White Plains Considers Light Industrial Mixed Use Zone
There was fervent discussion at the White Plains Planning Board’s November meeting as members talked about a proposed change to the city’s Zoning Ordinance relating to the Light Industrial Districts.
The changes would affect the rear portion of certain properties so that their property lines would lie within the same district as the front portion of the property, and the creation of a new Light Industrial Mixed Use (LI-M) District that would allow residential, retail, hotels and other cultural uses such as libraries and museums in the now primarily industrial area near Westmoreland Avenue.
The resulting resolution is on the Common Council’s agenda for Monday’s (December 1) meeting, and a public hearing is expected to be scheduled for January 5, 2015.
According to Planning Commissioner Elizabeth Chetney the change is intended to maintain the character of neighborhoods with historic buildings dating back before 1940 and to provide mixed-use applications near the train station that would include and incentivize the development of residences.
“We want to repurpose older buildings rather than demolish them,” Chetney said, adding that some of the light industrial uses in the area would still be maintained.
Self-storage facilities, auto repair shops and junkyards do not add vitality to the area and should not be continued uses, Chetney believes.
Fast-food restaurants are also on the “not approved use list”, as are cabarets, but Planning Board members questioned whether that would be too restrictive.
Chetney said that because fast food establishments tend to be automobile-oriented, needing large parking areas, they should be eliminated from the area.
Since the new district would require special permits, the Common Council would act as lead agency on development projects and determinations would be made site by site.
The possibility of 75-ft buildings with no new setback requirements, next to single and two-family homes, in the rezoning proposal, was another cause for concern by some Board members.
Planning Board member Bob Stackpole said that deciding what to allow and what not to allow involves aesthetics and environmental considerations that perhaps should not be made by the Common Council, especially when preservation decisions are being made, which could open the door for political involvement.
Stackpole was also concerned that if uses such as auto repair shops became nonconforming and those businesses wanted to remain in White Plains, where would they migrate to? “Where would the spillover occur?” he asked.
Because the Common Council wanted to get the public hearing resolution scheduled for the next Monday meeting, the Planning Board was pressured to make recommendations when they would have preferred to take more time with the rezoning proposal and look at maps of the area.
Several Board members asked how architectural features of existing buildings are documented, which lead to questions about the Historical Preservation Law that has been drafted and is in process.
Chetney explained that the preservation law would eventually deal with that issue, but that because a commission would be developed and the law had not yet been passed, it would take years before buildings were actually listed.
Despite the fact that everyone on the Board agreed that the Light Industrial Zone is an eyesore in White Plains in its current condition, there was consensus that the city needs a preservation law sooner than later. “We don’t want to do this piecemeal,” Stackpole said.
Earlier in the evening, at the same meeting, the developer of 40 Reynal Road in White Plains came before the Board requesting an eighth extension on the previously approved site plan of what was repeatedly called a severely sensitive environmental site.
Noting that requesting an extension eight times, is a record in White Plains development history, Board members questioned the accuracy of comments by the owner’s representative that material conditions on the site had not changed. A partially submerged bridge that could be altering the hydration in the area was cited.
Stackpole indicated that from a public safety perspective the bridge should be looked at.
Paula Piekos, the resident abutting the site, said she believes flooding in the area is not caused by the bridge and that the 3-foot setback from the flood plain that allows water to rush by the foundations of the proposed development was startling and not responsible.
Members of the Conversation Board requested that the Planning Board once again refer the project out to them because in the eight years members had come and gone and the situation required a new look.
