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.

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Perkins Eastman rendering of the new apartment and retail complex present by Maple and Broadway LLC, subsidiary of Lunnar Corporation to the Common Council Monday evening.. This aerial view is looking northeastl. Maple Avenue is street on the right. South Broadway is in the foreground.

WPCNR EAST SIDE STORY. Special to WPCNR from Jim Benerofe. July 27, 2015:

At the Common Council Special Meeting Monday evening, Maple & Broadway LLC, subsidiary of Lennar Corporation,  the second in the nation builder of family housing communities, unvieled their vision for replacement of the White Plains Pavilion Mall, should they close on the property.

View of the Lunnar proposal looking northwest. The Crowne Plaza is in the right of the picture. Maple Avenue is on the left, where it curves onto South Broadway. Hale Avenue is the street in the front of the picture.

Jim Benerofe of suburbanstreet.com told WPCNR that the giant developer plans a rental housing development consisting of two apartment towers of 24 stories, with a total of 707 rental units, 70 or 10% of them at “affordable housing” rates and the rest (631) at market rates.

Benerofe said price points were not brought up. He said that a principal of the Lennar subsidary at the meeting said there was to be 85,000 square feet of retain and would consist of a majority of new restaurants. There would be separate parking for residents and retail patrons.

A feature Benerofe said included two swimming pools on each top floor of the two buildings.

Benerofe noted the proposal “makes a lot of street sense” compared to the original Urstadt Biddle proposal. Urstadt-Biddle of Stamford sold the property to Lennar this month. Retail will be on the streets of Maple and Broadway with the apartments being on the interior. The previous project had retail on the street, and inside the complex and contailed a hotel and apartments.

The proposal will be presented to the Common Council next Monday, August 3 in a televised meeting. Councilpersons Dennis Krolian and James Kirkpatrick were not present.

In announcing the proposed acquisition in May Urstadt Biddle said in a news release:

” In November 2014, the City of White Plains approved the Company’s request to change the zoning of the property to allow its development as a mixed-use property containing residential apartments above ground level retail and restaurant uses. The contract contains several contingencies that need to be satisfied in order for the transaction to close, and there is the possibility it may not close.”

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WPCNR HOUSING GO ROUND. From the Westchester Department of Communications. July 26, 2015:

Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino Thursday strongly defended the town of New Castle and Westchester County against federal accusations that it has discriminatory housing policies.

At one point Astorino knocked on Mrs. Clinton’s door to see if she was home.  He gave his phone number to an aide who said Mrs. Clinton would call him back.

Astorino said he wants to ask her whether “she believes the town she lives in is discriminatory, and whether she, as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, supports the current administration’s radical housing policies.  It would give many of her neighbors in town and throughout the county some comfort to hear her respond ‘no’ and ‘no.’”

Astorino stood in front of the residence of New Castle’s most famous resident, Hillary Clinton, as he warned that home rule, a power long cherished in New York and which gives localities the ability to pass laws to govern themselves as they see fit, is being threatened by an increasingly abusive and overreaching federal government intent on socially re-engineering America’s suburbs.    

“What’s at stake is who controls the future of our towns, villages and cities across the nation – the people who actually live in them, or unelected bureaucrats operating out of cubicles in Washington,” Astorino said.  “What’s new is that, if changes are not made, local control of your neighborhood is on the way out.”

The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) wants Westchester County held in contempt of court and fined $60,000 a month, stemming from the reclassification of 28 affordable housing units in the Chappaqua Station development. The fine is based on a fee schedule that’s not included in the settlement.

In December, the Department of Justice said that the 28 units should count towards the 2014 benchmark for financing under the 2009 federal housing settlement, which calls for the building of 750 units of affordable housing in 31 mostly white municipalities.

But seven months later, the DOJ filed legal papers saying the court should pay no attention to the letter, the units shouldn’t count and the county should be held in contempt.

“The federal government’s assault on our local communities in Westchester is dumbfounding, shocking, and counterproductive,” said Astorino.

Astorino said two largely unnoticed events – the Supreme Court’s decision on disparate impact and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) new rules on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing – put unprecedented power in the hands of Washington bureaucrats.

