White Plains Planning Board Advises Against Partial Closing of Hathaway Lane
At the August 19th meeting of the White Plains Planning Board a communication prepared for the city council and voted on unanimously by the Board, said it could not at this point support the partial closing of Hathaway Lane and that the city needed to explore other options.
The lion’s share of discussion at the Board’s monthly meeting focused on the Special Permit application and Site Plan prepared by the French American School of New York (FASNY) for a regional school at the location of the former Ridgeway Country Club.
Indicating that he was not pleased with the apparent lack of effort on the part of FASNY and its representatives to answer specific questions posed by the Board at its previous meeting in July, chairman Michael Quinn was forthright with his contention that the partial closing of Hathaway Lane should be a last resort and not quickly passed through the review process.
Making specific note that FASNY representatives had indicated city staff had told them the best solution to working a traffic configuration off of North Street onto the FASNY campus included a partial closing of Hathaway Lane, Quinn said no discussion had come before the Planning Board previously and as such indicated that as far as he could see not enough effort had been made to find alternative solutions.
Quinn invited White Plains Deputy Commissioner of Traffic and Parking, Tom Soyk, to the Board meeting to explain the communications he had with FASNY about the school’s proposed traffic mitigation plan.
Soyk indicated that when the FASNY plan moved the main entrance to the campus from Ridgeway to North Street to mitigate traffic problems in the neighborhood, it became obvious that in order to maintain safe circulation of cars on the campus, the at-grade intersections on Hathaway became a problem because the movements at those intersections could not be controlled.
The initial solution was to build a major structure, an overpass, which would carry cars, buses and pedestrians over the public street. Soyk told the Board FASNY’s reaction was that it would be too costly. The discontinuance of the portion of Hathaway that was involved became the solution.
Quinn noted that this discussion was not documented anywhere, and that he knew of no precedent where the city had ever closed a residential street for a development.
Further discussion of making Hathaway Lane a one-way street, the placement and phasing of traffic lights on North Street, the addition of left turn lanes and the impact on traffic flow throughout White Plains were also discussed.
Michael Zarin, FASNY’s attorney tried to comment on specific points but Quinn said he would not debate the issue with him, that he should have been present at the previous month’s meeting. Since Zarin had not been available for discussion at that time and had submitted a letter with his responses, that was what Quinn would work with.
In addition to requesting more information about the traffic plan, alternatives to closing Hathaway, the impact of that closing on the immediate neighborhood and how FASNY intends to enforce limitations on the number of cars on the site as well as the access roads those cars take to the site, the Board’s communication to the Council regarding the FASNY site plan included other recommendations and possible action. These included the need to provide photo simulations of the site with the new buildings inserted into them, landscape drawings showing plantings used for screening on a time line from planting to mature growth and through the four seasons, a budget plan for the conservancy, which at this time is not funded, clarification about the 30 percent increase in square footage of the development when the student population had been reduced from 1,200 to 950 annually, and a request that the screening buffer be in place before construction begins to minimize the visual and sound impacts on the neighborhood.
Other development proposals before the Planning Board that night included a preliminary three-lot residential subdivision at 221 and 227 West Street owned by the Windward School.
The preliminary subdivision was approved with one negative vote.
A site plan application for a six-unit townhouse at 40 Chatterton Parkway by the owner Peter Rossi, indicated that an archeologist was required to perform standard monitoring protocol on the site during excavation for foundations and major site structures because of the site’s location near the historic encampment and battlefield of the Battle of White Plains.
The Board also requested that the developer strive harder for better environmental elements in the site design.
Rossi tried to resist both the historic and environmental considerations but was advised to do so to avoid further issues.
The Board also voted unanimously to positively support the DGEIS application by Urstadt Biddle owner of the retail site formerly housing the Borders bookstore to change that approximately 3-acre site from the current B-6 zone to the neighboring CB-3 zone to allow different building configurations, heights and mixed uses.
Bonnie Silverman, owner of the building at 245 Mamaroneck Avenue requested consideration for a zoning change from BR-1 to CB-1 to allow construction of a one-story retail building at the site.
The Board advised Silverman to meet with Planning Commissioner Elizabeth Cheteny to discuss other possible solutions, which they would then discuss at the September Board meeting.
