Good evening. Good evening. Welcome to the town board meeting. Wednesday, August 9th, if we can all rise for the pledge.
Pledge allegiance is a flag of the United States of America and to the Republic of a religious stance. One nation under God, and it is a full liberty and justice for all.
There's always a scout that are interested in leading us in the pledge. Please reach out to my office. We're happy to have you.
For the record, we opened tonight's meeting at
at 5 o'clock and we adjourn to exec session for advice of council matters of litigation and volunteer boarding committee interviews.
If I can hear a motion to reconvene the town board meeting of Wednesday August 9th.
I'll make that motion. I'll second on favor. Hi. Thank you.
We apologize for little heat tonight. We have some mechanical issues.
So got the windows open and just bear with us. It's summer.
So I'm going to ask the board if we can move one item, we have a hearing tonight, we have some other items, but we do have a very important appointment under personnel.
So if it's OK, I'm going to move 6A.
Yes.
Up.
Consider the probationary promotional appointment of James Kio to police sergeant effective August 12th, 2023, and we have our police chief.
Peter Simons in here.
Chief, could you lead us?
Thank you for moving us up on the agenda, much appreciated.
Supervisor Chalero, distinguished members of the town board, town administrator Hay, friends, and family in the audience.
I am here this evening to propose the promotion of Police Officer James Keeho to Sargent.
Police Officer James Keeho has been employed by the town of North Castle Police Department for seven and a half years.
Prior to that, he served as a police officer with the town of Eastchester for two years.
Since joining our department officer, Kio has been assigned to the patrol division
where he has served with distinction as a patrolman.
James has consistently been one of our most knowledgeable, reliable, and diligent officers.
He is a fine communicator and has proved to be particularly skilled at deescalating difficult
and potentially volatile situations through the effective use of tact and diplomacy.
In addition to his duties as patrolman, James is certified by New York State as a juvenile
officer, school resource officer, community resource officer, and child safety seat technician.
James is also certified by New York State as an emergency medical technician and a field
training officer.
He has served the department extremely well in each of these roles.
James has shown a strong capacity to interact effectively, intuitively, and respectfully with members of the public, and with colleagues, and to develop a solid rapport with all.
By virtue of his knowledge and proficiency as a patrol officer, James has earned and maintained the admiration and respect of his fellow officers, first line supervisors, and the department administration.
furthermore, James is consistently demonstrated his ability to share and convey information
to his fellow officers in a clear, concise, and patient manner evidence to his skill as
an effective communicator, perhaps the most essential characteristic of a successful supervisor.
James is extremely bright, articulate, and resourceful, and is a depth that apply in common sense
solutions to problems.
In short, James knows how to get things done and done the right way.
With the retirement of Detective Sergeant Dabendidictus upcoming, and the promotion of Sergeant McCormick to Lieutenant,
there is a void in the patrol division at the rank of Sergeant.
At this time, I respectfully request that the town board consider promoting police officer James Kiho to the budgeted and vacant position of police sergeant effective August 12th, 2023.
Thank you, Chief.
Welcome.
Any comments or questions?
No.
Just, if somebody liked to make the motion,
I'd love to make that motion.
It's a good emotional appointment of James Kio
to police sergeant effective August 12, 2023.
I'll make that motion and congratulate you.
I'll second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Congratulations.
Thank you, Senator.
Great stuff.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chief.
Thanks, Prince.
It looks like a pretty.
Absolutely.
It's the best part.
Yes, sir.
Can
I have that one?
Do you want to get violent in the middle?
Yeah,
put it down a bit.
Can you tell me what's going on?
I don't know.
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
The
wide lens over here.
Always wise miles.
Come on.
Everybody comes out of support of this.
Thank you everybody.
I will say it's one of the great honors I'm serving on this board to hire our personnel,
especially police and then promote and in certain cases retire like that he just is doing but
But it is one of the great honors on the board to be involved in this and hire these
young individuals and watch them grow and achieve you done an incredible job with this
department.
Thank you.
We appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for all your support.
Always.
Thank you.
Everyone praises the North Castle Police Department.
I really am so proud.
And again, it's just a credit to the police chief and just the fact that you really are
just a phenomenal group of men and women.
So thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Now you can go out and celebrate.
So just one very quick housekeeping item
before we get to the regular agenda.
I just wanted to.
A good friend passed away a week or so ago.
And I just want to dedicate this meeting
in his on a Joe Deban artist.
He's lived in Armack for a long time.
Wife of Mary Jo.
And so I just want to we'll close in his memory with others, but I just want to dedicate this meeting to show
With that
Announcements in public comment the first item governor Holkall's housing compact and you just say you have to say legislative items
So the legislative item piece. I'm just going to repeat and we'll continue to encourage our residents to participate if you agree with
I believe what this board agrees what we all agree on is there was an item that was passed
It's at the very end of the legislative session and Albany about changing town elections to even years versus odd years which are coincide with governor and presidential elections, which in our opinion then takes away the emphasis on local issues and it could impact town decisions for years to come.
So, the action for you is that it's been passed by the State and the Senate, the Assembly and the State Senate.
Both of our representatives voted against it, Shelley Mayer, our State Senate and it was the only Democrat in the State House in the State Senate to vote against it.
And Chris Burtick and the Assembly also voted against it.
It's on the Governor's desk or here her desk, she hasn't signed it yet.
And the action for residents is just to go on the Governor's website.
You can't send her a direct email, you have to go on the website and you could use her system to send a message and we encourage people to encourage her not to sign it to veto it.
We just think it has, we've all been through obviously local elections and there are local issues that come about and where if we fear and most towns, at least in the county are on board on this, will dilute what those important issues are.
And all of a sudden, whoever is getting voted in is because of co-tales, because of maybe
a presidential or a gubernatorial election.
So it's a very serious matter.
The other thing on the government's housing compact, there wasn't much to update.
She did have a press conference in Harris in this week where they had workforce housing.
There and a development, which was great.
There wasn't any major announcements that we thought she was going to, but
nothing really substantial, a substantive.
So really nothing to report there other than in total the government's housing compact from the last year but
the last three years.
This board has been in unison on agreeing and
supporting with most of the goals of New York State and the governor, but opposing the how.
And that the one-size-fits-all doesn't work and not allowing New York State to have oversight on local zoning
That is very important to us. So, but nothing really new to update there
I will turn it over to the town clerk for community announcements in town clerk report Allison.
Okay, thank you. Yeah, so I reminder that we have the mobile shredder coming to
on Friday, August 11th, it's Friday, between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. it's usually set up behind
town hall and you know there's somebody there to help unload your car if you need it.
I think they say there's a limit of four boxes per person but I never really have seen that
enforced.
So it'd be great if you can come and use it because we do get a lot of requests and have
the service in town, the mobile passport unit.
Allison, on that point, they sometimes fill up early, right?
So people should try to get the early.
I had experienced an issue with that.
Okay.
Just saying empty enter some of the, they have on their, the county has on the website that just to be aware, if the shredder fills, then they leave and if there's still another hour, they're not coming back with an empty shredder.
But,
like I said, we've done this quite a few times, and unfortunately not too many people
show up at times to harbor an issue.
We hope we have that problem.
I'll be there.
So many of my fans.
We also have the mobile passport unit coming to town, and that will be on Tuesday, August 29
from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. That's for a new passport only. If you want to renew your passport, you're
encouraged to do that online. And that will be, if I didn't say it already, Tuesday, August 29th
from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. That's usually in front of Town Hall. There's summer concerts that
are sponsored by the Armon Chamber of Commerce and the town of North Castle Parks and Recreation
Department. The next one is at Wampus Park which begins at 6 p.m. on August 19th and the
band is Mighty Spectrum. And then Music in Ormung Square which is Thursday evenings also
beginning at 6 p.m. There's one tomorrow night and that's called Puppets for Higher. And
then there's another one on Thursday August 24th which is School of Rock and Thursday September
number seven, which is, we have Tom Moses, and there will also be a chili pepper on
that night. Our next meeting is not until September, so we're reaching into September,
either our announcements. We have September 11th Memorial Ceremony, which is always held
in Wampus Park by the 9-11 Memorial in that park and that will be Monday, September 11th at 6 p.m.
I think it's 5 p.m.
That's why I should wear my glasses.
September 11th at 5 p.m.
5 p.m.
Sorry about that.
There are volunteer opportunities on the landmarks preservation committee, the conservation board
and the zoning board of appeals and of course on NC4.
And you can look to volunteer for those committees and boards on the town website.
And also, of course, a reminder to sign up for e-news and NICSOL alerts on the town website.
And then, of course, a highway dash and helping feels better.
Thank you.
Kevin, town administrator update.
Thank you.
Paving update will be completing after road in front of the building tomorrow.
Now, also, milling will begin tomorrow on Old Mount Kiscoe Road.
From Cross Road North, traveling south through 128,
travel that are just advised to avoid that area, to avoid any delays in their commutes or travels.
Just some of the whole road going to be done there now?
We're starting off from, like you said, crossroads north to 128.
There's other areas that, no, Mount Kiscoe, that still need some work to be done before we can pay.
meeting to sewer work on the sewer lawn work.