Astorino explained:  “Here’s how it works. HUD decides whether your neighborhood meets the quotas the agency believes represent the proper balance of race, income, education and other demographic features.  If the zip code doesn’t measure up, HUD then prescribes corrective measures, which essentially come down to running roughshod over local zoning so HUD can socially engineer the character of your community to bring it in line with its quotas.”

Long Island Congressman Peter King also criticized HUD’s latest assault on Westchester in a statement:  “When I spoke to Secretary Castro last month, he said that HUD uses ‘mission-driven flexibility to work with communities to meet the goals of programs,’ but there is a clear contradiction between what the Secretary said in his testimony and the actions of HUD’s federal monitor. If the goal is to build affordable housing, then requesting contempt of court orders and seeking penalties is completely counterproductive – the litigation will only slow the process down and make it more difficult in the future for municipalities to provide affordable housing.”

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PCNR THE FEINER REPORT. From Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner. July 23, 2015:

Greenburgh Councilman Francis Sheehan, Town Attorney Tim Lewis and I had a very constructive meeting with the leadership of Pet’s Alive this morning. Our goal is to work cooperatively to keep the no kill animal shelter open.  Pet’s Alive is holding a Board meeting early next week and we agreed to meet again next Thursday morning –continuing our dialogue.   We discussed the deed restriction on the property which limits development potential on the property. The deed restriction states that the property shall be used “solely and exclusively for park, recreational, or general municipal purposes or as an animal shelter in perpetuity.”

Will keep you updated.

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Part of the crowd of 80 persons who came out to protest and seek solutions to the possible sale and closing of Pets Alive in Elmsford at the Greenburgh Town Hall. Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner below called the meeting in response to phone calls and e-mails outraged at the Pets Alive plan to close the shelter. Photos by Peter Katz

WPCNR HUMANE NEWS. By Peter Katz. Special to WPCNR. 

(Greenburgh, NY – July 22, 2015)

Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner this evening told about 80 animal activists gathered at Greenburgh Town Hall that a deed restriction prevents Pets Alive, the current operator of what had been the Elmsford Animal Shelter, from selling the property to a developer or putting it to any commercial use.

Pets Alive had announced that it would close the shelter in the next couple of months, move any remaining animals to its shelter in Middletown, NY, and then sell the Elmsford property.

The deed restriction had been found and confirmed earlier today by Greenburgh Town Attorney Timothy Lewis and Town Board Member Francis Sheehan, both of whom attended the meeting. Feiner suggested that Pets Alive had hoped to receive from $3-million to $4-million for the property, for which it had paid only $10 in a land donation arrangement involving Greenburgh and Westchester County. At the time, the animal shelter had been operating in inadequate facilities off Saw Mill River Road, fairly close to some residences. The new location west of property which had been the Elmsford Drive-In Theater and now is Sam’s Club was a vast improvement.

Representatives of several animal rights groups in Westchester attended Wednesday evening’s meeting, as did a number of volunteers from the Pets Alive facility. There was a consensus that Westchester groups and animal lovers would be successful in running a new shelter at the Elmsford site, and Feiner took the role of catalyst to bring interested individuals together. He distributed questionnaires to help identify those in attendance and to begin assembling the talents needed for such a project.

Feiner said he would be meeting with representatives of Pets Alive in his office at 9 am Thursday. He, Lewis and Sheehan expressed the opinion that discovery of the deed restriction changes the dynamics of the situation, and provides tremendous leverage in negotiations with Pets Alive. Lewis explained that the restriction, which was in the property deed signed in the 1980’s by former County Executive Andrew O’Rourke, runs with the land and is binding on any entity holding title to the land.  It specifies that the land can only be used for parks and recreational purposes, for municipal purposes, or for an animal shelter.

While Pets Alive has stated that repair and maintenance costs for the current building have skyrocketed and the building is unsound, several people expressed doubt about such being the case. Town Attorney Lewis noted that the building inspector has the final say as to whether a building is structurally sound, and Greenburgh’s building inspector has not declared the shelter to be unsound.

Some volunteers at the current shelter expressed concern that older dogs, who have been unwanted for adoption and have called the shelter home for years, would not survive a change in surroundings to Middletown. The current shelter in Elmsford is on more that 5 acres of land and has more than 30,000 square feet of enclosed space.

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