Thank you for voting to reaffirm the Environmentally Sensitive designation of Parcel A of the old golf course property at last night’s Common Council meeting.

FASNY has submitted so many plan changes in the 6 years they have been trying to build in WP that we wanted to provide some factual evidence so our elected officials and residents are on the same page as to what FASNY is really asking the City for.  Unfortunately FASNY’s new site plan submission is their most dangerous plan so far and is a serious threat to the health, safety and welfare of the current 5,000 WP School Children walking, biking and commuting to their 10 existing WP schools on the small country streets without sidewalks surrounding FASNY’s property.  FASNY’s plan is also a threat for Seniors and other Residents walking and riding in the Southend of the City. . .and the bottlenecks from FASNY Traffic are sure to increase Emergence Response Times for many homes.

Since their purchase of the old golf course property 6 years ago FASNY’s plan submissions and communication efforts to the Residents of WP have been plagued with numerous factual inaccuracies.

 And their omission now most likely violates NYS SEQR regulations on “Segmentation”. . .which we will go into in more detail in our next missive.  Why has this City Administration allowed FASNY to submit so many misleading and factual inaccurate plans?

If FASNY when they bought the old golf course property 6 years ago had undertaken a more comprehensive due diligence they would have realized that the property’s wetlands, watercourses and underground streams require more detailed Environmental testing and analyses that in the end could restrict future development.

When we moved to WP back in 1979 our own due diligence indicated that the old golf course was originally created back in the 1920s by covering over underground streams. . .so any type of future development of the property would be problematic.  In fact both FASNY and the Common Council deemed FASNY’s entire property as Environmentally Sensitive back in 2011 and confirmed this again in the December 2013 SEQR Findings report.

So why now after 6 years did FASNY in its latest Site plan try to have the Environmentally Sensitive designation for Parcel A removed?

Unfortunately after 6 years FASNY still does (NOT) have all the information they need with regard to wetlands, watercourses and underground streams in order to determine where it is appropriate to safely build.                  

And we are hopeful that Mayor Roach and Council Members Martin, Kirkpatrick and Smayda will re-consider their support for the outside developer FASNY. . .and try to re-direct their focus back to protecting our own WP School Children.

 All of our Council Members ran for office promising to protect Neighborhoods, Open Space as well as School Children and Seniors. . .and we urge each of you not to betray your own constituents by supporting FASNY’s massive development. . .which threatens Resident safety and zoning protections.

Even if you like the idea of a FASNY school, by all accounts a fine educational institution, as elected officials with your fiduciary responsibility to the Citizens of WP. . .you have to reject FASNY’s latest site submission. . .which is “their most dangerous plan” to date. . .with critical information not included, with numerous factual inaccuracies and with FASNY’s Traffic a threat to WP School Children and Residents.

For us FASNY’s revised plan is really about a massive Construction project in a WP residential community on current Open Space zoned at low density R1-30 on land designated as Environmentally Sensitive where the Traffic volume from FASNY’s “School Population Size” is both dangerous and unmanageable.

When you take a big picture look at the past 6 years. . .unfortunately FASNY picked the wrong location, one in a residential neighborhood, for their massive school. . .and followed up with inadequate due diligence and factually inaccurate plan submissions.  The FASNY lawyers and consultants have no one to blame but themselves.

Our full report with details to follow.

Thanks for your consideration.

Your Truth Police. . .Team Rhodes

Marie and Ron Rhodes

Z A R I N &

STE I N M E T  Z

By HandDeliver

 March 7, 2017

Mayor Thomas Roach and Members of the Common Council City of White Plains

255 Main Street

White Plains, New York 10601

Re:       French-American   School  of  New   York  (“FASNY”)     Subiect Propertv: 336 Ridgewa y (Section 131.14, Block 9, Lot 3)

Dear Mayor Roach and Members  of the Common  Council:

This Letter is being sent on behalf  of the French-American  School  of New  York  to register its concern with respect to the Common Council’s  implementation  of  the  Court  Ordered  Stipulation of Settlement  (the “Stipulation”).

As this Council knows, the Stipulation of Settlement was consummated with the sincere hope of both parties to “in  good faith, diligently  and promptly  take  all reasonable  actions to expedite and facilitate review of the [agreed upon] Alternative Plan,” and to bring FASNY’ s Application for a School to a final vote with reasonable dispatch after almost six long years of review and consternation .

The Stipulation of Settlement was clear that the Public Hearing on the Application would be held no later than January 23, 2017 (75 days after the Council received the complete Alternative Plan Application). It has  not  yet  been  scheduled.  It is FASNY’s  understanding  that the City continues to analyze the Gedney Association’s latest theory  in its war of attrition against  the School that a drainage ditch on the other side of Ridgeway — not even on FASNY property – somehow makes FASNY ‘s property  a  regulated  Environmentally  Sensitive  Site  (“ESS”)  under the City’s Zoning Ordinance. Such a determination would undermine one  of  the  essential premises of the Stipulation of Settlement that FASNY’ s limitation on  its  reduced  Alternative School Plan to Parcel A would  only require a majority  vote.

