Toll Brothers’ Thornwood Proposal to Be Age-Restricted Townhomes
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Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers has agreed that a 162-unit townhouse project at the Legion of Christ property in Thornwood would be an age-restricted project and that all full-time residents must be over 18 years old.
The arrangement with the Town of Mount Pleasant was publicly announced by Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi at a Mar. 4 forum with residents and confirmed last week by David Steinmetz, the applicant’s attorney.
Steinmetz and other representatives for Toll Brothers made a presentation for “age-targeted” housing for the property before the Town Board last October, the same site as the halted Baker Residential cluster development that was approved in 2018 but never built. Age-targeted housing would have been intended for the empty-nester and the active older adult looking to downsize from a single-family home but would not carry mandatory age restrictions to live there.
However, at the October work session and in subsequent discussions, town officials remained adamant that they wanted assurances any project at that site would be for older adults with no additional schoolchildren for the Mount Pleasant School District.
“Supervisor Fulgenzi and the Town Board made it quite clear that they had serious concerns about the possible impact on the school district and they genuinely wanted to see the project-oriented toward area seniors,” Steinmetz said. “So, as a result, Toll Brothers will be submitting an application for 162 age-restricted townhouse units and our entire development team looks forward to working cooperatively with the Town Board and the staff.”
Under an understanding reached between the developer and the town, there will be a declaration that would require at least one member of every household to be 55 years old and that no one under the age of 19 could be a full-time resident.
Fulgenzi said he and other members of the Town Board were pleased that they were able to work with Toll Brothers to provide housing for older adults in town as well as avoid any negative impact on the school district.
“We worked with Toll Brothers over the past year of so to try and come up with something we thought would benefit the community the most,” Fulgenzi said. “The property was going to be developed no matter what.”
The town will also receive 18 acres from Toll Brothers near its community center, which the town is hoping to use for recreational purposes.
Many of the features that Toll Brothers had proposed last fall will remain similar, with mainly three-bedroom units along with some two-bedroom residences with an office or den, Steinmetz said. There will be the same or slightly reduced disturbance. The age-targeted plan proposed 160 units.
Steinmetz expected a rezoning application to be submitted to the town in the next couple of weeks. The applicant would need a rezoning from the Office Business district to a residential multifamily zone.
A rezoning application submitted last fall was never referred to the Planning Board.
The Baker Residential plan called for 73 single-family houses, each with three of four bedrooms.
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/