Just a reminder, as we near the end of summer,
residents reminded that the pool closed.
On Labor Day, which is Monday, September 4th this year, and our fall recreation program should be out soon. At the end of the month, you can sign up for updates and get to get reminders set, too. That's all I have to say. Could you just say one thing, Kevin, and we talked about this because I got a lot of communication with residents about the corner of Maple and Bedford, where it's very uneven and tough to drive on. And if you notice now, it's the one little section that isn't milled. So just give a quick update.
Connid was a gas repair and they're coming back at the beginning of next week to put a permanent patch in place on that spot
They're going to patch that whole area with a large patch and then later on as we do maple that whole section will get milled and paved as well
Great
Okay, thank you
John Wartley is on up to
Selene anything. Yeah, just a couple things about the library
So for those of you that weren't listening to the work session we just finished
The library board presented their current vision of the long-term plan, encourage everyone
to go take a look, I assume the materials are posted on the website.
So the materials will show the summary of the long-term plan, and you can always revisit
our work session recording to hear that.
And of course, always welcome any input and feedback to Catherine Feely, our library director
or anyone on the library board
and the people are listed on the website.
And a couple of activities to highlight
that are coming up.
So first, tomorrow, if you have any time
between two and three PM,
there's a master gardener program
that's gonna be happening at the library
where there's gonna be a presentation
from Regina Blake Slee,
who's part of the Cornell University cooperative
and talking about how to create gardens by your home.
you know, that have biodiversity and kind of yield more like the right kinds of environments
for you that are going to be good for the future.
So that's something I know a lot of people have a lot of interest and passion about.
Highly encourage anyone to join that.
And then the last one is chess club.
There's a chess club that the town is doing.
That's also at the library.
And that's happening the next two Saturdays.
And that's from 12 p.m. to 1.30 p.m.
And that's inviting people like all kinds of skill level, like it's totally okay to be beginner or to be advanced, and there's going to be opportunity to pair off.
And also we've seen interest from children and adults so far, so encourage anyone to come. That's it.
Just quickly that for those people that have been complaining about the repairs needed
on Virginia Road and North White Plains, we did determine that MTA owns the segment that
really needs work and Town Administrator Kevin Hay and Highway Foreman Jamie Norris
are working to arrange a meeting with MTA so that we can get that road repaired because
is it really is, it's almost borderline dangerous.
Thank you.
Matt, anything?
Nothing tonight, no.
Was there anything?
Yeah.
So hold on to your hats, everyone.
This is exciting.
The North Castle Sustainability Committee,
formally recycling committee, is working on,
as you've seen in past meetings, food composting,
which has a lot of appeal to a lot of people
and will reduce our garbage, which hopefully, at some point,
Well, I'll control our costs on that, which is becoming more expensive.
So look out for that, it's taken a while to work through things.
Kevin has been great on it, other people have also assisted.
So please look out for that, what we're planning to do, what they're planning to do at this point.
It's been discussed, is to have a drop off point that'll be open a couple days.
We're going to start small walk before we run, but hopefully it's something that'll be embraced a lot of communities.
have that, and it's really a good thing to have.
You will also see town employees, which I think is a great idea, have to go through
ethics training every year.
And the ethics board has been working, trying to get done, and ultimately has now done
a short video, which will explain how the ethics code works briefly, that should be part of
the training, so good job by them.
They put an awful lot of work into these things,
a lot of boards and committees do,
and this was a big effort on their part.
And Allison, thank you.
I think you're, you folks help with the filming and all.
Then, yeah, so appreciate that, I don't know if they did too.
And this is just a little bit of a dumb thought I had.
It was driving the other day,
and I saw a couple of school buses
have to be behind them, and they'd stop,
and they'd put out the stop thing, and all that.
And I scratched my head and I said, that's weird, we're not at school, but of course
school buses are used and I just wondered, does it work when they're on school?
Is it for any time you have a school bus?
So for those of you who are wondering, in case anybody's tempted not to observe them, I
spoke with Pete Simonson and in fact, they are much illegal requirement to stop for school
bus even if they aren't carrying school kids during school.
So please be careful about that the same same dangers are obviously still there and it's terrible to have an injury like that
That's all I have great. Thank you. I have nothing else. I want to get moving and get to the hearing so Allison anybody on public comment
We have a couple people who have signed up and it's just want to be sure that this is public comment
I'm not an issue on the agenda. So if you wanted to speak on
something that's not on
Agenda is come up and I'll call your name
Did you want to speak on the agenda item or it was about the leaf flow that's coming up yet so when that comes up
which will probably be in a little while then I can call you after that and then we have Julie yeah I can't speak on because I hear his email
Okay, so I know Edward here tonight, so I'm going to substitute.
This is our North Castle historic moment for this evening.
It's a little piece of ground, slightly more than three acres atop a steep hill just off
root 22 in today's North White Plains.
During the colonial era, Miller Hill was part of a much larger land holding of the Miller
family.
A family memorialized today at Miller House Washington's headquarters on Virginia Road
and North White Plains.
On the morning of October 28, 1776, British troops attacked and quickly took Chatterton's
Hill into today's White Plains.
General George Washington's Patriot fighters again retreated to new lines extending eastward
from Miller Hill.
From a top miller hill, Colonel John Glover's troops ended the battles of the White Plains
and turned the tide of the American Revolution.
On November 6, 1776, British troops packed up and left the White Plains area.
156 years later, on April 8, 1932, Mrs. Agnes C. Dunlap and Mrs. Lois C. Moore donated
this little piece of land to the citizens of Westchester County for the purpose of development
of the historic site as part of Westchester County's system of parks.
Seven years later during April of 1939, Westchester County Park Commission
Superintendent George S. Hayte announced that the North Castle Town Board had
requested the improvement of the site as a public park.
He said the public works progress administration would provide the labor
and that the name might be changed from Miller Hill to something more descriptive of the
historic background of the spot.
It's a little piece of North Castle ground with a huge history significant to the birth
of our nation.
It is one of the places where the tide of the American Revolution turned.
It is the only undeveloped Revolutionary War battle site remaining in Westchester County.
Let's keep it that way.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ed.
Anybody else on public comment?
Yeah.
I'll just add to what Ed said. If you've never been to Miller Hill in North White, just
go check it out. It's really cool. It's a cool part. You can bring a sandwich, a cup
of coffee, walk to the right rear. You'll see this metal map. That'll show you a lot of
what Ed was just talking about and what the soldiers could see when there were less trees.
And it's really incredible what happened there. It really is.
still there. He breaked the readouts from 250 years ago are still there. It's just really
really the what-outs. So what-outs said? What's that? The what-outs? The readouts, the
battles where they they had embankments there and they they popped them up and had their
muskets and they're firing at the British coming up Broadway. You can't see now because
all the trees and buildings were there at one point. It's anyway you have time it's just far
There's a little poll off right there, and check it out.
It's really rich with history, what happened with this town.
So with that, we will go to the public hearing, reconvene to consider adoption or
propose local law to amend section 355-27 zoning regarding airport campus, the old MBIH.
113 King Street Armored to permit density at the discretion of the town board for office building to senior housing zoning district and
reclassify the property from DOB-28, which is designed office business-28, zoning district to the R-MF-A multi-family-A residents, and R-MF-S-C-H zone districts.
We have several items.
The first item is the adoption of the State Environmental Quality Review, the Secret Finding Statement.
The second item is the receipt of the New York State Watershed Inspector General's comments on the airport campus, FEIS.
Third item, receipt of letter from Westchester County Plenty Board regarding the airport campus, FES, fourth receipt of letter from the York City Department of Environmental Protection regarding airport campus, FESI, dated August 8th, and the last item would be adoption of the resolution to amend the zoning.
So it asks for a motion to receive items two, three, I'm sorry, a motion to open the hearing.
Reconvene the hearing.
I'll make that motion.
Second.
On favor.
Hi.
And then a motion to receive items 2, 3 and 4.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
On favor.
Hi.
And this is a continued hearing on this application.
We've had many meetings on this and many hearings on this.
And tonight the board is tasked with considering to adopt the secret findings
and then adopt the resolution to amend the zoning.
I'm going to turn it over to Councillor for the applicant.
Good evening Mr. Supervisor.
My name is Tony Veniziano.
I'm here on behalf of Airport Campus.
We've been working for quite some time since Airport Campus was acquired.
Trying to lease the space's office and then we started to look at different types of uses.
And we went through a draft and finally, I guess with alternate uses, they included office,
hotel, multi-family, single-family.
And then the market sort of came to us and we're left with multi-family projects.
So there's a 4-plus acre site that we're requesting a zone to RMF-SCH, which we age
restricted and condo tax and there's 34 acres that'll be zone to the RMF-A zone, which
will be fee-simple tax.
We can ask one quick question on that, just for clarification.
So because of the structure of the building that it's an appointment building, there is no alternative but to have it be taxed as condo, correct?
We're taxing it as condo.
Right, that's what I'm saying, but there's no discretion in that automatically because of that structure, it can't be anything else.
