North Castle Approves Rezoning of Former MBIA Site for 175 Units
The North Castle Town Board approved the zoning change for the 175-unit residential project for the Airport Campus parcel on King Street in Armonk that would repurpose one of the town’s long-dormant corporate parks.
By a 4-1 vote, the board rezoned the 39-acre former MBIA site from Designed Office Business to multifamily residential for the 125 market-rate townhomes that will be age-targeted and to multifamily Senior Citizen Housing for the empty office building, which will be adaptively reused for the 50 age-restricted two-bedroom rental apartments.
Supervisor Michael Schiliro said the extensive public hearings and various changes to the plan was at times tedious but made the application stronger. The current ownership group bought the property in 2015 and originally hoped to attract other commercial tenants, then later proposed a hotel with housing.
It will now head to the Planning Board for site plan review.
“This project took a long time to get here and improved over time because the original was much larger because the original had a hotel, an apartment building that was too tall and 22 townhomes,” said Supervisor Michael Schiliro. “That’s all gone. This is a much better project and I want to give the applicants credit just on stamina.”
During last Wednesday evening’s final public hearing session on the rezone, extended discussion centered between officials and representatives for the Airport Campus group on whether the applicant should be forced to guarantee at least half of the market-rate townhomes have primary bedrooms located on the lower floor of the units.
Councilman Matt Milim pressed the point, arguing that unless there is certainty that at least half of the units will have a first-level primary bedroom it’s really not age-targeted housing because more families with school-age children might be attracted to the development.
Milim stressed that they were able to secure a 60 percent threshold with the 80 market-rate townhomes at Eagle Ridge and should do something similar with this project.
Throughout the hearings, Airport Campus representatives have argued that the features of the apartments and it being built with the age-restricted apartment will make it more attractive to unit owners who are at older with children who have completed their K-12 schooling.
“I’ve always understood age-targeted as having the primary bedroom being on the ground floor, and that matters because you’re going to build up having a high percentage of residents who don’t have school-age children, in my mind, if you restrict the units that way,” Milim said.
Airport Campus representatives first relented by going to 25 percent, then after receiving continued pushback from a few Town Board members, agreed to go to 50 percent. Under the current plan, that would require 56 townhomes to have lower-level primary bedrooms after setting aside the 13 affordable units.
While Schiliro and Councilwoman Barbara DiGiacinto believed having a requirement was unnecessary they didn’t object to the stipulation.
The board’s dissenting vote on the rezone came from Councilman Jose Berra. He applauded the effort to repurpose the existing office building for the age-restricted housing but believed in tandem with other projects that have been or potentially will be approved the town may be overburdened.
“I think the traffic and the parking problems will be exacerbated,” Berra said. “I think the baseline has to be looked at in a different way.”
Last month, the applicant announced a nine-acre conservation easement with Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council to help protect the nearby Kensico Reservoir. The latest wastewater treatment facility technology to remove as much as 80 percent of phosphorous from the wastewater will also be employed, far exceeding regulatory standards.
Town officials also want assurances that the developer discloses to all prospective unit owners that they are buying a residence that is about a half-mile from Westchester County Airport and may be prone to noise.
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/
