Relocating Highway Garage Sparks First Board Split Vote
It didn’t take long for the new five-member Yorktown Town Board to have a split vote.
At the first official meeting that newly elected councilmen Gregory Bernard and Tom Diana were permitted to participate, the Republican duo joined Supervisor Michael Grace in authorizing plans to go forward for the relocation of the town’s highway garage and development of a mixed-use project that Grace feels could be the centerpiece of downtown revitalization.
Democratic Town Board members Susan Siegel and Vishnu Patel voted against the resolution at the work session at Town Hall, maintaining the town had other higher priority items to deal with where $2.5 million could be utilized.
“I agree with the concept of relocating the garage out of the business hamlet. I agree that the relocation makes sense from an efficiency perspective. And I agree that returning the garage property to the tax roll is desirable,” Siegel explained. “However, the question is: Is now the time to pursue this project, especially when we have so many other more pressing needs to attend to, like fixing our existing infrastructure (buildings, roads, culverts, drainage systems, neighborhood flooding, etc.) On what types of projects should town staff be spending their time?”
Plans call for the existing 17,000-square-foot highway garage at the corner of Front Street to be torn down and replaced with a 27,000-square-foot mixed commercial/residential building being dubbed Depot Square. The Highway Department and Parks and Recreation Department would be relocated to an approximately 62,000-square-foot steel butler-type building on Greenwood Street.
Grace said the current Highway Department site received a clean environmental bill of health. He stressed having the two departments under one roof would improve employee efficiency and extend the life of equipment since trucks are now parked outside year-round.
Town officials have estimated they could sell the property for at least $1.5 million, which would then put it on the tax rolls, giving the town about $90,000 annually. The estimated cost of the project is $4 million.
In addition, Grace has touted Depot Square as a lynchpin to drawing residents and visitors in the Yorktown Heights area.
“What is it that draws people into Yorktown Heights now? Absolutely nothing,” Grace remarked. “There is nothing aesthetically pleasing about the Heights area, I hate to say it. If you approve it and build it, most likely they will come. This has great merit. I’m not saying this is a panacea for it all but it’s a start. To not go ahead with it would be a crime. There’s going to be return on investment at some point.”
Siegel wasn’t buying Grace’s arguments, saying the town has been financially strapped for the last three years to even been able to install an emergency generator in the Yorktown Community Cultural Center or fix a leaking roof in Town Hall.
“Of course, we should be doing all we can to revitalize the Heights business hamlet. However, it’s wishful thinking to suggest that one new commercial building, with no committed tenants, located on the fringe of the business hamlet and across the street from an auto body shop, down the street from parked garbage trucks and in the path of school buses and UPS trucks, will, by itself, make Yorktown a destination,” she said.
Highway Superintendent Dave Paganelli is on board with the highway garage finding a new home and Grace noted the City of Peekskill has some buildings it recently acquired on a former recycling operation that Yorktown might be able to obtain.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