Sure,
we've mitigated all impacts that have come up during the environmental process at the extent of this practical.
And we're ready to ask you to vote tonight, close out the environmental process with the adoption of the findings, and then vote on the local law.
Chris Fisher from Cutting Faders is going to go through some of the factors in this rezoning, and then we'll ask you to vote.
Good evening, everyone.
Chris Fisher from Cutting Fader, co-counsel on this project.
I thought it would be helpful for probably not just you, the board, us, the applicant, but the public as well.
Just to recap over the next five minutes, a little bit of the background and talk about some of the benefits before you move into your deliberations on this particular project that's before you.
This particular chapter in the site's history for us, the applicants started eight years ago.
When MBAA pulled out of town, they acquired the property.
They acquired the property in the name of Airport campus.
And last month's meeting, we had a little chuckle about the name because the intent when the acquisition occurred was to take the property, reposition it as office building, reteninate, and these owners aggressively marketed for that purpose for quite some time.
That in addition to the additional shovel ready space that was available on the site, which is close to 500,000 square feet of toll space for existing and approved office building development.
By 2018, I think it became clear to everybody, including the Board, that there was going
to be a need for rezoning to really reactivate this site.
Market changes, looking at the efforts and opportunity under DOB-20A, and trying to find
something that would work for the community and obviously the applicant owner.
You took that to heart, you incorporated that into your comprehensive plan and development
in 2018 and identified this site as an area where there was going to be a need for economic
development.
There's going to be need for some change.
And in fact, the opportunity for residential development here.
The applicant's initial rezoning petition, as Mr. Viennese I don't know mentioned, it was
much denser than...
That's before you now. It was a mixed-use plan, a lot of different components to it, and through the secret process, which worked in this case, we've gotten to a plan that's much reduced in scale and scope, and is focused on the multifamily rezoning that we have in front of you right now. That's actually what the secret process is intended to do, is to try to whittle away and yield down to something that works from an environmental perspective, which this project does.
One thing that as I got involved in this project was really noticeable to me throughout
the proceedings is there's been no community opposition to this project and I work throughout
the communities in Westchester County.
I haven't seen the public come out and say, you know, we don't want this near us, mostly
because we're near an airport, we're near commercial sites.
This is a good place in the community for development to occur especially with a site that hasn't
had active use in eight years.
One of the other things that's a clear benefit from this particular project that we would
highlight is you're adding to the mix of housing in this community.
We've talked about an aging population, we've talked about affordable housing, and this
project gets an actual mix of multiple different types of housing stock and types, particularly
senior and affordable.
You have been talking about actually affordable housing and how this community does a good
job of accommodating and making sure that it's addressed, this project is going to meet
your goals.
So, that's not just meeting your goals, it's state and federal goals as well.
I would just point out without going back through obviously the FIAS, which is a long process,
but it speaks for itself at this point in time.
It really highlights that there aren't any unmitigated impacts to schools, traffic, environmental
regional resources, we've gone through a detailed process with your consultants, your experts
and professionals, our team, taking into consideration all the public comments that have come in.
And you're really in a position now where you're able to make findings on this project.
And we think it's clear that the site's going to have to be repurposed and it's ready
for you to make those findings as part of a comprehensive process under-seeker.
Five things I wanted to highlight really that relate to the rezoning itself and I think are critical.
Resoning this property unlocks a whole host of community benefits.
Those are benefits that go well beyond anything yielding to the owners and
development of property in this case.
First, all of the taxing jurisdiction stand again here.
Three million in annual infusion, all physically positive.
All through fee simple taxation and going back to the earlier comment, the repurposing of the multi-family building,
regardless of ownership structure, that would be taxed under the tax assessor's jurisdiction apartment condo.
It's all the same, there's no other alternative to that.
Second, we talked about this at the last meeting, but I would highlight it again.
The owners are going to incorporate water quality treatment technologies as part of their agreement with NRDC and
keeper. Those technologies go well above and beyond what DEP requires. Those improvements
that we're going to make are actually going to improve the site's stormwater conditions
above what's there today. And there's not a lot of activity at all today. So we're going
to take this repurpose it and bring it to water quality standards that are better than
what's happening out there sitting there today.
The third item, we're going to convey to Wester's land trust and expanded irrevocable conservation
easement that totals over nine acres. That's going to provide additional land buffering and
protect the adjacent reservoir lands and the public drinking water supply. The fourth item I would
highlight is the school district. The school district clearly has an interest. They've supported
What did this plan, certainly one of the things that I would consider to be one of their concerns is it's going to avoid a multi-million dollar tax
associated refund.
That's something that's looming. That would hit the school district very hard. I don't know what their reserves are.
I don't know what their budget planning process is, but it's a significant impact if we're not moving forward with a project.
Fifth, and this is the piece that I think we've talked a lot about, but it really bears repeating because we haven't talked about it in the last couple of months.
Public water.
We're sitting here prepared to invest of private capital, $3 million to create the necessary nexus and connection from Wessha's to joint waterworks facilities by the airport, bring it across the highway to the site.
And that is actually a key component to unlocking the potential for a new public water supply in the Hamlet.
And the Hamlet is an area where, as I understand it, we've had long-standing concerns over water quality from the drinking water wells that exist.
This is something that will be a process with your water districts, but we're prepared to make that investment.
And it's not an investment that just benefits our site.
It's an investment that really unlocks this potential for your community and the Hamlet as a benefit.
None of these benefits, Director and Direct, happen without rezoning here.
We're at a point in time where I think it's safe to say the office market is dead.
You can quote me on that in the county, but there's no market for office here.
We have to repurpose sites in order to be able to put them back to practical use.
This is a good use here, and in light of the DOB-20A rezoning, excuse me, existing zoning,
there's no other practical or feasible option.
We've spent the last several years working through a secret process to get to what is
the appropriate alternative, and we certainly feel it's appropriate at this time for you
to take action.
Turn it back over to Tony.
Thank you, Chris.
So, thanks, Chris.
On behalf of the owner and the entire development team, we want to thank you for your consideration
and are asking that the hearing be closed and that you vote on the fine extending the rezoning resolution.
I'd like to note that a number of the benefits that Christchurch's denunciated are
because of the way this board administered this application.
Things you made us do, positions you took in this process.
Chris mentioned that the process worked, it really did work.
We're ready to move forward and processes with the planning board,
DEP, DEC, and other agencies, and for this very important project for both you and us in the community.
So, thank you.
Thank you.
Is there anybody signed up?
I know there's some people who want to speak.
Is there anybody who wants to speak?
Is there a list for it?
Well, yeah.
It was the first person you wanted to scoot back.
It's project.
You could pick either a microphone.
I'm not going to comment that one.
You're not going to comment.
Is there anybody else here who wanted to comment on this?
I just wanted to ask about the Webber House.
You have to come to the microphone.
I wanted to ask about the status of the Webber House.
You would, um, the building inspector was going to look at it.
You have an update on that?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's on a ministry.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes.
We went out there July 10th.
Thank you for allowing us the time and effort to get in there.
Um, staff went there, water director, I was director of water and sewer, director of
planning, superintendent of recreation buildings, director of myself went out to the site, we
towards the building, for our use is that the building is not going to have a lot of use for us without significant renovations and it would have to be made ADA compliant.
There's significant cost in moving at multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars and site work on top for the building that we just didn't see much use.
There was also the concern with the building inspector looked at it at the structure underneath and whether that would even be able to be moved and survive a move.
So I mean it doesn't seem to have a use for the town facilities and that was our overall assessment of before our uses roughly how many square feet is a
Kevin?
Do you have any idea Adam?
2, 1500 that would be my guess that would be my guess so pretty small and you have a lot of fixed costs exactly a small building.
Well, I'm just, I'm just kind of at the 11th hour, I think the Weber House is going
to be at midnight is going to be turned into a pumpkin and it's going to be smashed.
However, I will continue.
I think it should be repurposed as a country store for you.
This is a picture of it as a country store inside it would have supplies and here, this
This is for all you guys too.
Where would this store be located?
Just keep it right where it is.
The zoning is already in there as far as having a commercial property there.
Can somebody distribute this?
I mean it's just like having a next up there.
And the thing that you could have you could have hot food, you could have essentials and I
don't know.
I just, you could repurpose it so that it would be a convenience for the people up at the airport campus.
They can get a cup of coffee in the morning on the way to work.
And I just, I just think that it has a potential of being, having that use in there.
The pictures out of the inside there from Belfair, from the Belfair store that was there.
which is what they did if they provided this country store for their people and they
I don't see where they can do you've got a hundred how many people are in the in the ages
was it going to be 50 50 almost 50 50 apartments so then you're looking at basically a hundred
people run down get it by to eat people can and then the other thing too as you can look
at it as a place for the kids come home from school the bus has got to come down and
to be there, it's a place for them to do, and in a place for the people to meet, and to
congregate.
Just, but just, practically, looking at the plan, the applicant would have to eliminate
at the very least four townhouses.
Actually, it would probably be about, probably two to three, but if you look at it.
There's also tax advantages on it.
But I did some research on the taxes that were involved in it.
