Navajo Fields Reps Seek Inclusion in Lake Osceola Overlay District
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Representatives of a proposed mixed-use development in Yorktown urged the town board last week to enable the project to move forward by including the almost 50-acre property in the Lake Osceola Overlay District.
The property, known as Navajo Fields, is currently zoned for single-family homes on two-acre lots. Developer Charles Diven is looking to build 254 units, a 23,000-square-foot athletic structure and 4,000 square feet of retail space, along with expanding the existing ball fields.
The Lake Osceola Overlay District, approved in 2021, allows mixed-use developments with more than double the density permitted in the town’s current multifamily zones.
In exchange for being included in the district, Diven is offering to construct a sewer trunk line from the property along East Main Street to Hill Boulevard where it would connect to an existing line that hooks up with Westchester County’s sewage treatment plant in Peekskill.
“It’s about everything that the overlay district was intended to do,” Michael Grace, one of Diven’s attorneys, told the town board at the Dec. 10 work session. “On the broad strokes, the positive environmental outcomes of having this project developed are undeniable. There are a lot of major benefits with this project right on its face.”
As he has done in the past, Grace stressed the benefit to the town and residents in the area of the developer offering to pay the expenses involved in providing a sewer hookup.
“You’re not going to be able to do it any other way,” Grace maintained. “Sewers are desperately needed.”
Councilwoman Susan Siegel countered even with sewers, the development, which has been called Creative Living and Hidden Valley, was “questionable” with the traffic constraints on Route 6N (East Main St.)
“If they weren’t going to do the sewers, they wouldn’t be asking to be in the overlay district,” Siegel said. “It’s a quid pro quo.”
Current access to the site is from Navajo Road to the west and Route 6N to the north. The property, which is adjacent to Whispering Pines, borders the Town of Somers to the east and the Town of Carmel to the north.
Siegel and Supervisor Ed Lachterman agreed the area would benefit by other properties near Navajo Fields being added to the overlay district.
“The area is very depressed. The area needs a lot of work,” Lachterman said.
Councilman Sergio Esposito wasn’t so sure, saying, “It would be preferable to have it contiguous, but I don’t think it’s mandatory. There are some questions that we need answers to even consider the inclusion.”
Mark Blanchard, another attorney for Diven, said his client was hoping to start the public hearing process for the project in January.
Grace First Appearance Since Ethics Flap
It was the first appearance for Grace before the town board since Examiner Media published an article on Sept. 17 reporting Lachterman has used Grace in a personal injury lawsuit against the Greenburgh-Graham Union Free School District.
According to legal papers filed in state Supreme Court, Lachterman filed a lawsuit on June 19, 2019, to recover monetary damages for injuries he says he sustained on July 25, 2018, while attempting to break up a brawl between two high school students while he was providing food services to the district. The case is still ongoing.
Yorktown’s Board of Ethics advised Lachterman and Councilwoman Luciana Haughwout, who rents office space from Grace across from Yorktown Town Hall, to publicly disclose their ties to the former supervisor whenever he appears before the town board.
Prior to last week’s discussion, Lachterman and Haughwout did follow the Board of Ethics’ recommendation.
Grace also gave a declaration of his own.
“Full disclosure, I seem to know all you people at some time,” he said. “You’re all very familiar with me and I’m very familiar with you.”
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
