Historical Amnesia at The Jefferson

If  you visit the archives of the Ardsley Historical Society, you will learn that Windsong Road was the name of the ancestral home in Whitehaven, Tennessee (now part of Memphis) of female broadcast pioneer Irene Beasley who at one time owned a 50 acre parcel in  Ardsley along Heatherdell Road.  (Elvis's Graceland is also located in Whitehaven).  Ms. Beasley, who after her career in radio ended, later operated a real estate brokerage office at 486 Ashford Avenue starting in 1960, donated the land that became Windsong Road to the Village of Ardsley on the condition that the street always kept that name. Her sister was named Agnes Conners.  That is where Agnes Circle comes from. Ms. Beasley's home in Ardsley belonged to Captain Israel Honeywell. Inside the house is a mural depicting hundreds of years of history of the house which she also called Windsong.   Ms. Beasely is the subject of an online exhibit hosted by the University of Maryland about female broadcasting pioneers.  Irene Beasley

King Street (off Ashford) is also in the Village of Ardsley.  It is named for the  King Pickle Works founded by Capt. John King. As stated in the Spring/Summer 2011 edition of the newsletter of the Ardsley Historical Society as told by a relative of the King family: "By inheritance and intermarriage, the King family became identified with the civic progress of Ashford-Ardsley. To mention but a few, Captain John King gave the land for the Methodist Church, Ralph’s uncle, John Peene King, served as the first local judge and was Sunday School Superintendent for many years. Ralph’s mother played the organ at Church. His uncle, Capt. George W. King, was a Civil War veteran and lived near our Little Red School House."

As has been written earlier on this blog, The Jefferson is located in the Chauncey Fire Protection District. Right across the street is a retail building called Chauncey Square where the New York Sports Club and Oasis Day Spa are located.

So who was Chauncey? If you study the linked map of Greenburgh from 1867 and enlarge it Greenburgh 1867

and look south of Ashford (Ardsley's name prior to its incorporation as a village in 1896), you will see the following names of what are most likely farms or estates in the general area where Chauncey Square is located : Henry Chauncey, Lawrence, and Danforth, the latter being current street names in the same area. The address of the Jefferson is One Lawrence Street. You can also see King's pickle factory on the map. 

The Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad (the "Put") ran along what is now the South County Trail from the Bronx to Brewster in Putnam County. The chief drawback of the Put was its lack of a direct connection to Grand Central Station.  Nevertheless, at the time of its demise, Ardsley (which was known for nearly 60 years from the early part of the 20th century till 1958 when the last passenger car left Ardsley's train depot, as "Ardsley on Putnam") had a 300 member commuter group of riders.  A wonderful photograph of that sad event can be found in Ardsley's Village Hall. 

The station just south of Ardsley on the Put was Chauncey. Along the South County Trail, there is a historical marker recalling the station.  An online rail buff site describes Chauncey as follows:

"Originally known as Odell's, Chauncey was at one time among Westchester's most promising suburban communities. Named for Henry Chauncey whose estate was nearby, the village had its own hotel, post office and fire house.

Industries served by the "Put" at this stop included the Brussels Tapestry Company and Stauffer Chemical. Passengers traveling to and from Children's Village, founded as the New York Juvenile Asylum, also used the Chauncey Station."

An illustration of  what Chauncey was like can be found in the August 18, 1928 New York Times (under Social Announcements) which led off with the planned wedding on September 15 of Katherine Stuart Douglas to Henry Percy Douglas at Glenalia, the summer home of the bride's parents in Chauncey, NY.

As noted in "Pictures of Our Past," by Patricia and Fred Arone, a book about Ardsley, "a picturesque woodland area mid-way between Ardsley and Chauncey was known to local residents as Carroll's Woods. A small gazebo added to the charm of the setting."

A 1963 New York Times article about the closing of the post office in Chauncey revealed that Thomas Carvel lived in Chauncey.  Carvel's ice cream machine patents all used his Chauncey, NY mailing address. (Chauncey's homes (now having a Ardsley postal address) are located in the various Winding Roads section of unincorporated Greenburgh which still retains its rural nature). 

Even a newly built subdivision of single family homes in this section of unincorporated Greenburgh is called Chauncey Estates. 