I talked to some, I mean, for example, I did talk to Danny at NICS to see what his traffic was.
He's got pretty good traffic in there.
But of course, he's open to the public.
This would be just basically for the people who would be in the airport campus.
But I just think it would just provide a convenience and a service for the residents.
And before anything is done with the building, even if it does not to serve a town purpose,
it could serve a purpose there for the residents and be a value add for them.
That's my pitch.
Thank you.
It's an interesting idea.
It's really, if the application is approved, it's up to the applicant.
If they want to consider something there, it will be in their hands.
but appreciate your input on it and the handout and thank you Kevin and staff for taking a hard look at the building.
It is a nice building but we have, there are some practicalities to it and so we appreciate the work you did on the staff.
Any other comments on that, Ron?
It's really just a question in terms of-
They were.
Oh, Ron Tobias, or Mark Resonance.
Just a couple of questions in terms of how many units,
and is it rental, is it townhouses, what is it?
Just to get a sense of a density.
Just a sensitive concern in terms of the makeup
of the town in terms of getting a lot of different developments
with lots of different residents.
I just like and I don't have the facts about it so this is for me a learning experience.
Sure, I could do it but maybe the applicant wants to just provide a quick response to that.
There'll be 50 rental units age restricted on approximately four and a half acres and
there'll be 125 for sale townhouses throughout the rest of the other 34 acres.
Is that answer your question?
And this 10% afford.
My name is Bob Oak and I'm an on my
residents since 1986.
And so I've been here for a while.
I appreciate what you're trying to do.
And you made a comment that nobody in
town has really been upset about this
or raised any concerns. I think that's
generally because most people don't pay attention.
So this sort of came to my attention
in the last few days.
So I think it allows the idea.
I think the town's been overbuilt.
There's too much going on in terms of construction, and I think the buyer of this made a mistake eight years ago.
He bought something because he saw a market.
He was wrong. A lot of people who have made investments, they've been wrong, they lose money, that's life.
So I don't think we should be bailing them out by allowing them to build a residential construction of that size, that's just my view.
Thank you, Bob.
And you have the comments?
Sure.
Either microphone.
Hi, so I'm Julie, also a long-term Armageddon.
I just want to second that feeling.
I feel like Armageddon is changing.
And I feel like we're paying the price for bad investments.
The amount of building that's taken place in the last year to two years is unseen.
I've been here for 45 years.
And there was a time I was here where there was a moratorium on all building.
and I just ask the board, what's changed?
Like, why all of a sudden are we seeing this influx
of approvals for all these housing units
that's impacting our traffic, our sewers, our water,
and changing the face of our mock?
So I just asked you to consider that.
I've never seen such an influx in housing developments
in the time I've been here in our mock
and people are concerned.
So I just want to share that.
Thank you.
Any other comments from the public?
Any other comments from the Board? Solimbe, do you have anything else to add?
I showed just a couple of things. First of all, I would like to thank Tony, he did a great job in terms of providing item with the findings. And Adam, he certainly did a wonderful job as usual, giving us a document that was really very, very comprehensive.
and I think that most of the comments that need to be addressed are site plan that has
they're not zoning related. And I think in response, and I'm speaking just for myself,
I'm not speaking for the board, but I think in response to why this town board, or at least
social projects is because there is a need, there's a need not only in this town, people downsizing, empty nesters, but the supervisor begins every town board meeting with an update in terms of the governor in terms of housing, and we are every municipality, and particularly in this area in Westchester County, particularly Northern Westchester.
We're under a lot of pressure to show the governor and our assemblymen and our state senator
that we indeed are trying to meet the housing goals that the state is imposing on every
single city, town, and village.
And you know, many years ago, perhaps long before any of you took an interest in coming to
town board meetings, we were targeted as a town that had exclusionary zoning, the fact
that we sat down as a town long before I was on the board, and created zoning that basically
said you can't have multifamily housing units, you can't have apartment buildings, et cetera.
And, and first of all, it wasn't true because we've had many things on the book that have
that have encouraged housing, but we definitely had to improve what we offered in terms of and I think what was said before, the variety of housing, not only the variety in terms of two family housing versus an apartment building, but the idea that you're going to have rental, you know, for 55 and older, you're going to have townhouses that obviously they're going to be age targeted, but they will really run the gamut in terms of the age of housing.
groups of the people. And I really would hate to see us as a town, take a step backwards
where once again, you know, we have a target on our back and we have perhaps the federal
government or the state government really coming down hard on us because we're not moving
forward with the needs for housing.
Thank you, Mark. Any comments?
Yeah, so I'm less concerned about, you know, federal or state government coming out against the saying that we're not adding enough housing because we are approving projects when they make sense for the community.
my view is it's a balance and I don't I don't love the number of housing units
that are being added in this kind of a period of time but when you think about
this project and we have to look at each of these projects separately there's
a few things about it that's me are a little bit different and I take into
consideration. First of all the location of this project is in an area it's
It's not, it's not, you know, in downtown Armandke, it's, you know, off by the airport.
It's on King Street.
It's not something that many of us are going to see day-to-day unless we're actually driving
there.
It's not something that we're all going to pass every morning on the way to work or school.
Secondly, I think we, as a community, we need assessables and we need full, fair, non-condotaxed
assessables.
Like, we're in an inflationary environment and we haven't really added assessables in a
long time, and if we don't add full fair assessibles, the reality of what we're going to have is either having to cut back municipal services or increase taxes.
And the way you could avoid that cycle is by adding full fair assessibles because that adds cash flow to the town in excess of the cost of the serve residents.
And one of the reasons that I really long despised condotaxation, especially when it's not in apartment style uses.
is because with contactation, you're adding assessables, but at half the rate of regular fee simple
assessables, and it doesn't cover the cost to serve those new residents.
So while you're adding revenue, you're adding costs that are in excess of the revenue, and
it's not really in that benefit financially.
On top of that, with this project, as it was kind of said, if we don't approve rezoning,
we are at risk of losing a tax search your RIClaim, where the school would be on the hook for
about $4 million of paying back taxes that they've already collected as if this was office but
it's not. And the town in the county would be about $800,000 each. So, and then there's the,
you know, the multi-million dollar water investment that we kind of get. So, I think the concerns that
the people raised are valid. I share them, but I wanted to share the other side of the equation
that I kind of use in balancing this out, which is why I've had kind of a net positive
view of moving forward, especially with the change from condo taxation.
The one question that I had that we talked about last time, but we didn't really get to,
we discussed the idea like we did with Eagle Ridge of having a covenant to have a certain
percentage.
In Eagle Ridge, we used 60% of the town homes with a primary bedroom on the first floor
because this project was always discussed as being age-targeted for the townhouse portion
and each targeted meeting master bedroom, primary bedroom on the ground floor, so I think
there was a follow-up item I'd love to hear Tony, your view or the developer's view on.
So you're right.
We did talk about our last one, Jeff Wrangler with Airport Campus.
You know, as I stated at the last meeting, it is tough to put further restriction as to what
a project may be in the future, and the point of going to the fee simple, which we are
happy to do at the request of the board was to have the ability to put something out
that we felt hit the market. And that market we feel is having the ability to have a bedroom
down, master down or up. So I'd hate to impose on our project further restrictions.
I think
to discuss it a little bit further, potentially give something on it, but I'd really like to keep it the way that it is.
I mean, I feel that we are going to market every unit as a potential master down, which I think goes a long way.
But, you know, I think there's folks that would like a master down, even if they had kids.
So, I don't know quite what it does, but I'm happy to discuss and come to a, you know, if you had a thought on it.
I think that, look, my home in Armand has, you know, the primary and
bedroom on the ground floor, and, you know, we happen to love it and we're, you
know, not, you know, we're in our 40s, right? But so, it's a preference. I just
helped me understand, though, like, how it, I shouldn't view it, though, as a change,
right? Because the entire time we were discussing this project this year, like
since January, we're always discussing it as being age-targeted. And so if, you
You know, you guys can't commit to a certain percentage,
let's say 60% just as being like kind of a majority,
being age targeted.
Like, how would one view that as not a change?
So, to me, age target is giving the flexibility
where, you know, every unit in this complex
is gonna have the ability to have the master
on the first floor.
So, just by virtue of that, it is targeted
where, you know, folks who want that style of housing
have that flexibility.
If they don't then they have the ability
to customize and have the bedrooms upstairs and a little bit more living room on the ground floor.
So I think just by it being marketed that way is age targeted.
So, can I ask a question?
Yeah, just one thing I was going to just to frame it for everybody,
like I think there's two benefits of why I'm kind of pushing on the 60% age-targeted
bastard bedroom, primary bedroom on the ground floor.
Another reason one is we do have a shortage of housing for seniors that want to age in place.
Eagle Ridge didn't have any with the last iteration.
This project does with the 50 age restricted apartments, right?
So this project is better than Eagle Ridge in that sense, but the other reason is because it lessens the burden on the schools.
And so to me the reason I'm pushing for it is because I think even though it's an acceptable burden on the schools we studied it.
