New Castle Looking to Hire Planning Consultant to Lead Charrettes
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New Castle officials are preparing a Request For Proposal in hopes of attracting a planning consultant who would help lead charrettes to solicit ideas from the community about potential uses for downtown Chappaqua’s municipal land.
The Town Board last week directed Director of Planning Sabrina Charney Hull to prepare an RFP to engage a professional planner who would help shape the ideas that come from the public. Among the properties that could be up for discussion is at least a portion of the train station parking lot and the Recreation Field and Town Hall properties on South Greeley Avenue.
It would be vital to initiate robust feedback from community members about what they would like to see rather than having developers, who prioritize profits, drive the discussion, said Supervisor Lisa Katz. A frequent criticism of the ill-fated Form-Based Code debate that was terminated last year was the lack of charrettes to engage the public about uses for the downtown properties.
“I think that by going out to a process where we’re really engaging the community and all the stakeholders, which can include developers, but I think that’s really the way to approach it, as opposed to just saying bring us your ideas,” Katz said. “Then we have people reacting to an idea instead of really figuring out what it is that we as a community want to see.”
Jeremy Saland voiced skepticism as to whether a charrette process focusing solely on public land would be effective because it wouldn’t necessarily be coordinated with what might be happening on private property. Since local officials are not builders, it might work better if the town also seeks out opinions from developers about how to make the best use of some of the municipal land, he said.
“If someone comes to redevelop the rec field in five, 10, 20 years, you’ll have the same conversation again,” Saland said. “So I think maybe it’s a better approach to say we’re considering potentially down the road to do something in the hamlet, but we need a holistic view.”
Councilwoman Tara Kassal said that can be realized by bringing in an expert who can assist the town.
“I think you can achieve that through the charrette process,” Kassal said. “You can have developers come in and present different concepts that we might consider, but that’s facilitated by an entity that’s well-versed in master planning and understands how do we actually bring the Comp Plan and the vision associated with that to fruition.”
Saland also said he feared that the process could get bogged down for another five years, especially if the proposals from the community for one reason or another can’t be achieved.
But Councilwoman Victoria Tipp said the charrette process with the help of the planning consultant would separate the unrealistic ideas from the feasible ones and take into account the zoning and infrastructure issues of the downtown.
Katz said the RFP process could be done during the summer months in hopes of retaining a consultant for a charrette in the fall. While the town would not be bound to follow recommendations from the charrettes or the consultant, Katz expressed confidence it would yield information that would be helpful.
“We’re going to solicit responses from real master planners and urban planners who can come in and give us their vision of how this would work,” she said.
Form-Based Code FGEIS
The board also held a separate discussion on creating a formal resolution on abandoning the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement (FGEIS) that was adopted during the Form Based Code discussions.
Katz said while the results of last year’s election put an end to the Form-Based Code discussions, it never officially ended.
“So I think from a housekeeping perspective, we want to formally abandon that process and the FGEIS,” she said.
Despite the former Town Board discontinuing the Form-Based Code last fall, its opponents fear that a future board could resurrect the document and implement it for the entire 72 acres that was initially studied.
Town Attorney Edward Phillips explained that the next action the town would take is to create a findings statement under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). He suggested that instead of commenting on all 13 categories, some of which may no longer be relevant, the board should focus on the two areas of most concern – community character and zoning that would be inappropriate for the town.
Phillips is expected to return with a draft resolution at the board’s next meeting.
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/