So how does the name "The Jefferson" fit into the area's interesting history? It doesn't. 

As it turns out, for unknown reasons, JPI/TDI, the developer of The Jefferson, homogenizes all of its developments  under its "Jefferson" brand to wit, Jefferson Plaza in Farmingdale and the Jefferson Residences in White Plains. 

We hope it is not derived from Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America who had deep connections to Texas initially as a soldier in the Mexican War (where he was commanded by Zachary Taylor (who subsequently became the 12th President of the United States)) which began in 1846 and ended with the recognition by Mexico of US sovereignty over all of Texas north of the Rio Grande. In fact, Texas has 32 counties named for confederate soldiers including "Jeff Davis" County. Texas still has a state holiday called Confederate Heroes Day which is celebrated on January 19.

Alternatively, the use of the Jefferson brand may be  intentional for as many local residents and current and former Ardsley officials have observed, the proposed 272 unit project will radically and existentially change the character of Saw Mill River Road and the Ardsley School District.  

As Robert Apter of Ardsley aptly observed in his terrific letter to the Rivertowns Enterprise last week, the  name "Jefferson" should only be known in Ardsley "as being our third President and the title character of a television show from 1975 to 1985."

Let's hope the developers of The Jefferson are reading the Rivertowns Enterprise in Irving, Texas.  

Incidentally, Irving , Texas is named for famed Amercan writer Washington Irving who apparently never set foot in Texas. 

Texas Shill Game

If you watch the Town Board's work session prior to the first scoping session, you will learn the developer of The Jefferson (JPI/TDI) asked the Town Board  to close the  initial scoping session after the public hearing which would  have foreclosed the second public scoping session now scheduled for February 10, 2016.

We wonder which of the following "owners' values"  (listed below) JPI/TDI was channeling when they sought to limit the input of Greenburgh residents which environmental impacts should be included in the final scoping document:

THE OWNERS’ VALUES

• Be faithful & obedient to God
• Be respectful to & help develop all people
• Be committed to excellence
• Be committed to service
• Be a person of character
• Grow profitably

We are certain first and foremost is the one about profit. 

That JPI/TDI doesn't  care much about the environment is not surprising  - its former CEO was one of the largest campaign contributors to former Texas Governor Rick Perry who maintains that climate change is a hoax. As noted in prior blog postings, The Jefferson project does not appear to have a solar energy component and it is not seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, which is the hallmark of green building construction. 

In their various filings with the Town, JPI/TDI is presenting The Jefferson at Saw Mill project as  being a Transit Oriented Development ("TOD") because of its proximity to  the South County Trail which its tenants would use to commute to work.  This nonsense was thoroughly discredited at the first scoping session. It is also the case that JPI/TDI is doing virtually nothing to improve the infrastructure of the South County Trail. Instead it seeks to exploit it as a marketing gimmick. This is nothing short of green "bait and switch."

According to the "experts" at JPI/TDI, the intended residents of The Jefferson are mere millennials who want to live in TODs near walkable downtowns.  This would hardly fit the site they have chosen for The Jefferson (at the corner of Lawrence Street and Saw Mill River Road) which is almost three miles away from the Dobbs Ferry train station. Only one Bee Line bus (the 5 line) appears to service the location.

So it is rather curious to learn that JPI/TDI's current counsel (Neil Alexander of Cuddy & Feder) who is telling us and the Town Board that The Jefferson is the right project (even going so far to claim that no one they met with before presenting it for public consumption was against it) co-wrote an article published in the  November 3, 2015 edition of The New York Law Journal entitled 
"Land Use and Planning: Preventing Flight of Millennials" in which he claims that "Unless suburban municipalities plan to attract the millennial generation, employers will not relocate to the suburban areas."

He then asserts that in order to compete with the the "aesthetic draw to New York City," 
"Westchester, Fairfield, Long Island, and other suburban municipalities must reexamine their local planning goals and transition from "bedroom" communities to communities that facilitate an efficient working and living environment."

The accuracy of these contentions (unlike climate change) is highly debatable. If you look at study after study, the truth is no one knows from year to year what the so called millennials (including the millennials themselves) want or where they desire to live. Moreover, businesses expand or contract for many reasons. Office parks were once the flavor of the day. Now, as is true with, for example, the relocation by General Electric out of  suburban Connecticut, they want to be near a technology hub like the City of Boston. Housing for millennials was not a factor. 