During the process I think it you know it was under the impression we were studying it under the lens and the impression
At least I was that it was going to be an age-targeted
project and yeah, and I and I think you do still have that
I
Jack do you want to speak to other communities and the percentages that you see just in and how it's marketed?
Jack Landman with told brothers. I
Will add to what Jeff said that we have built numerous age restricted communities where
where people have asked for a master on the second floor, it's not uncommon.
My own father in his seventies purchased a town home with a second floor master bedroom
because he wants his sleeping area to be separate from his entertaining area.
So there's more demand for second floor primary suites than you might think with 55 and older
communities.
55 is not as old as it was, maybe there aren't going to be the school kids when you get people
of that age, but people still, you know, can do stairs and deal with the second floor
of primary suite.
So we want to give the flexibility.
It's important to us.
I was saying, do you have a comment?
Sure.
I'm going to comment on it.
Okay.
You may have one.
Would you like to go first?
I don't know, because you had a comment on this particular thing.
Yes, I do.
I'll have a couple of other comments and questions.
So I don't even know what it means to say it will be marketed, the practical impact.
of saying it will be marketed as age targeted.
Let's start with the premise and understand what you're saying.
I understand you're saying that you like the first floor bedroom,
but then again, you renovated your house.
So, who knows what you would have done originally.
In my house, I plan to stay there for the duration.
And I'm glad I have my master upstairs,
but be very easy because I have a guest room downstairs
and other space that I can move down there.
And that's something I take into account.
Let's assume total pure intent that you're going to market.
It says restrict it.
You're a public company.
If you find when these are coming to market
that the world has changed and you can make some more money
selling something that's not on the first bedroom,
on the first floor, is a bedroom.
room. I don't think you can tell me with a straight face that you aren't going to change
the game plan. You're going to adjust to the market, the market changes, and we know
it changes a little time. It's certainly changed from when you bought this office park.
So to me, it's just very hard to understand this shift, and it came up in Eagle Ridge. I
would think you folks were aware of it when that happened. I would hope you were, but maybe
weren't. I think it's crucially important. I think it's part of the overall deal of
what was there. And we really do want to encourage our seniors to stay in town for them to
have a place to downsize to. That's one of the reasons I find the repurposed office building
desirable because I think some of them will want that. And it's age restricted, which isn't perfect,
but it achieves that some and that's what lets me in this case be in support of that repurposed office.
But I think you really should be going to the 60% standard that was done on Eagle Ridge.
And I think that was relatively generous and it gives you quite a bit of flex room.
So I'm going to just say it might be finished.
I was just going to say one other thing. I recounted another time how I forget which units it were.
they were on old Route 22.
I can visualize this, the broker was there, I was curious to see what was there and pointed
out this room that was unfinished, and she pointed out, look over there.
You have a window framed out, so it could ultimately be converted into another bedroom
in some way.
These things happen, and I really am very concerned about that, and I think it should be adjusted
in that way. So let me say in my comments and I said at the last meeting at the last hearing,
I do look at this differently than Eagle Ridge and I agree with a lot of what Matt and
Barbara said and especially with Matt said about this project being distinctly different. It's
away from town. It's next to the airport. To me it helped on Eagle Ridge to have the requirement
on this particular project. I don't feel that it's important to have it. And
toll brothers, as mentioned at several meetings, that's your target. And their
history is putting masters on the first floor in communities like this to reach
target. But just to be fair for the applicant, I'm not aware of any switch that
the applicant. This has never been originally we were looking at an age-restricted project but
the applicants never switched and said we want to be
It's always been age targeted with fee simple. So in my mind, there's never been a switch on that. However, with respect to what Councillor Millen was saying, is there a number, percentage number, I don't think 60% respectfully that is the right number. But to me, if it's like a quarter or a third, if that was a consideration,
because I think you're going to hit that number easily anyway with this project.
Perhaps that's something because I don't think you need it, but I think that it doesn't
hurt, but I don't think it's equivalent to Evil Ridge where 60 to me sounded like the
right number.
So, you can comment on that and agree or not agree before that and even make some comment.
Yeah, so the reason, look, I'm not saying it's like a switch per se, but I asked it as
a question.
I have to ask a question of how should I not view it as a switch, because I kind of intuitively am, but I just wanted to, like maybe somebody at a different point of view when I wanted to be open-minded, that the reason I was leaning towards saying it was a switch is because I always interpreted age-targeted as meaning the primary bedroom is on the ground floor, and that matters because you're going to wind up having a higher percentage of residents that don't have school-aged children.
in my mind if you market the units that way.
And so the reason I view it as a switch is because if there's no teeth to it at all,
and now they could just, they could market them that way, or they could market them the
other way, they could have 10% that way, or 90% that way, it's not really like characteristic
of the project, it's just something that's floating out there.
And so, to me, I get that this is a little different than Eagle Ridge, but if it's not at least half of them, then it's not, you know, that are required, then I don't think you can call it, you know, that it's an age-targeted development because it's less than half of them that would even be age-targeted, that's my point of view.
Just a point of information, this applicant has agreed to file a covenant restricting the
townhouses to know more than three bedrooms.
So that kind of avoids what you mentioned about a illegal conversion occurring.
Now there's a file covenant.
I wasn't addressing that there.
I'm just saying things happen.
I was analogizing in terms of the marketing.
But that's not something we had from Eagle Ridge.
So here we've got something different, that kind of limits the, if you're worried about school aged children, that kind of limits that without there being aged targeting percentages, just it's in the findings it's a requirement.
No, I get that and I think that's a valid point too, but it's also, when we set aged targeted the interpretation I think we all had is primary bedrooms on the ground floor.
And again, the footprint of the buildings does not change, right?
The interiors are what changes in that.
So I think that's an important point.
So it's not like we can, you know, we'll make a switch at one point, build them all, you know, at different styles.
So the footprint doesn't change.
And in light of the spirit that we've had for basically eight years now, I'm happy to make a compromise on it.
And I spoke with toll on our team.
So if we were to, we have 175 units, 50 of them there in the multifamily, they should come out of the math and then the affordable should come out of the math.
If you want to do 25% of the balance as primary first floor, I think we're fine with that and we can put the issue to bed.
So come out of the math meaning the 50 or age restricted.
How are the affordables relevant to being pulled out should in whatever you're doing apply
to them as well?
I just think that it's a different metric as you look at the project so that that's
what we were comfortable with and again we're happy to give on the item to move on.
Look I appreciate that like I thought 60% was the right number because we used an
on Eagle Ridge, I still think it really should be half because if something is less than
half, you know, age targeted, I don't think it's the same as saying this is an age targeted
development. And we said the town homes were age targeted, so to me, like I think it should
be at least half of the town homes.
Again,
I just think it's a different project than Eagle Ridge was, and we've worked, we have
feel strongly that we need to hit a market at some point for this project to be successful.
So to be further bound, it's tough.
So trying to meet you.
I don't know.
I understand, but when you say further bound, this was the way we were talking about it the
entire time that it was going to be aged targeted.
So I don't view this as adding a restriction of like the 11th hour.
I view this really as just saying, just make it what you said it was going to be the whole
month.
But by doing that, it's not really changing what we said.
We said it's going to be, you know, mastered, down marketed, which all of our buildings have been designed to do that.
That they can all be what they need to be.
So, wait, sorry, just to take that apart for a sec to make sure I'm getting it.
So, you won't be marketing these units as marketing them is saying you have an option of where you put the primary veteran.
I'm not the marketing.
So, no.
Oh, it's whole brothers speak to that.
It's our intention to have multiple floor plans available, the majority of which would be first floor primaries, and that's what we expect, candidly, what we expect the majority to be, but we want to provide buyers with the flexibility.
What other people think?
I just did some quick math and said, man, save this helps.
I think there's 18, affordable?
We have a hundred and seventy-five units and we have fifty at or already age restricted.
You take the eighteen off.
But
don't forget that 10% you have 10% the multifamily of the affordables yeah
And to me the affordables should be whatever the affordables need I don't need to restrict those on a restricted et cetera
so
of that one oh seven
You have if it's 25% of that that's 27 units
on our back, right?
So if you had the 27 to the 50 you've got 77 units of
almost age restricted because the age restricted in the the apartment building is
age restricted and you've got 27 extra first floor master's guaranteed and
I think we're gonna have much more than that but 27 they get you to 77 so as a
percentage of the entire project taking out you know second the 18
affordable is off of the 175 you're at 49% of the entire project right so it
doesn't get what you want which is half of the town homes but you're still
getting you know sort of more insured that 49% of the units taking me
fordables out is a little more than targeted age restrict that it's really
age restrict doesn't mean that somebody can't that wants to live there that's not
older won't want to have a unit with a master on the first but and and again I'm
I'm less concerned about you know I respect Matt's opinion on this I think it
is different I don't think it's needed in that location as it was more
importantly on Eagle Ridge but I'm just trying to find some common ground I get it
and I don't want to be dismissive but you know and along the way when we first made
the switch to feet taxation and we started to talk about what this
I think it was Barbara's idea to have almost a transitional style development where you have an age-restricted building which was easy for us to do in the multi-family and then have the age targeted so you could see the progression of that style housing but we gave on that really quickly so that it would be age-restricted and further help the community and the schools and so again, I value the math on it that it's the project overall.
