P’ville Moratorium Likely to Expire as Zoning Revisions Considered
News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
By Ryan Raicht
The Pleasantville Village Board is likely to permit the downtown business district moratorium to expire later this month but it’s unclear what zoning code revisions could be considered to help officials effectively deal with development issues.
Mayor Peter Scherer said last week that there appears to be unanimous support to allow the moratorium to run out on July 30.
“We remain in conversation on whether there are adjustments we might make to the zoning,” Scherer said at the board’s July 10 work session. “Certainly, we are already collectively in the view that there are some items that we want to address in the coming months that may affect our zoning code that likely will take a while to explore.”
Of concern is what will become of the application for the Landmark 444, the former Chase Bank building on the corner of Bedford Road at Wheeler Avenue. The original proposal was to preserve the former building while creating four new adjacent structures containing 36 rental apartments, including 16 one-bedroom and 20 two-bedroom units. Four units would be affordable. One commercial space could potentially house a retail store or professional office.
Earlier this year, the owners sought an exemption from the moratorium to allow them to continue to process the application, but that was denied by the board.
The current 36-unit proposal would see 29 units in newly-constructed areas while seven would be in the existing five-story building.
Some of the changes that were discussed at last Monday’s work session, included the potential to decrease or eliminate the floor-area ratio (FAR) bonus.
“Just based on the average unit size, eliminating the FAR bonus would decrease the number of potential units by about seven,” Scherer said.
The Planning Commission, which met two nights later, also expressed sentiments related to that proposal. Commission member James McDonald called for the zoning code to require all habitable spaces to have direct access to daylight. That issue arose as a result of concern that some units included in the 444 Bedford Rd. project where apartments meet the state building code but does not have a window in both the bedroom and the living room.
McDonald also wants the Planning Commission to have jurisdiction on all elements of the project.
Also discussed at Wednesday’s Planning Commission meeting were updates to the plans of other projects at Great Oak Lane and 52 Depew St.
There were no votes on those applications, as each of the projects still had minor details to be ironed out. However, a vote could be scheduled at the Planning Commission’s next public session.
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