Even before the millennials were discovered as a marketing tool to get municipalities to bend over backward to accommodate developers and ignore the quality of life concerns of local residents, Westchester County and  in particular Greenburgh (in Ardsley and Tarrytown) developed a strong bio-tech presence. Decades earlier and at the very location where The Jefferson is planned to be built, giant chemical companies like Ciba-Geigy, Stauffer Chemical and Azko Nobel had extensive manufacturing and research facilities. Greenburgh Town Board councilmember Diana Juettner's late husband, Paul Juettner, was a patent attorney for Stauffer Chemical. This is why the property is zoned for General Industrial use.

Alexander then writes about JPI/TDI's recent TOD project in Farmingdale, NY in Nassau County on Long Island, Jefferson Plaza where he was also their legal advisor:

"Most important to the attraction of millennials, the development is located diagonally across the street from the Farmingdale train station of the Long Island Rail Road, and is also one block away from Farmingdale's Main Street retail corridor that includes a variety of charming shops and restaurants."

Nevertheless, Alexander and JPI/TDI (whose East Coast office is in Irvington across the street from its train station in true TOD style), are pushing the fiction that The Jefferson,which is nowhere near a train station or a block away from "charming shops and restaurants" is both necessary and good.  

Yes, its good for those who are peddling the snake oil that The Jefferson will help our community "facilitate an efficient working and living environment."

At the next scoping session, lets ask that it include the cost of giving these hucksters a one way ticket  back to Irving, Texas.

Who Owns "The Jefferson at Saw Mill" site?

At the first scoping session to determine what environmental issues and impacts will be studied with respect to The Jefferson at Saw Mill, the developer's counsel (Neil Alexander of the law firm of  Cuddy and Feder LLP) was asked whether his client JPI/TDI (the developer) owned the One Lawrence Street property where they want to build The Jefferson.

For unknown reasons, Mr. Alexander seemed to hesitate in answering the question which was repeated several times.  The answer, of course, is no. The property is still owned by Azko Nobel, N.V., a Dutch multinational which is active in the fields of decorative paints, performance coasting and specialty chemicals.

Mr. Alexander did note that even though his client was not the current property owner, they have the right to proceed with their application to seek site plan approval of The Jefferson project from the Town Board.

That is true.

It is customary for a developer to enter into an agreement to buy a parcel conditioned on land use approvals by the municipalities and other governing authorities where the property is located or who have jurisdiction over the site. In the case of The Jefferson, there are many required approvals by various municipalities and government departments. For example, underneath the site is a sewer pipe overseen by the Westchester County Department of Environmental Facilities. The developer's construction plans must be approved by that department and there may even be additional on site inspections if any work ever starts.W Moreover, depending on what happens with the Town Board, approvals for various aspects of the project will have to be obtained from Greenburgh's Zoning and Planning Boards such as variances for the proposed height of the buildings.  A variance is a permitted deviation from the rules a municipality applies to land use and land development as may be found in a zoning code. For example, when homeowners seek to build an extension, they often need to obtain a variance from the zoning codes in terms of setback requirements from their neighbor's property line. For those so inclined, public hearings on variances can be viewed on the Town Board's website which contains recordings of prior Zoning Board hearings.

However, in all likelihood (for which there is no certainty as the actual contract of sale between the developer and Azko Nobel is not public), the most significant condition is the cost of the environmental cleanup of the property which is considered a "brownfield." The Environmental Protection Agency defines a brownfield as "abandoned, idled or under-used industrial and commercial sites where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination that can add cost, time or uncertainly to a redevelopment project."

Along these lines, the developer has entered into and been accepted as a volunteer in New York State's brownfields cleanup program. This program provides a number of different tax subsidies to developers who "volunteer" to clean up contaminated land so that it can be developed into more productive uses.  In the case of The Jefferson, this may potentially result in a 40% recovery of its remediation and construction costs.  Whether it is a proper use of tax dollars to subsidize luxury housing is a political issue that has been covered previously on this blog. In fact, the abuse of the brownfields tax subsidies in connection with luxury developments in New York City resulted in major changes to the law in 2015. In Westchester, one of the most cited abuses was the issuance of brownfield tax credits to build the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in White Plains where its BLT steakhouse boasts a 12-ounce American Wagyu ribeye for $94.