I don't know if it helps, but I just, Mike, in what way are you seeing this as being
different than Eagle Ridge for the age study?
Well, I've already have an age restricted building in the development, so that's going
to attract people of the light community.
You're going to have 50 tents
in that apartment building when it's built and rented, and the
location of it.
You know, location Eagle Ridge is right here, it's right across the street.
So, to me, it is a different animal project, and I don't think it warrants it, but I'm
trying to find some common ground here that accomplishes part of what, you know, part
of what Matt's comments were.
That's all.
But acknowledging there is a significant amount with that 25% taking out the age restrict,
taking out the affordable, it's about half of what's remaining is
age restricted and are not more than age targeted, you know, with masters on
the first. No guarantee, somebody with 55 will live there, but likely they would.
So, that's it.
More comments on it? Look, I think I was originally expecting it to be,
you know, 50 or 60% of the 125 townhomes.
Like, I think I would feel comfortable
if you said it's 50% of the townhomes
that are acts the AFFH portion,
which I think is a reasonable compromise.
It's substantially less than the 60%
that Eagle Ridge has to do
because I do think this is different
because there's two reasons
why I think having primary bedrooms
on the ground floor for age targeting helps, one is because the impact of the schools and two is to provide more of a product that we don't currently have enough of, which is just housing for seniors that want to age a place.
So I think that that's a reasonable compromise.
Did you say 50 or 60% of the age targeted of that are not affordable?
Yes, of the 125 that are not affordable.
So if we said, if we say 45%, yeah, exactly, of the total.
Which would be 56 units, yes, thank you.
Yeah, let me just add a couple comments here.
So for me, I think it's, to me, it seems reasonable.
Like I think it's important that you provide flexibility to people coming in, but given
that you are doing age targeting, I think it's fair for you to commit to 50, I thought 60%
was fair and certainly 50% without the affordable units without kind of keeping from the flexibility,
as long as you're doing age targeting. Because when you get down to like the 25% range,
at that point you could change your whole strategy and not be age targeting,
and then you'd still be able to hit the 25. So to me it just seems reasonable to expect a higher
percentage given that you're doing age targeting.
So I don't feel like that is a constraint on you.
I would think that that still allows you to give flexibility to folks.
I'm going to go back to what the toll, one of the toll representatives said at the last hearing of the one before that.
Just using real life examples of what they've been building in the county.
I think they use pleasant bill and I think at what other developments they use and they were using real life numbers
of the amount of units that they're making or percentages that have first floor masters.
And I think there's a fairness piece here.
We want the right project if we're going to approve it.
When I do the last piece of math, if they did half of the town homes
and you add the age restricted building to it,
You've got 71% of the entire project taking out the affordables as almost insured
at age restricted because of the masters on the first floor.
I'm fully confident based on what they're building and what they can market that that's
what the market's going to be.
And you've already got a third of that project, almost a third of that project would age
restricted residents.
I think it's going to naturally attract age restricted residents versus younger families
or something that want to live in a development with
an agency-stricted department building, a higher-end agency-stricted department building.
So I just think I don't need it personally on this application,
but I think 25% is a fair number, but you've heard two board members that are
for
three that are provided alternative views.
How about we circle through the rest of the meeting and let us think about it a little bit
and hit the other topics and come back?
That's fine.
I would just like, excuse me, I just would like to say that I don't,
I don't think that 50 or 60% of the townhouses should be restricted to first bedrooms.
I think that, you know, given the location near the airport,
This is not going to be an easy sell with the average person.
I also think, and correct me if I'm wrong, this discussion of restricting a certain percentage to first floor bedrooms only came up recently.
And, you know, I think that it's something that should have been put on the table a while ago, and not sort of at the very end, and just in terms of fairness. It's already on that. And the fact that, you know, we have guaranteed 50 units, the apartments that are for 55 and older. But on your point, Barbara, you know, saying that I'm bringing this up at the 11th hour,
weren't we talking about this project, the 125 townhomes, being age-targeted this entire year?
Yes, I know that.
Age-targeted, this entire year.
What is age-targeted?
The first floor bedroom, but they are saying they're going to market it that way.
They're saying it in earnest.
And I think, you know.
What did I, I'm sorry, they're saying it in what?
In earnest.
And I just don't think it's necessary with this particular project, with this location, with 50 guaranteed age restricted apartments.
There's a flip side to it as well.
If you leave it as a commitment, that it's a 100% commitment, that they're going to age target all the units.
that's one avenue. If you limited what you're really saying to them, no matter what percentage
you choose, is that now they only have to age target 40, 50 percent, whatever number
you agree to, and the rest of them, they can market however they choose. So, which way
are you better off?
I don't see it that way, because I think if they have a hurdle where they know, like they
can have 90 percent primary bedrooms on the first floor, that won't matter. It's just
it has to be above 50 with the, you know, my proposal, they're going to market all of them
that way because they know that they need to get at least that many and they don't know
exactly how many they're going to get.
So I think it encourages having the covenant, it encourages them to market it the way that
they said they would in my mind.
I don't know.
I have a proposal in the spirit of what you brought up with Eagle Ridge.
If you say, if we were to say that 60% of the entire projects would either be first floor primary
or one level, and that would mean 44% of the town homes would have to be first floor primers.
One level? Meaning the apartments.
And now you excluding the affordables? I don't want to restrict the affordables.
Those are there for a reason. I don't think we should be restricting people who need to live in those affordables
by pigeon holding who could live there, or that to me,
they should be taking off at the table.
Those I had 18, but if it's six.
So could you repeat that again?
I said, if we want to get to 60% of the entire project,
is it either has one level homes, meaning the 50 apartments,
or first floor primaries, that would require a restriction
of 44% of the town homes to have a first floor primary.
Leaving out the affordable. I didn't even factor in the affordable. Okay, so then let's
You use it in calculator, right?
I actually used to be better at doing this in my head
So my math is if you took
It's actually exactly what I think I think we're exactly the same pay that was it works out to exactly what I
proposed
so if you say
you know, 60% of 175 units, just to make them do in the math twice to make sure that's a 0-5.
Yeah, that's 105 units that would have to be either apartment style or first floor primary.
So tracked out the 50.
So tracked out the 50, you're left with 55 of the 125 town homes, which was the same thing, you know, I was saying,
when I said 50% X to AFFH1, so I'm fine with that.
So just to clarify though, I think it's important that the affordables are taken out of that.
I don't think the affordables should be required to be first floor masters because now you're defeating the purpose of the affordables.
So my math was pretty close to yours, but I get to 160 if I take the total of 175 and you said 16, is that the right number?
Adam, do you know if it's 16 affordables total?
I thought it was 10% which would have we were round up to 18.
Oh, it's the markery and I'm sorry.
Okay, so then it's actually lower than 16.
Right, it's 13.
Right?
125 is market.
So you round up, so it's 13.
Right.
Well, I'm splitting here, but let's say it's 112.
If
you take 175 minus 13, 162, everybody brought their calculators today.
Yeah, so I get to 47, not whatever the number you had is 55.
If you start at 175 and you take the 13 off, you have 162 left and 60% of that number
is right number 162.6. Yeah, it's 97, right? But we've already covered 50 in the building.
So that leaves us with 47. And 47. So you get 47 plus 50. I guess 97 divided by 175,
the
your four doubles of 97 divided by 162,
you get this 59% right but we never we keep
front you keep framing it as the entire project but you know we were always
talking about there's gonna be 50 age restricted apartments and then 125 age
targeted condos first our age target at town homes so it's not like I think
that's different math than what we were talking about the whole time like look
The way of boiling this down, the Eagle Ridge equivalent would have been 75 of the townhomes.
That would have been 60% of 125 is 75.
I was then talking about going to 50% of 125, which was 62 and a half.
I came up with another proposal that was 56.
You came up with a proposal that was 55 and you're talking about one that's 47.
I'm okay with 55.
I think there's sound logic to it.
But I think it winds up being half of the 125 townhomes without AFFH units in it, which
is reasonable to me.
So that's kind of where my view is.
So what's the formula?
Because if we're going to agree to this, we've got to put it into the resolution, right?
Yeah.
I think you just make it really simple and just say at least 55 of the, rather than making
it overly complicated, we could just say, I mean, 55 of the townhomes have to have to
have the market.
More than none of.
25 of the market townhomes. Yes, 55 of the market town percentage. I mean, we're not guaranteed.
If you'd rather do it your way, that's fine. I don't care. I don't care. I mean, by our math, the 44, I can live with 44% of the market rate townhomes, which I think gets you to 60% of the overall project.
Yeah, I think those are different, but on the way I did it because if you say 60% of the 175 units,
That's 105 units and then less 50 for the apartments is 55 out of a 125 oh, I see what you're saying for the 44%
So that's you're that's not 44 of non-market rate. That's 44 of everything
I'm okay with the way you said it 60% if you want to do it that way. I'm okay with it if everybody else is just saying
60% 60% what would you say was 60% of all of the units 175 units in total
60% of them have to either be one level, meaning apartment or primary bedroom on the first floor.
