WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

Hits: 0

 

 

WPCNR THE HOUSING NEWS. By John F. Bailey. July 2, 2009 UPDATED 9 A.M. E.D.T.: The White Plains Housing Authority held two meetings with residents of Winbrook Tuesday which sought to assure residents  the rebuilding of  Winbrook while they wait (next to a major active construction site for 8 to 10 years)  is a great thing for them. The first held at 11:30 A.M. drew 17 residents out of over 450 apartments. Perhaps a larger attendance appeared at the evening meeting.

 

The Winbrook Rivitalization Plan Info Session Tuesday, 11:30 A.M.17 residents attended of 450 apartments.

 

The Existing Winbrook Units (5- 9-story buildings) would be replaced one or two at a time with a 7-building, mixed income project (each 15 stories) complex below with street retail.

 

 

 

The Winbrook Revitalization plan envisions replacing the five existing Winbrook buildings with new buildings, expanding the number of living units from the present 450 units to 1,100 units, with underground parking. The present population of 450 families would be moved into 7 new buildings in a staggered plan. The first building going up on the empty green space directly across Quarropas Street from the U.S. Court House, and the vacant Post Office property at South Lexington Avenue and Quarropas Street. The complex would begin construction on open space  West of  the Bethel Baptist Church and Thomas Slater Center, probably in the spring of 2011, on the present timetable.

 

The architect, (Warshauer Mellusi Warshauer) Gary Warshauer’s vision is three stories of street retail and service businesses, down the length of South Lexington Avenue with the residential component of “The New Winbrook” rising an additional 12 stories above the  street retail.

 Present Winbrook buildings are in a star-shaped buildings  9 stories high.  When the first building targeted on the now open space of the south Lex and Quarropas corner,  (pinpointed by the white blob above)is complete, after two years of construction,  residents from the first building would move in, the vacated building would be demolished, and the complex would continue to build South down the Lexington Avenue side, a building at a time.

 

Corner of Quarropas and south Lex shows how residential portion of building (gray shading) would ascend, set back from the street-energizing retail at sidewalk level.

 

Since no complete overview sketch of the project from street level or from the air was shown, it is impossible to tell the overall effect of Mr.Warshauer’s vision, but his preliminary (stress the word “preliminary”),  design would replace the Winbrook of today with a wall of retail and 21^st century marbelized  brownstone entrances to seven 15 story buildings with underground parking vestpocket green space on top of the parking and green roofs and gardens.

 

 

The effect: a walled community in its embryo stage.

 

 

 

Whether the 3-story setback and 12 stories more of  buildings above and  behind the retail will extend on the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard side was not clear, and whether the look would roll down West Post Road was not clear either. It is a concept at this stage. A concept of a closed fortress of 15-story buildings  behind.

 

The cost of the project is expected to be paid for by government funds. The cost, WPCNR based on the costs associated with Mr. Cappelli’s Station Plaza with 5 buildings I would guess it is easily a billion dollars. Cost figures were not given Tuesday morning and have not been given to the Common Council as they consider the rezoning needed to show HUD the city is behind the project.

 

Zoning Change Starts the Ball Rolling. Present Zoning above would be changed Tuesday Night at the Common Council to extend the red boundary of the Central Business District Parking Area to include the blue Winbrook site and the opposite (West Side) of South Lexington Avenue, as shown below. This would allow retail and mixed used and central business parking on the Winbrook site.

 

New Zoning Extends Central Parking Area Boundry

 

The first meeting ended with Mack Carter, the Executive Director of the White Plains Housing Authority. giving  an exhortation to the residents there to come out and show their support for the zoning change on the Common Council agenda next  Monday that will allow the project as of right, with the Common Council having final right of approval of the project, but without the power to choose the developer or developers, that is reserved for the White Plains Housing Authority.

 

Using a slide show prepared by the “consultaglomerate” organization, International Management & Consulting, LLC., Terry Walton of the Housing Authority, Gary Warshauer, the local architect supplying preliminary concepts on the mega project, and City Commissioner of Planning Susan Habel outlined  the advantages of the project, why it needs to be done (it costs the White Plains Housing Authority $1,000,000 a year to continue to maintain the 60-year old Winbrook complex, Mack Carter said), and to request the residents’ input as to what they would like the project to have.

 

Residents were asked to e-mail  comments to winbrook@consultimc.com, and to have two residents from each building take pictures with Housing Authority-supplied cameras of their favorite and not-so-favorite features of the project they call home, (with the emphasis on the positive).