 However, the recent legislative changes were mostly aimed at development in New York City and  did not materially impact future developments in Westchester County. It does appear JPI/TDI started its process with the Department of Environmental Conservation just before the brownfields legislation changed. There was also a risk the law itself would not be renewed.

As reported on the website of the Edgemont Community Council, the Town of Greenburgh has entered into a contract of sale of the former Frank's Nursery site on Dobbs Ferry Road.  According to the ECC:

Ever since the Town acquired the environmentally contaminated property in early 2011 in a tax foreclosure sale, Town Supervisor Paul Feiner has been assuring taxpayers that the sale of the property would net millions of dollars for the Town.

Now, nearly five years later, after having a professional real estate auctioneer try to market the property for nearly two years, town officials will ink a deal this week to sell the property for $3,520,000, but with a catch: the Town is on the hook for up to $2 million of the purchase price to get the site cleaned up.

If it costs more than $2 million to clean up the site, either side can walk away from the deal.  While the state (sic) has applied for state funding to help pay for the cleanup, there is no guarantee that any funding will be provided.

As revealed at the February 27, 2015  Town Board work session (which can be found on the Town's poorly designed and non-user friendly website under archived "live" Town Board meetings) there is no current NYS program for towns such as Greenburgh to obtain funding to help pay for the cleanup.

As is true with the Town's contract to sell Frank's to an assisted living facility, the contract between JPI/TDI and Akzo Nobel likely has a similar provision that if the cleanup costs are too high, the developer retains the option to walk away and not purchase the property. That is generally how development contracts work. It is interesting to note that in White Plains, where a contentious fight is ongoing regarding the development of the failed Ridgeway Golf Club, the property was apparently bought by the intended user, The French American School of New York (FASNY)  without being subject to FASNY first obtaining land use approval as to whether it can be converted to a school. Obviously this a risk but many factors go into making business decisions.

According to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the developer of The Jefferson is scheduled to begin what is known in DEC lingo as "Site Characterization and Remedial Investigation" to determine the scope of the contamination and its plans for remediation. These test results and plans must then be submitted to the DEC's offices in both Region 3 (which covers Westchester) and Albany for approval. However, as the site is over 10 acres in size and bounded on both sides by the Saw Mill River, the investigation could take many months.

As the proposed land use approval process continues at the second scoping session on February 10, 2016 before the Town Board  (the meeting is still scheduled to be held at Greenburgh Town Hall), we should keep in mind this quote from the late David Bowie:


"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring."

Can the Village of Ardsley Secede from the Town of Greenbrugh?

Various Ardsley group postings on Facebook (created by Mark Zuckerberg,

a Dobbs Ferry resident whose family lived in the Ardsley School District)

are asking questions such as:

Can Ardsley leave the Town of Greenburgh?

The answer is essentially no.

New York State's government structures have developed over the past four centuries. Everyone knows in 2016 they are antiquated. But modernizing them is exceedingly hard. Under New York State law, every village must be located within a Town.

Village residents actually live in three local municipalities - Village, Town and County. State residents who don't live in towns or villages live in cities. (We also have Indian reservations in New York State). There are a few coterminous town/villages such as Scarsdale, Harrison and Mount Kisco. Scarsdale was originally a town but in order to fend off an attempt by the City of White Plains to annex a portion of it, Scarsdale became a village. Village borders cannot be changed unless the residents who live there give their consent. But, as is true in the case of Scarsdale, its town/village borders do not match up with its school district boundaries. To further illustrate the Byzantine nature of local government in New York State, nine villages are located in more than one county, and sixty five are in more than one town.

In 1998, a tree fell in a special park district in the Edgemont section of Greenburgh near Central Avenue and killed a man and paralyzed his wife. Because the Town of Greenburgh was woefully under insured, the multimillion dollar settlement of the lawsuit required taxpayers to pay the damages.

But which taxpayers?

When the Town sought to charge the villages (Ardsley, Hastings, Irvington, Tarrytown, Elmsford and Dobbs Ferry) for costs of the settlement which exceeded the available insurance, the Villages began to speak openly of secession. As reported by The New York Times:

"The immediate trigger was a dispute over whether the villages -- Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington and Tarrytown -- should help bankroll a $9 million settlement with a Yonkers woman paralyzed and widowed when a tree fell onto her car on Central Park Avenue in June 1998.