60% of the market rate units in the entire community need to either be a one level apartment style home or a town home with the first floor primary bedroom.
Oh, what's the market rate?
I don't think that's what you were saying before.
But there's still going to be, there's still going to be five affordable age restricted apartments, right?
Because you have to have like.
So there'll be five of those in 13 of the town homes.
That before you said it was including the affordables when I asked about it.
So it should all be in there.
Also, not to change the calculations, let's count the repurposed buildings being 50 units, but let's remember that, you know, that's up to 50, so maybe fewer units there.
So you were saying potentially it's charged, yes.
We'll do the percentage, but just to use that number,
it's 105 units to include one level living and town home,
which gets you to the 55.
That was my math, right?
Yes.
And we should use a percentage not an aggregate number
because your project could shrink and then you're stuck with a very high percentage.
It's
a question.
This is a question.
Alan Blum, our monk resident.
I have no skin in this game.
So, just a question.
One, how big are these townhouses in square foot living space?
How many square feet are these townhouses in the living space?
I believe they're in the 2,200 to 2,600 square foot range.
Okay, and you said three bedrooms, right?
I haven't seen the garage or without.
Without.
Yeah, usually without.
Is there a basement, above-round basement,
that you finish, or that could be finished
the day later?
All right, it would be an option to finish it.
Okay.
So we know what people do with raw space
and what they do later after you leave.
So my question is, if the master bedroom,
you have a plan to build it a certain size,
is what would happen if two of the bedrooms, one on the main floor, one on the second floor,
were about the same size each with its own on the suite.
You might be able to settle this whole problem, now would be up to the individual, you solve
your marketing issue, because that's what this really is, is a marketing issue, for the
town as well as the consumer.
And you have the ability to give the flexibility to the homeowner.
So just a comment on an observation that I'm hearing here.
just so you know I have some expertise in marketing so that's why where I'm
coming from but I have no skin in the game and what you've said well sounds
good but you're looking for flexibility and you're looking for a marketing
message to the community to the town and to address a problem that's happening
now in Westchester just something to consider I don't have a response to that right
I have no skin in this game either, and it probably doesn't even pertain to me, but
it's telling us who you are.
Nico Marino, just a question.
Is there a requirement that you're saying that there is, what's the criteria of the
requirements that have to meet a elder living space, or however you put it, to be able
to offset the school taxes or something with two?
Yes, let me, let me maybe try to.
Is there a set, like, what they have to commit to?
Right.
So, there's, age restriction is, like, it's a restriction in the deed that typically
would say at least one person, and so be correct, maybe if I say anything wrong,
at least one person would have to be 55 and older in order for somebody to buy the unit.
And so we have these apartments, these 50 apartments, that because of the style
of the way they're built, they're getting condotaxation, which basically means they're going to be paying half the tax of what it would if it was fee simple.
Well, it will hurt that they're only paying half the tax, but because they're all going to have age restriction, you shouldn't have very many school-aged children coming from the 50 apartment complex, but with, you know, the project as it was always discussed would be the 125 townhomes, which are going to pay full tax like everybody else does in town, that they were going to be age-targeted, not age-restricted.
So anybody could buy it, but they would be marketed with the primary bedroom on the ground floor such that you would wind up having fewer school-aged children as if you just marketed them freely as anything which helps the, you know, the, you know, kind of financial impact of the school because you're getting full taxes, but you might not have quite as many kids to have to serve.
That's like the logic of what we're kind of discussing.
The only commitment is in the 50 apartments, you have to have somebody who's living there that's 55 and older in order to buy one.
So in many communities they just say age restricted or age targeted rather.
So here we're trying to put some bones on it, flesh and bones.
So 50%, there will only go to 50% of the townhouses, less the affordable.
I'm good with that.
Thank you.
Wait, could you?
50% of the town homes, less the afford,
like take the town homes, less the AFFH,
and 50% of the remainder, so it should be 56.
Right to the right.
Right, it is.
It's 56.
Get you counted to that again, I'm sorry.
So you take the 125 town homes, do you buy two?
Well, wait, before you do that,
you just say take out the AFFH,
so that's how many of those out?
The AFFH or the townhouse?
The townhouse?
Yeah, thank you. No, it's a good question. So that should be 11.
Wow, I was using 12 13 13
No, but your number is right 125 list 13's 112 half of that is 56. You're right, but it was more it was more the concept that I thought was like a
I'll justify a welcome.
I'm good with that tone. So you have 56 town homes, non affordable, and you have 50 in the age restricted buildings, you got 106. You win. Very reasonable. I think we just sold the last outstanding issue. Well, that's great. So won't be that affordable. That'll be marketed in that way.
We're saying, right?
It's not saying that it's not marketed.
It's just not restricted.
Right.
Because yeah, I hear what you're saying, Mike,
but I'm not sure that you might not have older people
who want to live in affordable too, but leave that aside.
And then how does this roll out?
So we have the total that are being there.
Are you required to market them as you have a certain percentage
actually be first floor as you're going along or at the end of the process. I think we're
complicated. You better tell it all we're working out with the planning where we'll figure
it out. Okay. Well you're doing it in two phases. So at the end of the project we'll need
to. Yeah. What I would recommend is we do a disease phase otherwise who knows if we ever
get there. Okay. Does that make sense Matt? Yeah. Well there's two technically two projects.
So, tolls building, they agreed to 50% of the non-affordable market, which gets you 56 of the 112.
And the other building may not be built by toll, may be built by the applicant, and that's all age restricted.
That's not what I was saying.
That's not going to have the covenant on it.
Not going to have the covenant, but there's no changes.
There's going to be two phases on the townhomes, as I recall.
Thank you.
A few instructions.
Yes.
Right.
So what I would suggest is that we have the percentages applied to each face.
Otherwise, I don't agree with that.
I don't agree with that.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I misunderstood.
Yeah.
I'm okay.
I just wanted it to be, if they said it was going to be age targeted, I just wanted, you know, at least half of it to be age targeted.
I wasn't really so specific.
They need to build this and to construction efficiencies.
These, we don't need to split here, in my opinion,
we just put hairs behind that.
They've agreed from zero to half of the market rate townhomes.
That's a pretty big concession on their part considering we've talked about age,
targeted what we haven't talked about, a percentage until I think last meeting.
So I'm fine with exactly the way it's been proposed.
And I was only raising it because we've seen not suggesting bad faith,
but applicants come back and look what happened, and we really need relief from this, so that's why it's thinking since there are two clear phases, that's why you might want to have it apply a percentage-wise teach phase.
I get it. We've done it only on one project, Bremwood, but it was for a different reason, but they've got tens of millions into this project. I think they're pretty motivated to get this project built.
I just got 50% and I'm fine.
Why, just clarifying, raising it, any other comments?
Who's that you wanted to share?
So this is something that the fire department is concerned about.
Not because they think there's necessarily a problem, but they want to be extra sure that the office building is sprinklered and will be sprinklered.
one's residential, right?
It is.
Jeff mentioned that the way.
I would think so, I was just trying to clarify.
So, and they have every faith that the building inspector,
the engineers, everyone's going to make sure it's well sprinklered,
but it really is very important to them that even,
I don't know how sprinklers work in terms of better or worse,
but they want to make sure that even remote areas in the buildings
are well sprinklered.
It's all code, right?
It's all code.
You've got to sprinkler what you have to sprinkler.
So if you could note that though, that'd be great.
They know more about it than I do.
So apparently it can be some sort of problem and, you know, note if, you know, for the planning board building inspector, whoever.
So we talked about sidewalks last time, and the county submitted their comments, and they were asking for comments.
they're asking for sidewalks, last time when it was raised, I think Tony, you went like
this because there's so many driveways you're saying, and so you'd have sidewalk going
down the driveway, going up, down, etc. like that, right?
So you wouldn't have very long runs before they would be dropping down to the driveway.
So the planning board, when we went there to get a recommendation on the rezoning, was all
over this topic.
and toll brothers have positions regarding the main ins of it, the liability of it, and so there will be something in the front of the site coming to the front of the site for the bus we can work all of that out, but they do not want to put sidewalks throughout the site.
The planning board does not want to retell.
It's told us.
Right.
And the planning board's position on that was...
They were willing to work with it.
You know, we'll work it through it.
I mean, there might be certain places where it's really necessary.
or any other clubhouse or something, where we'll put it.
Let's stop.
Yeah.
I think it's really a planning board site plan issue
that we'll work through and the balance Jose is also
its additional and pervious surface.
So we need to balance that over the site.
But it is, we know that the planning board had it as a comment
and we'll have to work through that with them.
Thank you, that's
enough on that.
So my concerns on this, in addition, are not, oh, actually the noise from the airport, I think the finding statement says that it will be disclosed, but the way it's been described as being disclosed is that it will be in the offering memorandum, right?
rental agreements, and one other thing?
I believe that's green with the trail, yeah.
Okay, so is that prominent enough because when you have an offering statement, nobody reads
them except most lawyers probably won't even meet them.
So there were two sub-issues there is the disclosure going to be not only as to proximity to
the airport, but how there can be a lot of noise from it.
