Something was wrong from the beginning.
Back in 1994, the Town of Greenburgh, at the urging of
Supervisor Paul Feiner, enacted a law requiring all bicycle riders in the Town to
wear a helmet. Yet, in 2016, on The Jefferson at Saw Mill’s website, a stock photo of two millennial
bike riders without helmets was displayed as they ostensibly planned their ride along the adjacent South County Trail bike path. The posted rules on the South County Trail also require all
users to wear a helmet.
This disconnect hinted at one of the reasons Texas based Jefferson developer JPI
is gone - their failure to know the local terrain. The failure experienced by
JPI is no different from that of not knowing your customer as The GAP found out
when they tried to change their longstanding logo (Gap blunders) or when Netflix tried to split itself Quickster dies quickly.
In the “what were they thinking” department, by proposing a
mega-development like nothing ever seen in our area, JPI caused an equal and
opposite unprecedented counter-reaction including multiple hearings on the
scoping document for the draft environmental impact statement. It seems the schools in Texas (where the fossil record is called "sketchy") do not teach the fact of life (those are not taught either) that actions lead to reactions.
The “word on the Internet Highway” (the successor to the “word
on the street” (which is the successor to “a little birdie told me”)) is that JPI essentially gave up once they
realized the ditch they had stumbled into, to wit, the large number of environmental matters they needed to study to comply
with the terms of the scoping document. This is where the rubber meets the road and JPI was simply outgunned by the home team.
Things continued to go wrong for the developer. Out of
nowhere, The Lofts on 9A were approved on top of The Water Wheel and the Toll
Brother’s Preserve projects - all in the Ardsley School District. The claim that
millennials would live at The Jefferson was strongly disputed and was even unsupported by JPI's own "experts." An assertion
that The Jefferson was a transit oriented development was shown to be unabashed nonsense. After all, New York is where
people often say “if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.” The developer's involvement with a true transit oriented development in Farmingdale proved that
what JPI was saying with respect to the Jefferson was propaganda. Residents were angry that JPI was
seeking to exploit the South County Trail for its own purposes while making no
effort to enhance it.
No one was fooled. No
one drank their Texas Kool-Aid. Not one
person spoke up in favor of The Jefferson at any public meeting. Not one letter of support was
written to the local newspapers. Instead, lawns in Ardsley and the Rivertowns were covered with brightly covered signs saying "NO 2 the Jefferson!" Executives at Akzo Nobel started receiving FedEx envelopers decrying the project and asking why a former good corporate neighbor was saddling Ardsley with this monstrosity.
It is dangerous to believe in your own press releases. Undoubtedly JPI was accustomed to receiving accolades from fawning
politicians over many years that they fell victim to the problem of never
facing rough seas – it makes for a poor sailor.
Things continued to slide for JPI. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump,
imperfect as they are, nevertheless came out of nowhere and exposed the status
quo as serving themselves and their special interests and not the public interest. Sanders raised millions from
small contributors without political action committees. Trump
harnessed free media attention and Twitter to decimate the Establishment‘s
candidates. They both gave voices to those who felt shut out of the
machinery of political decision making and brought in millions of new voters. This undoubtedly gave heart to the core of
volunteers and local officials in Village Government and on the Ardsley School
Board to resist the claims of local cynics who were saying don’t bother – the moneyed
interests will prevail. JPI is the largest multi-family developer in the country - they will get what they want with minimal compromise. However,
as Hillary Clinton said, "it takes a village."
Other problems
nibbled at JPI – critical blog posts exposing their Fair Housing Settlement
with the Justice Department, online petitions, and Facebook and YouTube posts
showing the growing traffic problems near Lawrence
Street even before Rivertowns Square was completed. Even the “A Better Greenburgh” blog, a nominal backer of something (albeit smaller) being built at the site, reversed course and came out against the project. Serious questions were raised with Albany legislators about the brownfields cleanup law and why it was designed to subsidize luxury development in an affluent area without creating real jobs. Community members cautioned against effectively removing industrial land from the mix of possible future uses. The Town's draft "Comprehensive Plan" came in for close scrutiny and revealed the "you can drive a mack truck through it" ambiguous (and somewhat pro-developer) language the plan contained when it came to the supportive areas of the South Research and Development Cluster.
To paraphrase Bob Dylan’s lyric from “Ballad of A Thin Man”
something was happening here but JPI did not know what it was. Soon the motto “Don’t Mess with Texas” changed to “Don’t Mess with a Southern Westchester suburban activist with a
smart phone and a kid who plays a lot of Minecraft.” As the day of reckoning came near, even the
Cleveland Cavaliers came back from a historically hopeless 3-1 deficit to win the
NBA Championship in Game 7.
The battle against The Jefferson was fought for many reasons
but it was primarily waged by those with children in the Ardsley School
District. Here is the School District’s Vision Statement which amply describes the parents of those children who in a few months successfully mastered the land use process and forged new political alliances throughout the entire Town:
Building on a tradition of academic excellence and success for every student, we cultivate passionate learners and informed global citizens who actively influence their world.
Guiding Pillars:
Academic Excellence - Maximizes personal potential and inspires collective achievement, so mastering curricular content is only the starting line and learning is tailored to needs, strengths and interests.
Success for Every Student - Is measured in a variety of ways. Our view of success reaches beyond academic performance and encompasses resilience, flexibility, tenacity, curiosity, creativity, empathy, determination and athletic and artistic expression.
Passionate Learners - Take full advantage of learning opportunities. They assume responsibility for their own learning, have courage to explore and take the initiative to discover their interests. They are self-motivated, demonstrate confidence, collaborate freely and share their discoveries.
Global Citizens - Engage in active inquiry to acquire knowledge that reflects the depth and breadth of the collective human experience. They influence their world by making positive, proactive choices about what to do with what they know to collaboratively effect change."
Paul Nitze wisely observed, “One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve.” The local global citizens who, in collaboration, sent JPI back to Texas, never forgot what they were trying to achieve – Stopping the Jefferson. They rose to the challenge at a time when, as Nitze said with respect to his involvement with the events of his era - an important thing needed to be done.