The tree fell to the road from a park in the unincorporated portion of Greenburgh. The villages, which pay for parks of their own, have argued that they should not have to contribute any cash to the settlement."

However the grievances that gave rise to that secession proposal were forgotten, the politicians favoring it left office or on further investigation it was discovered that creating a new town was too cumbersome and not worth doing. Hopefully the Town learned its lesson about the need for adequate insurance (for example at the time, the Village of Ardsley, 1/10th the population size of unincorporated Greenburgh, had 11 million dollars in coverage while the Town had about 3 million - not much more than many homeowners carry!)

How did this happen?

The key difference between town government and village government is that villages are managed day to day by professional Village Managers who are the equivalent of Chief Executive Officers. They do not spend their time issuing daily press releases or raising money. Instead, they focus on the day to day nuts and bolts of governing a municipality. That is why, for example, Ardsley was able to secure federal grants to create a new and transformational concrete sidewalk along Heatherdell Road - through the sustained efforts of its then Village Manager George Calvi with the support and leadership of the Ardsley Board of Trustees (including Mayors Leon and Porcino who both started as trustees) over a nearly ten year period.

Village Boards also tend to be populated by individuals who have a greater variety of experience in business, engineering and law which leads to better decision making. Finally, Village Board members are not career politicians. They have usually served on a number of local boards (zoning, planning, school, architectural review, etc.) as an apprenticeship before they become Trustees. There is no "Town Manager" in Greenburgh.

Now in 2016, the feeling of village solidarity from the mid-1990s that arose from the "tree case” is somewhat gone - Ardsley sued Dobbs Ferry over Rivertowns Square (and rightfully so). There are calls for Ardsleyans to boycott Rivertowns Square. Hastings approved The Lofts on Saw Mill River Road in a seemingly middle of the night manner that has upset many Ardsley and Greenburgh residents.

The last village in Westchester to actually secede from a town appears to have been Rye in 1942. Rye actually became a city (which requires the permission of the State legislature in Albany) because its residents no longer wanted to pay the welfare costs for neighboring areas in the Town of Rye like Port Chester. Even given our dysfunctional New York State legislature, that reason would not past muster today. However, do not look for any new municipalities to be formed anytime soon as under Governor Andrew Cuomo, legislation was passed to push for municipal consolidation which disfavors the creation of more layers of government. This was, in part, behind the effort by Town Supervisor Feiner to consolidate the three professional fire districts in Greenburgh and to push for the merger of the Dobbs Ferry police department with Greenburgh's police department. Neither succeeded largely over a fear of loss of local control.

Westchester is tribal.

While it may seem the answer to stopping over-development in the Ardsley School District is extending Ardsley’s village borders to be coterminous with its school district to better control land use, this is, for many reasons, extremely difficult as the school district borders extend over parts of the villages of both Dobbs Ferry and Hastings and large sections of unincorporated Greenbrugh (such as the Chauncey section where The Jefferson is intended to be built). Just ask your neighbors in these villages or areas who are in the school district but outside Ardsley’s village borders at your next birthday party if they are willing to become part of a greater Ardsley village and see the reaction.

As wise person observed, to understand something, try changing it.

Redrawing School Boundaries and Boycotts

1.The process for redrawing school district boundaries in Westchester County is Sisyphean. It would involve obtaining the consent of the school district who would be inheriting the transferred students and payment of financial compensation from the school district who wants to send new students to another district.

It would require the consent of the State Education Commissioner.

It is a distraction from the effort to Stop The Jefferson.

It is divisive. It pits neighbor against neighbor.

It is not going to happen.

Let's keep our focus on The Jefferson and the harm it will do to everyone who lives in all our Rivertowns communities.

2. Have you been to The Galleria, The Westchester or Woodbury Commons recently? The are all owned by Simon Malls. Did you know Simon Malls is being boycotted by 2nd Amendment zealots who don't like that Simon Malls opposes guns in their malls?  Boycotts come and go. Few are successful. Most are forgettable like the silly one this past holiday season over coffee cups.