 

Here are some of the assurances that were made which started promptly at 11:30 and was in progress when WPCNR arrived at 11:35:

 

Terry Walton, describing herself to WPCNR as a consultant with the Housing Authority

was in the midst of explaining to the residents,  the Winbrook Rivitalization will enable Winbrook residents to “branch out all around us,” by bringing in the rest of the community to Winbrook. She said it costs the Housing Authority $1,000,000 a year to “keep this place up to standards,” and it needs to be replaced. ‘It will cost more money to continue to take care of it” (in its present condition).

 

Walton said the Winbrook Revitalization was unique, bulleting the reasons above.

 

By embracing the new project with HUD money, and the money promised by President Obama in Washington, she said, the new Winbrook would serve the present residents, eligible Section 3 clients, seniors and market rate residents. She said the new zoning would allow retail would bring in valet services, beauty shops, grocery and other businesses (in the street level retail)  that would perhaps provide jobs for the residents.

 

Walton said the project would observe the above guidelines as it moved forward.

 

She said after the zoning was approved,  a developer would be sought to build and construct the new homes whom she said would train “your own people” to work on the project.

 

Walton said “This is a fresh opportunity to build communities  with a  flowing of  government money. If we don’t take advantage of it now , it will never come again. It is a real possibility for you to build a seamless revitalized community”

 

She sold the concept as being seamless because the new concept of retail, mixed use, and public, affordable and market rate housing would be “sustainable economically and socially and integrated in the host community.”

 

She said that after the zoning was passed, the Housing Authority and developer to be named would participate in a “collaborative planning process”  of 12-18 months. That puts the start of the project into the beginning of 2011, if the HUD money comes on in by WPCNR reckoning.

 

Though the acreage of Winbrook is small (9.7 acres on the city’s West Side), she showed pictures of HUD-financed projects nationally showing how neighborhoods have been made over in Detroit and Chicago. Because of the smaller site, low-rise was not an option.

 

Development in Atlanta: Before above, and after, below.

 

Detroit makeover: Before,left, and after, right.

 

Chicago Changeover: Robert Taylor Homes, left, before transformed into Legends South, right.,

 

She brought on Gary Warshauer who showed for the first time preliminary concepts we showed in the first report on this meeting. Walton  said it was imperative to pass the rezoning first (on Common Council agenda next Monday, July 6), “to provide developers and HUD that the city is in agreement with this (Winbrook Revitalization) and what we are trying to accomplish.”

 

 

The Underground Parking, Warshauer reported, would go under the buildings represented by the white clouds in the slide above. Entrances to the underground parking would be off Fisher Court underground (top of picture), from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, right of picture, and from South Lex left, and East Post Road. Pedestrian pathways are planned to be along the route of the yellow arrows.

 

Warshauer  said the project would have underground parking, and parking for 1,100 units. Parking is one of the premier complaints of residents in Winbrook now, who are on waiting lists for parking slots. He showed for the first time the street level look that would wrap from approximately Slater Center, down Quarropas West around the corner to South Lexington and go up both sides of South Lexington Avenue.  The sidewalk retail would go up three stories, with entrances of the buildings built in and rising 12 stories above the set back. Storyage is approximate.

 

The meager audience “oohed and ahhed” at Warshauer’s sketches, especially the towering entrances to the complex,which Warshauer said would have concierges, video security  and intercom systems.

 

Warshauer reported that after the zoning is approved, “then we would work with you to decide what it is we actually want planned in the Winbrook Community.”

 

After showing designs, Warshauer repeated again, “These are basic concepts, and we look forward to working with you.”

 

Walton retook the podium and took questions from  the audience. She said present residents would be located in buildings in no particular order or sections that they would be mixed in with section 3 residents (earning 80% of median income) and market rate residents.

 

 

Susan Habel, the Commissioner of Planning for the city wrapped the session saying this was a great “step forward,”and a natural progression, and revitalization that was envisioned by the city master plan of 1997 and its recent updating four years ago. The Winbrook Revitalization would extend  also, she said,  working in cooperation of the owners of property on West Post Road and the owners across South Lexington Avenue, including Hector Garced and Swift Electric. She said the White Plains Hospital Medical Center might consider the automobile dealerships (whose land is not in the rezoning coming up Monday) for medical offices for example.

 

Habel told WPCNR privately after the meeting that the key to revitalizing the area was to make it a mixed income neighborhood attractive to retail. She said it has worked for the city because the city mixed in 600 units of affordable housing over the last eight years into market rate buildings which has lead to the city renaissance by bringing in more retail to the city. Speaking to WPCNR, Habel said the mix of residents would be 1/3 present Winbrook tenants, a little less than a third “affordable housing” eligible residents making 80% of median income an a little more than a third, market rate housing.  Size of units and rents were not mentioned in the session.