This latest development is so disheartening because the parties agreed to the Stipulation after an extensive prior Administrative Record in which the City had expressly determined that Parcel A “did not contain, [and is] outside of the applicable buffer areas of environmentally sensitive features. ” Indeed, not only did the White Plains Planning Board, the City Transportation Commission, and the White Plains Design Review Board all endorse the Settlement Stipulation’s reduced Alternative School Plan more than three months ago in November, but FASNY’s consultants and experts, as well as such respected environmental groups as Scenic Hudson, have submitted numerous studies to the City showing that the little bit of water that flows in a narrow opening on the other side of Ridgeway is nothing more than a manmade drainage ditch, and in no way constitutes a natural flowing watercourse warranting special environmental protection as provided in the City’s Code. A copy of the well-reasoned and instructive Scenic Hudson letter is attached.

It remains baffling to FASNY that after all this time, the good faith eff01i of the parties, and the history of this matter that the City would even consider turning its back on the terms and spirit of the Court Ordered Stipulation of Settlement by accepting the Gedney Association’s continued desperate efforts to derail the School, and thrust the parties back into wasteful and unnecessary  litigation.

The question of whether FASNY’s Parcel A is a regulated ESS is not a factual  or  difficult issue. Everyone concedes that there is a ditch  across  Ridgeway  that  drains  mostly  street  runnoff from the area. The runnoff is part of the City’s underground drainage  system,  surfacing on the other side of Ridgeway (off FASNY’s property) for 60 feet, to return to the City’s underground piping system. The City  of White  Plains  DPW map labeling  the feature  as an “open ditch,” showing  all of  the neighborhood  streets that feed the underground  piping  system and ditch, is also  attached.

When distilled, this matter comes down to whether the City’s Municipal Code should be so sweepingly interpreted that a man-made drainage ditch, having no natural features deserving of the environmental protections in the Code, would trigger coverage so as to completely undermine the spirit and intent of the Court Ordered Stipulation of Settlement.

Such an interpretation would not only be in bad faith and violate the fundamental te1ms of the Stipulation of Settlement, but it would undermine a basic tenet of land use law holding that zoning laws, where potentially ambiguous, must be construed in favor of the landowner. FASNY cannot comment on the City’s legal position on this issue because the City has not shared such results with FASNY. This is also of concern in light of the critical nature of this issue in implementing the terms of the Stipulation of Settlement.

It would certainly be difficult to reconcile the City’s adoption of the Gedney Association’s ill-conceived interpretation of the Code in light of the City’s good faith and legal obligations under the Stipulation, when the City’s own Administrative Record in this matter shows that it did not previously consider Parcel A an ESS, and there is tangible evidence in the City’s records that it has never considered drainage features, let alone real natural “flowing watercourses,” on the other side of major roads in determining whether a property is an environmentally sensitive site under the City’s Code.

March  1, 2017

Via Electronic Mail

Mayor Thomas M. Roach and Members of the Common Council City of White Plains

255 Main Street

White Plains, New York  10601

Re:      French-American  School of New York Alternative  Plan Review

Dear Mayor Roach and Members of the Common   Council:

Scenic Hudson, Inc. One Civic Center Plaza Suile 200

We write regarding the matter of the application for approval of an Alternative Plan for development submitted by the French-American School of New York (“FASNY”) to your honorable council, pursuant to a Stipulation of Settlement approved by Resolution  in September  of last year. As you know, Scenic Hudson has in the past expressed strong suppmt for the overall purposes  and specific features of the FASNY project, notably  including  its green design and  open space conservancy that would be open for public   use.

We understand that the FASNY has proposed an Alternative Plan that limits development to approximately 29 acres of the 129-acre site on an area known as Parcel A, on lands that have already been in use as a golf course and parking areas. As noted above, FASNY also proposes a 51-acre public conservancy at no cost to the City, for which  a conservation deed has already   been recorded. The proposal will eliminate the existing impervious surfaces on Parcel A that currently have no stormwater control measures, and replace them with a stormwater basin to capture and treat runoff, while new parking areas with their own stormwater control measures  will be more appropriately located on the site. In addition, the Alternative Plan has been recommended for approval by the City’s Planning Board, Design Review Board, and Transportation Commission.