While it may be a nice soundbite to say "boycott Rivertowns Square," its success will most likely be fleeting.  Most people shop based on price and convenience. Thats why last year 20 billion dollars of furniture was sold through e-commerce on sites like Wayfair.  Feel good measures won't stop The Jefferson. As President Obama ably explained in his last State of the Union speech - our type of democracy is hard. We need to spend time studying the land use process. We need to look at the numbers JPI is relying on and show how they are faulty or misleading. We need to show up at all the meetings that will be held before the Town Board, the planning board and the zoning board. We have to guard against the well known developer strategy of wearing us down with last minute cancelled meetings or government officials and employees who keep aspects of the process hidden or hard to find as we see now with the Town's website.

That will take a lot of energy and the need to build coalitions with others in the Town who may have issues we can support in exchange.   The Jefferson poses,  as former Ardsley Mayor John Morehouse noted, an almost existential risk to our area. We need to get the best scoping document we can. We have to hold our elected officials to their pronouncements that if no material benefit is shown to Ardsley, they will not approve it. Let's not get sidetracked.

Urgent Repair Memo to the Town's Self Described Problem Solver

To: Supervisor Paul Feiner
From: Greenburgh Taxpayers
Subject: Overdue Repairs
Priority: High
January 15, 2016

1. The problems with the sound system at Town Hall have gone on for far too long. This must be fixed before the next scoping session. No more excuses. Call the A/V experts at KVL right here in Greenburgh on Saw Mill River Road - today!

2. Municipal websites were  recently ranked. Greenburgh's was one of the worst. Town residents are now seeing why. The information about The Jefferson is absurdly buried deeply in the forms and documents section of the Community Development and Conservation  Department section. Archived Town Board meetings are hidden in the "live" Town Board meetings link. This is the plastic version of open Government not the gold standard we deserve. Make the documents and links to The Jefferson easily  accessible. Fix and update the website so it looks like something from 2016 not 1992 when you first took office.

3. Your campaign literature and the sign on your car claim you are the problem solver. If so, prove it and fix these problems. Please feel free to email back your scheduled date for making these repairs.

How to Stop The Jefferson

There will always be a group of people who stand on the sidelines believing The Jefferson will be approved regardless of all the meetings, petitions, letters to the editor or promising statements by politicians.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama took this defeatist attitude head on:


"It’s a lot easier to be cynical; to accept that change is not possible, and politics is hopeless, 
and the problem is all the folks who are elected don't care, and to believe that our voices 
and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future. Those with 
money and power will gain greater control over the decisions that could send a young soldier 
to war, or allow another economic disaster, or roll back the equal rights and voting rights that 
generations of Americans have fought, even died, to secure. And then, as frustration grows, 
there will be voices urging us to fall back into our respective tribes, to scapegoat fellow  
citizens who don’t look like us, or pray like us, or vote like we do, or share the same 
background.

We can’t afford to go down that path. It won’t deliver the economy we want. It will not produce the security we want. But most of all, it contradicts everything that makes us the envy of the world.

So, my fellow Americans, whatever you may believe, whether you prefer one party or no party, whether you supported my agenda or fought as hard as you could against it -- our collective futures depends on your willingness to uphold your duties as a citizen. To vote. To speak out. To stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us. We need every American to stay active in our public life -- and not just during election time -- so that our public life reflects the goodness and the decency that I see in the American people every single day.

It is not easy. Our brand of democracy is hard."

Now it is our time to stand up. To stand up for our children. To insure a better future for our community and oppose the marketing gimmickry of those who claim The Jefferson is good for our community when the evidence is overwhelmingly clear its only good for the Texas developer.

 As numerous residents commented at the first scoping session, they want the children in our community that follow their children to receive the same excellent education theirs did and it would be criminal if that did not happen.

Standing up together in even greater numbers at the upcoming February 10 second scoping session- that is how we will Stop The Jefferson. 

Get involved. Stay involved  and always bring your New York values. 

Texas vs. Ardsley at The Jefferson

Here is the Vision Statement of the Ardsley School District:

District Vision:

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.