 

Walton told residents that after zoning was approved First Steps would be as follows:

 

 

 

It was impossible to tell how well these meetings were publicized.

 

 

 

 It is not known for example whether flyers were put under the door of every apartment in Winbrook, whether it was noticed in the hallways. There was no sign on the front door of the Housing Authority advertising the meeting Tuesday morning, and no sign in the entrance saying “Winbrook Revitalization Meeting” here.

 

Towanya Edwards, a resident of Winbrook told WPCNR this morning that no fliers were put under the doors of apartments, to advertise the meeting. She said some persons had said there was a notice on the bulletin board.

 

 

Darryl Jenkins, host of Winbrook Pride, the Channel 76 Cable Television Show, says the meetings were not publicized adequately, if at all. Mr. Jenkins is shown at the Flag Day Ceremony on June 15, where he was honored. He is the lone dissenting voice, though he does not live in Winbrook (he grew up there), to confront the Housing Authority on the project.

 

 Jenkins alleges to WPCNR  that attendees were personally invited, according to a source he knows who lives in Winbrook. Jenkins describes the project as an attempt by business interests  to take over a valuable piece of property and force out the minority residents. (He protested the project to the Housing Authority in a recent meeting with the Housing Authority  Board.) Jenkins described the project to WPCNR as “Black Removal.” He feels the concept  of mixed income residents will not work. He said  to WPCNR that residents able to afford market rates will not live with persons at public housing incomes and that such efforts in the past in White Plains  have failed.

 

To WPCNR’s knowledge this is the first public meeting with residents of the project, other than with members of the Residents Council  since Mayor Joseph Delfino held a meeting five years ago when WPCNR publicized for the first time that the city had a Westside Revitalization plan.

 

There has not been a resident-wide vote on the Revitalization Project, except for the Housing Authority acquiring a letter from the White Plains Resident’s  Council, signed by Pat Diggs, the White Plains Housing Authority Resident Council Council President endorsing the Revitalization Project, in which Ms. Diggs writes:

 

“I am writing to express the resident council and my full support for the White Plains Housing Authority Winbrook RedevelopmentProgram. The White Plains Public Housing Resident Council members are actively engaged stateholders who not only support but helped develop the guiding principles and goals established for the master planning of our new development.

 

We support the plans for a mixed income, mixed use community. We believe that economic diversity can only strengthen our resident base (in Winbrook). New housing choices, commercial/retail businesses and jobs are vital to the economic growth and stability of our community and our residents. The residents of White Plains Housing Authority look forward with anticipation and excitement to our newly revitalized and safe community.”

 

Mayor Joseph Delfino told Winbrook residents on that night when the West Side Revitalization plan was discussed,  ” Make no mistake. Winbrook is here to say.” Only he did not say in what form it is here to stay.

 

The city, Battle Hill, Fisher Hill and the residents of Winbrook are only  beginning to find that out.

Hits: 0

WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. July 1, 2009: The White Plains Police have apprehended and charged three New Rochelle Residents in connection with an armed robbery of a man and woman inside the Chester Maple Parking Garage at  early Sunday morning, June 21 at 12:30 A.M.

 

Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety told WPCNR today, announcing the arrests, “This was a good coordinated effort by the detectives, working hard to get dangerous people off the street. We are working with other departments in the couty who have had similar incidents. We executed warrants on the vehicle used in the crime as well as the suspects’ apartment. “

 

 

Luz Rodriguez

 

Juan Morel

 

William Hernandez

 

Police charged Luz Rodriguez, 25, Juan Morel, 25 and William Hernandez, 28 all of whom live at 550 Fifth Avenue, New Rochelle, with Robbery 1st and Criminal Use of a Firearm 1st, both B-felonies, following the investigation of the robbery “where a handgun was displayed.”

 

Hits: 0

WPCNR CITY HALL CIRCUIT. July 1, 2009 UPDATED, 10:30 A.M. E.D.T.:  City Hall will attempt to stage the 4th of July fireworks this evening, at White Plains High School, scheduled to start at 6:30P.M.  

This will be Mayor Joseph Delfino’s last year to preside over the annual kickoff of America’s Birthday. Plenty of other politicians are expected to circulate, glad-handing the thousands of persons, estimated at times to reach 10,000 people, who turn out for this event.

Thousands Await Fireworks back in  July 2004. Photo, WPCNR ARCHIVES.

