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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 21st 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.