Here is the mission statement of JPI,  (http://jpi.com) the developer of The Jefferson:

THE OWNERS’ VALUES

• Be faithful & obedient to God
• Be respectful to & help develop all people
• Be committed to excellence
• Be committed to service
• Be a person of character
• Grow profitably

Based on the foregoing, Is it not unreasonable to ask JPI :

To be faithful and obedient to the will of the people who live in the Rivertowns who are nearly unanimously opposed to  the The Jefferson development? 

To respect our community's  fervent desire they not proceed with this mega-project of dubious merit that the elected members of the  Ardsley School Board convincingly argue will compromise its ability to deliver on its mission? 

If you agree, it is suggested you contact Mark A. Bryant, JPI/TDI's President and CEO

at  mark.bryant@tdire.com 

    Telephone Number: 972.556.1700.

     600 East Las Colinas
     Suite 1800 
     Irving, Texas 75039

or the Texas based press agent for JPI:

David Margulies
david@prexperts.net 

The First Scoping Session - a quick overview

So, did anyone explain where Council Member Ken Jones was?  Or did he just let Town Clerk Judy Beville take his place?  All kidding aside, Judy did a fairly good job of keeping the action moving and her introductions of local politicians - past and present - were enjoyable. The meeting had it all - including many powerfully emotional moments. Ardsley and the Rivertowns are a strong community.

First, the problems with the sound system have gone on for years. It remains to be seen how well the streaming video on the Town website sounds. Memo to Town Board - fix this!

A friend from Edgemont emailed me to say how he felt the meeting showed how important it is to avoid having to rely on public officials you don't vote for as Ardsley and others had to do with Dobbs Ferry.

Herb Rosenberg of Dobbs Ferry is known to those who watch (or suffer through as the case may be) Town Board meetings. Long before Chris Christie bellowed he tells it like its, Herb Rosenberg  has spent countless hours waiting his turn to speak out against wrongs wherever they occurred in the Town. His apology to Ardsley for Rivertowns Square is an example. Herb has also excoriated those in the unincorporated areas of the Town who have fought for 30 plus years to keep Ardsleyans from being able to use the Town Pool at Veteran Park (20% of which is in the Village of Ardsley).

Ardsley's current and former mayors were effective and eloquent and the School Board representatives almost singlehandedly sent The Jefferson back to Texas. We also got a nice assist from Elmsford's mayor.

Former Ardsley village board trustee Nicole Minore was extraordinary in her analysis of the issues, her passion and her ability to expose JPI for engaging in a transparent marketing scheme regarding the developer's millennialist fantasies.

Supervisor Feiner came prepared with scoping suggestion after suggestion. Ok, he was grandstanding a bit but he showed why he is still Supervisor after 25 years despite originally running on a term limits platform back in 1992.  I calculated his development mitigations at roughly several hundred million dollars.

Of course major kudos go to Dina Cardoso who got the ball rolling with her change.org petition and who has worked tirelessly on getting the word out on Facebook and in every other way.

As the folks in Dobbs Ferry (the vets from the battle of Rivertowns Square) advised, the process is long and the developer and its allies know the "wear them out" game.

As one wise resident observed, the developers seem to be able to exploit the patchwork political divisions in Greenburgh where projects span multiple borders. We must not let their divide and conquer strategy prevail.

Our ASVAC leaders made it clear that The Jefferson poses a danger to the health and well being of every citizen it serves.

The most interesting fact was that not one speaker appeared to support the project.  Even the developer didn't raise his hand when an Ardsley resident asked for a show of hands of those who favored the development.  Perhaps he was dreaming of being  in one of those canoes that float down the Saw Mill River when it floods instead of at the first scoping session.

Where is Greenburgh Town Hall? Who are the Members of the Town Board? Greenburgh History.

There is no true postal address of  Greenburgh, New York.

Nevertheless, the Town Hall has decided to create a Greenburgh, NY address to make it seem like a real place.

Some residents who live in the Town of Greenburgh but have a White Plains postal address use the unsanctioned Greenburgh NY for mail and other purposes.

Either way, if you are using a GPS to get to Town Hall, it may be the case that it will not recognize "Greenburgh" as the Town or City.

In such event you should plug in:

177 Hillside Avenue
White Plains, NY 10607

While we are on the topic of Greenburgh, the members of the Town Board who will be acting as the lead agency tonight are:

Supervisor Paul Feiner who lives in Boulder Ridge. He is a 25 year incumbent and everyone has an opinion about him. He is an avid cyclist and is frequently in Ardsley on his way to the South County Trail.