 

Hits: 0

WPCNR STAGE DOOR. From The Music Conservatory. June 27, 2009: The Music Conservatory of Westchester, a non-profit community school of the arts in White Plains, NY, has appointed Rye resident Carol Shiffman as Executive Director effective July 1, 2009. The announcement was made by Board President Nancy Goodman.

The Baton, Please:

Carol Shiffman, New Director, The Music Conservatory of Westchester, White Plains

Shiffman succeeds Dr. Aaron Flagg, who leaves to become the next Dean of The Hartt School at the University of Hartford. Shiffman is nationally recognized for her work in arts administration and music, dance, and arts education. Previously the Dean of SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance, Shiffman led one of the country’s preeminent arts institutions with world renowned faculty. She strengthened and expanded the school’s range of course offerings, master classes, and special events, and increased student opportunities for performances both on and off campus.

“We are delighted to have Carol as our new Executive Director. Her breadth of expertise in music and education will allow us to continue to develop programming that meets the needs of an ever-broadening and more diverse Westchester County,” said Goodman.  “Carol’s vast experience in collaboration will provide new opportunities for the Conservatory to create innovative partnerships in our 80 ^th anniversary year and beyond.”

Prior to her position at SUNY Purchase, Shiffman was Chair of the Music Department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA, where she oversaw a 50 percent growth in enrollment. She served as Executive Director of Centrum, a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary arts organization in Port Townsend, WA, expanding their series of workshops, concerts, and festivals. Shiffman spent eleven years at the California Arts Council in Sacramento, CA as their Senior Grants Officer. She is also the founder and former Artistic Director of the Momentum Dance Company and Arts Center, a professional modern dance company based in Los Angeles, CA.

“The Music Conservatory of Westchester is a long-standing treasure in the community,” said Shiffman. “I am delighted to bring my expertise and lifelong passion for the arts to this wonderful and important institution.”

Shiffman received a B.A. with high honors in Comparative Literature with a minor in Dance from the University of Rochester. She completed graduate coursework at the University of California in Dance and at UCLA and California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Education, Arts Management, and Film and Television. Shiffman also studied at L’Université de Paris, La Sorbonne.

The Conservatory, which provides music, musical theatre, and music therapy for people of all ages and abilities, celebrates its milestone anniversary in the 2009-2010 academic year. Last year, the organization set a five-year strategic plan in motion, spearheaded by outgoing Executive Director Dr. Flagg. Under Dr. Flagg’s leadership, the Music Therapy Institute has reached record levels of enrollment. New offerings have also been added in composition, voice, Suzuki, hip-hop, rock, and musical theatre.

In honor of the Conservatory’s upcoming anniversary, plans are currently underway for a year-long series of celebrations. The organization is currently seeking former students, faculty, and staff to share their experiences for use in one of the many special publications tied with anniversary festivities.

For more details on 80 ^th anniversary plans, or to reconnect with Conservatory alumni, please contact offers@musiced.org.

The Music Conservatory of Westchester is located at 216 Central Avenue in White Plains, NY. Registration is always open and financial assistance is available for qualifying students. They can be reached at (914) 761-3900 or by visiting www.musicconservatory.org. Follow the Conservatory on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news and updates.

Hits: 0

WPCNR DPW DAILY. By John F. Bailey. June 25,2009: Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti, when asked when the Department of Public Works would send out detailed official notice of controversial sweeping changes in garbage, recycling, and autumn leaf pickups (previously made by the city of loose leaves at curbside) last night, told WPCNR the new pickup schedule and attendant regulations  would not be implemented until September 1. (The changes were instituted as part of budget-cutting initiatives by the department at the request of the Mayor’s Office.)

Award-winning Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti, speaking on DPW Garage repairs and rolling stock purchases last night. Afterwards he shared the schedule for sanitation changes with WPCNR

Nicoletti told WPCNR the regulations which include consolidation of recycling papers and recyclable containers to same days as garbage pickups; requirement that leaves be bagged for pickup by the owner or owners’ landscape companies; removal of backyard garbage pickup, will be issued August 1 to familiarize the public with them and the new schedules implemented September 1.

It was not clear how delaying the implementation of the new regulations designed to “save” money would save money for the first two months of the new fiscal year without implementing them.

During the Common Council Work Session Wednesday evening, Commissioner Nicoletti presented requests for $300,000 of concrete floor replacement on the 1928 South Kensico DPW garage, and $1,040,000 in bonds for replacement of DPW Vehicles,Refusal Collection Trucks, previously included in the 2009-10 budget which begins being spent in one week.