Scenic Hudson fully supports the intent and purposes behind those sections of the White Plains municipal and zoning codes meant to protect “environmentally significant sites and features” located within the City. As your Municipal Code states, however, the clear intent of these provisions is to protect the City’s “water bodies, watercourses and watersheds, wetlands and aquifer recharge areas, mature trees, habitat for flora and fauna, steep slopes, highly    erodible soils, rock outcroppings, and other natural features of the land.” As we understand it, Parcel A itself contains no environmentally significant features or buffer areas, including wetlands, to  render it an environmentally sensitive site (“ESS”). Nor does the drainage ditch located on the opposite side of Ridgeway Avenue from Parcel A constitute a natural “flowing watercourse” to trigger a 100′ threshold for determining whether a site or feature is environmentally sensitive. Moreover, the location of the drainage ditch on the opposite side of the road means that it is functionally cut off from Parcel A. For all of these reasons, the Alternative Plan is neither    “located on” nor does it “involve” nor “may it affect” an “environmentally  sensitive site or  feature” to even implicate the additional review requirements in the City’s Zoning Code for such natural resources. The plain terms of the City’s code should not be manipulated or stretched  beyond reasonable interpretation in the interest of simply blocking development, rather than pursuit of their true purpose to protect the public health, safety and welfare. Indeed, if all    drainage ditches were deemed a “flowing water course” and thus an environmentally sensitive feature, the absurd result would be that every parcel in the city within  100 feet of a drainage    ditch would be an ESS. This is neither administratively nor substantively   reasonable.

AVRUTINE & ASSOCIATES, PLLC

ATTORNEYS AT LAW

HOWARD D. AVRUTINE                                                                           575 UNDERHILL BOULEVARD

March  9, 2017

 

By email troach@whiteplainsny. gov

Thomas M. Roach, Mayor City of White Plains

City Hall

255 Main Street

White  Plains, New York  10601

 

SUITE 140

SYOSSET,NEW YORK 11791

TELEPHONE (516) 677-9400

FAX (516) 677-9’405

Re:       French-American School of New York (“FASNY”) v. Mayor Thomas Roach and the Common Council of the City of White Plains

Supreme Court of the State of New York, Westchester County Index Number:  2067/2015

Hon.  Joan  B. Lefkowitz

Dear  Mayor Roach:

As you know, this office represents The Gedney Association (hereinafter “the Association”) in connection with certain  issues which  have arisen   in the context  of the above-referenced  lawsuit.

The purpose of this letter is to respond to a letter submitted to your office as well to Members of the Common Council of the City of White Plains (hereinafter “Common Council”) dated March 7, 2017 by Michael D. Zarin, Esq. on behalf of FASNY (hereinafter “Zarin letter”). In sum, the startling and outrageous positions set forth in the Zarin letter are deeply disconcerting to the Association and its membership.

The Zarin letter appears to suggest that a “secret deal” exists between FASNY and the Common Council which is not set forth in the Stipulation of Settlement entered into by the parties. In that regard, Mr. Zarin states that a failure by the Common Council to “delist” Parcel A as an Environmentally Sensitive Site or Feature (hereinafter “ESS”) as defined in §2.4 of the Zoning Ordinance of the City of White Plains (hereinafter “Zoning Ordinance”) and Chapter 3-5 of the City  of White Plains Municipal Code (hereinafter “Municipal Code”) “would undermine one of the essential premises of the Stipulation of Settlement that FASNY’s limitation on its  reduced Alternative School Plan to Parcel A would only require a majority vote”. By that  statement, Mr. Zarin has taken the position that the Stipulation of Settlement requires (i) that the Common Council “delist” Parcel A as an ESS; and (ii) that it approve the Alternative  Plan by a simple “majority   vote”.

This assertion is particularly alarming because the Stipulation of Settlement sets forth no such “essential premise”. Instead, it states at paragraph 2(c) that the Common Council shall “determine whether  the Alternative  Plan  is on, involves or affects any  ‘Environmentally  Sensitive  Site or Feature’ as defined in Section 2.4 of the City Zoning Ordinance.” Itin no manner contains a directive that the Common Council “delist” Parcel A. Instead, it requires only that the Common Council consider the issue. Upon considering the issue, the Common Council can reach no conclusion other than that Parcel A was, is and remains an ESS by virtue of all applicable provisions and definitions set forth in both the Zoning Ordinance and Municipal Code. That is made abundantly clear by the detailed analysis of the issue set forth in the report prepared by Dr. Steven Danzer, Ph.D. dated November 29, 2016 and Dr. Danzer’s supplemental letter dated February 2, 2017, both of which were previously furnished to you, the Members of the Common Council, and the City Clerk. Pejorative references to the watercourse located on the Westchester Hills Golf property as a “drainage ditch” cannot alter that inescapable conclusion. As set forth in my previous submissions and Dr. Danzer’s submissions, it is clear that Mr. Zarin’s attempt to delegitimize Parcel A as an ESS is simply wrong.