FASNY Decision Moving Forward
A Special Meeting of the White Plains Common Council was called for Tuesday, March 14 (and has been cancelled and rescheduled for Wednesday, March 15 at 6 p.m. due to the blizzard), to review and vote on a resolution to determine whether or not the Alternative Site Plan/Special Permit application put forward by the French American School of New York (FASNY) involves an Environmentally Sensitive Site. The new plan is part of the court-ordered Stipulation Agreement between the school and the City of White Plains.
A letter submitted to Mayor Tom Roach’s office on March 10, from Planning Commissioner Christopher Gomez after thorough investigation, has determined that the currently proposed development site, formerly known as Site A, is indeed an Environmentally Sensitive Site.
Gomez’s advice to the Mayor and Common Council based on analysis is that the property “is located within approximately 70 feet from a stream and therefore meets the water resource threshold of Section 3-5-3 (a) ‘Any site, property or location which is traversed by, on the bank of, or within one hundred (100) feet of any river, Creek, stream, brook or other flowing watercourse,’ to be classified as an environmentally sensitive site pursuant to Chapter 3-5 Standards and Regulations to Protect and Preserve Environmentally Sensitive Sites and Features of the Municipal Code.”
The resolution before the Mayor and Council also defines the former FASNY ‘Site A’ as Environmentally Sensitive according to Section 2.4 of the Zoning Ordinance.
Karen Pasquale, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, told The White Plains Examiner on Monday that Mayor Tom Roach is supportive of the resolution and intends to vote in favor of the findings at the Special Meeting of the Council.
Pasquale further said that if the Council approves the resolution, determining that the Site is Environmentally Sensitive, any further vote on the Site would require a super majority (5 to 2) vote of the Council for approval.
The Council is also expected to approve scheduling of a public hearing on the FASNY Special Permit for Wednesday, April 5 at 6 p.m. in the White Plains Performing Arts Center, at City Center, White Plains.
On the previous day, Thursday, March 9, Attorney Howard Avrutine, representing the Gedney Association, which has aggressively opposed the FASNY plan, sent a letter to Mayor Roach and members of the Common Council suggesting that a letter from FASNY’s lawyer, Michael Zarin, had stated that “a failure by the Common Council to ‘delist’ parcel A as an Environmentally Sensitive Site or Feature as defined in Section 2.4 of the Zoning Ordinance … ‘would undermine one of the essential premises of the Stipulation Agreement’.”
Avrutine’s letter further purports that the Zarin letter suggests a “secret deal” exists between FASNY and the Common Council not set forth in the Stipulation Agreement.
The White Plains Examiner has not seen the “Zarin letter” and cannot confirm nor deny the alleged contents, which were also made public in a press release issued by Kevin Ryan Public Relations, Inc., a firm recently hired by the Gedney Association.
The press release reiterated the contents of Attorney Avrutine’s letter further surmising: “The Zarin letter also purports to threaten the Common Council with litigation should it not accede to FASNY’s demands. This cynical attempt to intimidate the Common Council is causing great consternation in the community. It is truly a sad circumstance that FASNY has now degraded the process to the point of attempting to bully the Common Council into approving its ill-conceived project.”
When asked Friday evening for comment on the allegations in the Gedney Association press release, FASNY’s public relations representative Geoff Thompson replied by email. “The court had given the city until January 20 to take a vote on the reduced project. Our attorney sent a letter to the city within the last 48 hours calling for a vote to be taken. All the nonsense about “secret backroom deals” is absurd and just blowing smoke into the room. I hate to use the term, but this is starting to look like a version of ‘fake news’,” Thompson said.
