WP Board of Education. . .or do you rely on City Department heads like the Traffic Department who think a couple of computer controlled traffic signals is enough mitigation while ignoring Board of Education Traffic concerns and never even requiring FASNY to disclose their Total Vehicle Trips? Or do you listen to the Public Safety Department who never even mentions or addresses resident concerns about the increase in Fire Response Times from the Closure of Hathaway Lane?
We wonder. . .→ who in the City was responsible for giving each Department Head their initial instructions on what to look at and comment on with this FASNY project? And with whatever mitigation each Department Head recommended. . .if the Department Heads were also asked to comment on how much of the FASNY project’s harm to neighborhood residents were being eliminated?
Also was each Department Head asked. . .”based on the number of years you have worked in White Plains. . .would you recommend this 53-acre FASNY project for this residential neighborhood. . .in view of the threat to the Health, Safety and Welfare of WP
citizens and the neighborhood? We believe that Department Heads were never asked any of these questions. . .so the Common Council is miss
2. (Question Omitted by the Editor, however this controversial question was submitted in the original letter to the Mayor and Common Council and they know what it is.)
3. Do some of you still think that neighborhood residents do not understand Zoning?
Our own response is maybe we do or maybe we don’t. During this FASNY process many residents have had to read our Comprehensive Plan, Section 5.2 of Use Regulations for District R1-30 Zoning, WP Zoning Code, Special Permit Use 6.5.1 & 6.5.3, Complete Streets Policy and other WP regulations.
From our study of these City documents. . .→ a 53-acre private school campus is not permitted by our Comprehensive Plan. . .is not eligible for a Special Permit by Section 5.2. . .or allowed by any other WP law. Before Wednesday’s meeting. . . why don’t those Council Members who feel neighborhood residents don’t understand Zoning or feel we are not looking at the right laws. . .take a few minutes and point out the correct WP laws we should be looking at? This way the Common Council and neighborhood residents can focus on the same regulations and understand the same Rule of Law that you all will have to follow in your voting.
4. Are some of you trying to minimize the importance of the WP Board of Education taking a stand by rejecting FASNY’s Traffic and the North Street Entrance in order to protect WP School Children?
Isn’t the School Board, like the Common Council, elected to protect, WP citizens? Over the past almost 4 years we’ve heard little from this Common Council about the FASNY project. . .and even less about how much you all are concerned about the Health, Welfare and Safety of WP Children, Seniors and other Citizens. . .yet Public Safety is part of your duties by law.
In our lifetime the Democratic Party has always represented themselves as the party “caring more about the people” as well as being a staunch supporter of civil rights. → Who then among our current Common Council, all members of the Democratic Party. . .is willing to put our own WP School Children, where minorities are the majority who walk to WP High along Bryant Avenue and North Street, at risk and in harm’s way. . .by voting to approve an exclusive and affluent private school for students that don’t even live in WP?
We can’t imagine anyone living in White Plains wanting to cause harm to our own school children. . .however we have yet to hear much from this Common Council about the potential of FASNY’s project as a threat to our own School Children and Public Safety.
5. Our unanswered question on FASNY Traffic is still “how many Vehicle Trips will FASNY be making into our neighborhood each day in the AM and in the PM? And what % increase will this be over our existing Traffic levels w/o FASNY”?
FASNY has not answered this question in their FEIS, SEQR Findings, Site Plan and again in their Revised Site Plan Submissions. And we think it’s strange that this question was not addressed in the most recent City Staff comments.
We feel this is very basic Traffic information for any new proposal in the City. . .even the outside Traffic engineers TRC and Mary Manning were looking for this information. If this FASNY project. . .is the largest building development ever proposed for a WP residential neighborhood. . .→ wouldn’t the total number of Vehicle Trips FASNY will be bringing into our neighborhood each day be important?
In any case we believe on an issue as important as Traffic that. . .it is the Common Council’s responsibility to require FASNY to disclose this information. . .and also explain to residents how the infamous 530 Vehicle Trip came about and how it should be calculated to monitor FASNY. This is basic information and common sense.
6. For Wednesday’s meeting. . .why is FASNY planning on showing their own 3-D computer video that was submitted in their Revised Site Plan. . .because when we saw their 3-D. . .it made no sense to us as it showed that FASNY’s newly planted trees and our neighborhood homes looked larger than FASNY’s proposed school buildings?
According to a recent Journal News article, the City now has access to new digital 3-D modeling technology that could help the Common Council and residents visually understand how FASNY’s 53-acre building proposal negatively impacts our residential neighborhood. And at the last FASNY review meeting weren’t Common Council members asking FASNY for this digital 3-D modeling technology rather than whatever the video FASNY came up with is called. And lawyer David Steinmetz in his Zoning article that we recently sent you believes, as we do, that aerial views help in judging how a proposed development fits with the Character of a neighborhood. And we wonder how in the 3-D modeling FASNY’s destruction of numerous 100-year old plus trees with new plantings is presented?
Each time FASNY changes its Plan. . .the FASNY Representatives like to take up time at next Common Council meeting making updated presentations. . .in part to mislead and misstate facts that we already know, have read or don’t need to know. . .because whenever these FASNY Representing are talking. . .they are delaying and preventing any incisive questions and probing by the Common Council. This leads to. . . so many FASNY Plan changes. . .resulting in so many questions. . .yet with so few answers.
Final Thought. . . → If the mitigation recommended by the City Staff and FASNY doesn’t protect our residential neighborhood and doesn’t eliminate the risks to the Health, Safety and Welfare of our own School Children, Seniors and other Citizens. . .what does all their mitigation accomplish? We would say very little. . .as all these their mitigation attempts seem like “moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic”. . .while not focusing on the Big Picture potential disaster. . .for our Neighborhood, School Children and Seniors the disaster if FASNY is approved.
Thanks in advance for addressing these issues and asking FASNY challenging questions,
We report. . .you decide.
Your Truth Police, Team Rhodes
Marie and Ron Rhodes
P.S. In the too ridiculous to believe category. . .→ in the Revised Site Plan do we understand correctly. . .that a Private Developer, FASNY, put forward a proposal that the Public. . .each day should go the FASNY website to see if FASNY will be opening the City’s own Street, Hathaway Lane, for the Public to use that day. . .a Street we ourselves use each day?
Demands like this occur when an outside developer believes they can take advantage of and steamroll government officials.
