Armonk’s Summit Club Receives Final Approval for Golf Course Condominiums
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After more than a decade of debate, reworked plans and a rezone, The Summit Club received site plan approval last week for its 72-unit luxury condominium golf course community in Armonk.
By a 4-0 vote, the North Castle Planning Board gave the green light to the residential segment of the project at the 156-acre site on Bedford Road. Close to 130 of those acres comprise the golf course, which is currently in operation.
The process has been an arduous one for project principal and town resident Jeffrey Mendell, whose partnership bought the old Canyon Club in 2009 and was renamed Brynwood before multiple iterations of a residential community were offered for over a decade. After some changes in partners, it became The Summit Club.
“We’ve been at this a long time,” said Planning Board member Michael Pollack. “There have been a lot of changes to the plan that have been made to the benefit of the project and I think it’s a good plan.”
When fully built, there will be 72 units in six buildings consisting of 180 bedrooms.
Attorney Mark Weingarten, representing The Summit Club, said although the approval includes the seven mandatory affordable units on site, an off-site location is still being sought. There has been talk of relocating the units to Armonk developer Michael Fareri’s property at 470 Main St. but so far there has been no agreement at that spot or any other location.
“What this reflects is right now we have a project that requires us to have these units on site,” Weingarten said. “It’s no secret we’re trying to locate them off-site. We may or may not have the ability to do that, but we do want the time to be able to accomplish that.”
Although final approval was granted at the Planning Board’s Aug. 7 meeting, the Summit Club will have to complete a long list of conditions before being able to obtain its building permit to begin site work, said Director of Planning Adam Kaufman.
The Summit Club’s representatives had to navigate several major environmental hurdles over an extended period of years in order to gain their approvals. Perhaps the most important was the water source for its residences. Originally, the applicant was going to tap into wells that were part of North Castle’s Water District #2, but couldn’t find enough water.
Instead, The Summit Club will draw water from wells that are on its property and become a subdistrict of Water District #2, Kaufman said. Studies have shown that the water sources are not interconnected, he said, which had been a concern from some nearby residents that the golf course community would negatively impact wells on neighboring parcels, including Windmill Farm across Route 22.
An on-site sewage treatment plant will be operated by the community’s Homeowners Association.
Another environmental issue – whether to have a third-party holder of a conservation easement as an extra layer of protection to prevent the golf course acreage from ever being developed – was also resolved this spring. The Town Board concluded that the agreement between the town and Summit prohibiting development on the nearly 130 acres should the golf course fail or cease to operate is sufficient protection, although it theoretically could be reversed by a future Town Board.
Supervisor Michael Schiliro said he was comfortable with the protections that are now in place for the site.
“We are fine the way we did it and we hope the project gets built and it protects 120-plus acres with that conservation easement, so basically it’s a golf course or it’s open space,” Schiliro said.
Correction: In the original version of this article, the 72 units of housing were incorrectly referred to as townhomes. They will be condominiums. The Examiner regrets the error.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/