FASNY Protest Intends Strong Message for White Plains Mayor and Council
Eight Neighborhood Associations representing the majority of residents and some institutions in the south end of White Plains demonstrated Saturday morning against the proposed French American School of New York’s (FASNY) regional school complex on the site of the former Ridgeway Country Club.
The protest brought out over 200 people, carrying signs and placards that spelled out their specific concerns: “Traffic + Pollution = FASNY,” “Save Our Neighborhoods. “Say No to FASNY,” “Say No to the Shrinking Conservancy,” “Keep the Property on Tax Rolls,” “Hathaway Lane Belongs to the People.”
The protestors walked back and forth in front of White Plains High School across the street from the proposed entrance to the FASNY campus. Cars passing in both directions honked approval throughout.
John Sheehan, president of the Gedney Farms Association says FASNY is the most controversial land use project confronting the City of White Plains in the last 25 years.
During the protest Sheehan told The White Plains Examiner that the purpose of Saturday’s demonstration was to: “Urge the Mayor and Common Council to listen to residents, not just Gedney residents, not just North Street residents, not just Wyndham Close residents, but the whole southern end of the city and the 3,000 other residents in the city who signed the petition opposing the project.”
“FASNY is too large for the property the former Ridgeway Country Club had. We fully expect our elected officials to represent us and to vote against this special permit,” Sheehan said.
“No one has ever really discussed how this application doesn’t meet the special permit standard as enunciated in the Zoning Ordinance,” Sheehan added.
The public hearings ended in December, yet there has been no information forthcoming from the city’s administration about when a decision might be made.
“We have heard nothing,” Sheehan noted. “The Administration is still working on it.”
Some residents picketing said that over the past two weeks they had seen traffic counters at numerous locations on neighborhood streets. They wondered why at this late stage information was still being gathered.
“The longer this goes on and we see how all the alternative options for the site plan have failed, it becomes increasingly clear to people in the community – people who formerly supported the plan or were neutral – that FASNY on this site doesn’t work at all,” Sheehan concluded.