Town Council Members:

Diana Juettner - also a 25 year incumbent, an Ardsley Village resident who is the chair of the social sciences department at  Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry.

Francis Sheehan - a long term Hartsdale resident who owns an undeveloped property in the Ardsley School District and who is a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mr. Sheehan also headed the Town's Comprehensive Plan Committee.

Ken Jones, the newest member, an attorney who lives in the Parkway Gardens area of unincorporated Greenburgh. Mr. Jones' family has long roots in Greenburgh.

Kevin Morgan, a retired Greenburgh police detective who lives in North Elmsford (covered by the North Elmsford Fire District) area of Greenburgh.(Pocantico Hills School District).  Mr. Morgan  is now an investigator for the Legal Aid Society.


All of the above elected officials are voted for on at large basis - meaning all voters in the incorporated villages and unincorporated areas vote to elect members of the Town Board.. There is no form of district representation in Greenburgh. The term of the Supervisor is 2 years, while a council member's term is 4 years (so in any given year the Supervisor runs along with 2 of the 4 council members either as a team or separately.

A number of years ago a federal lawsuit was brought challenging this system to the extent voters in the unincorporated areas felt if was not right that villagers (who are 55% of the town's population) can elect  all the Town Board members who spend 99% of their time on issues concerning the unincorporated areas and thus the villagers, could have, if they wanted to complete control over the town board to the detriment of the minority of taxpayers in the unincorporated areas. The court rejected this argument saying that as villagers still pay a small tax to the Town for various services, to deny them the vote would be taxation without representation. The court also said unincorporated areas always have the remedy of creating their own villages if they want to opt out of this system. Prior to the lawsuit, in 1967, Edgemont (then mostly known as Greenville)(Greenville Fire Dept,,  Greenville Shopping Center) ) sought to incorporate. The vote failed by a 3 to 1 margin. In the late 1980s, the Mayfair Knollwood section of unincorporated Greenburgh also sought to incorporate. The then Town Supervsior rejected the petition as racially biased as the borders for the proposed village seemed to deliberately cut out the African American residents who lived in the Greenburgh Central School District  near the Mayfair Knollwood area (The Mayfair Knollwood neighborhood is served by the Valhalla School District which is partly in Greenburgh and partly in an adjacent Town  because as was  explained in a prior post, the School District lines are almost 200 years old),  The basis for the unsuccessful incorporation attempt  by Mayfair Knollwood was caused in part by the Town agreeing to place a homeless shelter on the Westchester Community College Campus which was one mile away from any home in Mayfair Knollwood. The shelter, which was championed by a young Andrew Cuomo, is now closed. Here is a link to the New York Times article about Mayfair Knollwood controversy: . http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/10/nyregion/metro-matters-in-westchester-it-may-become-not-in-my-village.html?login=email

Edgemont leaders have in recent years discussed incorporation by its area (essentially a school and fire district)  but issue goes back almost 100 years. Several key factors keeping the idea alive including the fact that Edgemont pays approximately 30% of the Town's taxes but has no representation on the Town Board and local zoning and planning issues are decided by boards dominated by people outside of Edgemont or by perceived directives from Town Hall such as in the case with the Sprain Brook Nursery (also in small part in the Ardsley School District) or the Dromore Road development on Central Avenue near the Greenbrugh Nature Center. Edgmonters also feel they run a pretty good school district, so they can probably run a better government than Greenburgh which when it comes to land use issues has made many mistakes such as with the Frank's Nursery site, the Shelter site (now closed but previously generating 1.2 Million in rent a year for the Town's "A" budget (which is the budget villagers pay for)  and the Fortress Bible Church case causing the Town to pay millions of dollars in damages (for which there was no insurance)  for violating the Church's First Amendment rights to develop their property.  This case will undoubtedly be brought to the attention of any court should JPI challenge any land use decision by the Town Board with respect to The Jefferson. 

Those who oppose incorporation argue a village of Edgemont would lose access to the Town Pool and perhaps privileges at the Hartsdale Public Parking District in Hartsdale. Others feel they moved to Edgemont to focus on its top tier schools and a village government would divert energy from that paramount concern.