Obviously, as you said, the noise level won't be as bad inside the apartments, inside the town homes.
You've got special windows that will reduce it by 20 decibels, and it'll be down to 45 decibels, which Adam tells me is like a quiet office.
But the problem is, especially when you have town homes, you're going to have people who are going to want to be outside.
So, I'm wondering whether we shouldn't have a little bit more strict disclosure than just a disclosure statement or
requirement that it be prominent and also with regard to the noise.
You know Jose, I just would like to add that this was months ago.
I made a point one morning to go over to the entrance of airport campus and my purpose
was I looked up the flights coming in.
And so I was going to make a video with audio to share with the town board.
And what happened was every time a flight came in, it was drowned out by the traffic, all
right?
And I couldn't, I couldn't believe it.
And so it's in the findings.
And I said to Adam the other day, I said, you know, in the findings, they mentioned the traffic
on King Street actually is louder than the airplanes above.
And I said, it's true.
And I deleted the video because you could not hear the planes that I was, you know, I tried about three or four times and it wasn't as if it was, you know, people lying, you know, people going 100 miles an hour.
It was just a steady stream of traffic, both ways it was between 9 and 9.45 in the morning.
And I found it really incredible.
I'll keep perfect down this way.
Right.
But Barbara, that was on the road, right?
Yeah.
It was on the road.
Okay.
Because there's a berm there.
I think one of the purposes of that.
No, but I actually, I wouldn't, I mean, it was trespassing, but I actually wouldn't.
We're just Pete Simonson when we need him.
That was a strong comment in here that the U.I. offered at one of the prior hearings
that there would be acknowledgement in the offering plan that this is indeed near an airport.
So, I don't feel that we need to...
It's not just in the offering plan.
They've also committed that it'll be in all the rental agreements
in the contracting sale.
And people do read those.
So I'm fine with that.
I'm just on a more of a kind of funny note.
I do have, I'm not going to bore you with them,
but I do have videos on my phone just from my house.
Many of you would know where I live,
and in many mornings it is 6.84, and it's fine.
but it sounds like a constant air traffic like plain noise and sometimes it's almost
deafening but that's the reality that's just you know where we live but that's
kind of the problem so you were saying I think 684 is a problem I think it's an
asset to our town well there's noise a lot of people you can't you're not gonna
eliminate car noise from 684 I wasn't suggesting to do that but a lot of people
don't love it so you were saying they made a statement to what effect on that
Previously.
Tony, the last year and the one before that said that they were going to have acknowledgment.
Adolagement in the offering plan and roll and just clarify that not only that, but also
in other materials.
Constable, agreement and in the contract, so it's going to be an acknowledgment not just
disclosure.
It's going to be in the contract, the offering plan or the lease.
Right.
I'm asking a different question.
It will be an acknowledgment.
Not just a disclosure.
It will sign the contract.
Right.
Okay, but the offering statement doesn't, I mean, I'm just trying to clarify Tony.
So maybe just to clarify, I think Peter and I were just coming at this section 514A, last sentence,
to ensure that site residents are aware of their proximity to the airport.
The applicant shall place a notice in any rental agreement, offering plan, or contract for
any residential unit on the site, notifying prospective residents of the site's proximity
I think that covers it.
And it's mentioned in the findings.
That is from the crisis.
Yeah, I was like, not again.
You know.
That covers it.
What rental agreements would there be for this?
The age restricted units,
the 50 apartments.
Those are rentals, okay?
I thought they were condos.
I realized their tax is same, but I thought they were condos.
All right, so-
You could be either, it could be a rental or kind of, but either way they're covered in either contract or at least.
Okay, thank you.
So this is, first of all, I think a lot of things you've done is great.
I've said that, or great, I've said that all along.
We've eliminated condo tax on the part that's not the repurposed office building.
What I think is really important, and I recognize that it's cost money to do it.
But you've taken steps now working with the NRGC, River Keeper, Westchester Land Trust.
So you're going to protect the water in New York City, and that's really important, because
we know that our residents really do care about good water.
We've seen it in Windmill, and there are protections there for that.
That the
full tax on the townhomes is a good thing.
Now we're going to be extra sure that there will be more age targeting on it.
The basic problems I still have are relating to density.
And I've raised these a number of times, sorry, my voice is going.
So
I'm really concerned on this area, you've got a zoning that is what is designed for what was designed with downtown Ormok, where you want to have, even though people with disagree in terms of marionning in a lot of cases, it's supposed to be more dense to be in a more downtown area.
I don't think that applies here.
I think it really will be too dense for the neighborhood.
I think you're going to get your approval on that anyway, so I won't pursue that more, but it really is a problem.
I think the traffic and the parking problems will be exacerbated.
I think baseline has to be looked at in a different way because it looks at and correct me.
If I'm wrong on this, it's the no bill situation with the existing office buildings as if they're occupied.
and we have, right now, it's proposed to be 248 units, 73 of which would be single-family homes right off King Street between MBIA and town.
So I think we are really looking at a lot more crowdedness, a lot more density.
So the density bothers me in terms of what it's going to do to the town in my view,
And also being out of character for what the town generally has, having it to that development.
But like I said, that point's been made.
I'm just making it more clearly now, or repeating it, because I think you're going to get the votes for this.
In terms of the finding statements, Adam, whoever else worked on it with you did an absolutely great job.
There are some issues there that I have.
Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to change anything either.
And I think we need to come up with a different system that is fully transparent to the public
instead of having a drafting session and something like this because that could take a lot of extra time.
I am in support of the repurposed office building and I would vote for that.
Noting that you're getting a bit extra density on it, but I like that it's repurposed, which environmentally is a good thing.
I also like that it's going to be age restricted and a type of housing that I think is appropriate for some seniors and I really want to help keep our seniors in town and hopefully a lot of this will work for that.
The problem we have here in terms of that is the resolution just talks about the zoning for both of them combined. So, unless I hear any of the comments, I would vote in support of the zoning for the repurposed office building. I don't know if people care to change the resolution. I don't think you need my vote, but I would not vote for the 125 town homes for the reasons I've said now and previously. I don't know if it matters anyone to break it out.
But that's where I come out on this, and I do recognize the positives are really good even though there are a good number of issues.
Thanks Jose, so I'll provide some closing comments and then the work and decide to take action or not.
So from a process standpoint, there was some comments that were made about how
we review plans,
projects, how we approve, et cetera, and Bob, I agree with you that people are engaged.
This project we've had 29 public meetings and 10 hearings, so I'm not blaming people
for not being engaged, but we publicize as best we can, and then it's up to people to
participate.
No, and I'm not blaming you either, but I'm just stating a fact that we've had numerous
meetings, public meetings on this, and so we are thorough. I've been part of many development
projects in this town and we're thorough on all of them. Secret makes us be thorough.
Doesn't mean everybody agrees with our decisions, but we make sure that in the end,
our job is to make a decision based on what we think is in the best interest of the community,
and we look at all aspects. We look at taxes, we look at our tax base, we look at our budget,
We look at finances, we look at some of the things Barbara mentioned earlier, things that Matt mentioned earlier.
It all gets put into a pot, and then we determine what is in the best interest of the community.
We've studied parking in this town, we've studied traffic in this town, we're adding more parking in downtown.
We've talked to any shopkeeper in town, they want more residents, they want more shoppers, they're hanging on.
So to me, this project took a long time to get here and improved over time because the original was much larger.
I had a hotel, had 170 units, and an apartment building that was way too tall,
plus 22 town homes, that's all gone.
This is a much better project, and I want to give the applicants credit just on stamina.
I remember first meeting I had with Steve Wise many, many years ago.
And I'm not saying the town did anything to delay this because they work really hard to market their property as office.
I remember going there to a showing, just to represent the town, and showing prospective brokers and business owners that the town was in support of what you were doing there, which was trying to market that is office space.
They took many years and a lot of money to get through that to determine the market's not there, and we need to shift gears a bit.
So, I appreciate the stamina and the willingness of the applicant to invest a lot of money to this point, because it takes a lot of money just to get to this point.
And the way this project is structured now even with the changes that were agreed upon, I am in support of it and I appreciate the willingness to invest in the town.
And we hope you get in the ground as soon as you can once you start working with the planning board.
So with that, unless there's any other comments, I would ask for a motion to close the public hearing.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
All in favor?
Aye.
And then I would ask for a motion to adopt the secret finding statement.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
Do we need a roll call?
Please.
Roll call, Alison?
Yes.
Councilman, do you see anything?
Aye.
Councilman, do you see anything?
Aye.
No.
Aye.
We need a motion to adopt the resolution to amend the zoning with the change that we discussed of how I'm even confused now.
So I think we said half of the market rate, 50% of the market rate townhomes have to have minus the AFFH.
Yeah, obviously it gets you there, right?
50% of the market rate townhomes.
Yes, is that clear?
So I need a motion to, for the, consider adoption of the resolution to amend the zoning to include a change of
50% of the market rate townhomes will have first floor masters.
I'll make that motion.
Second.
I need a roll call.
If it's just for that, or is it the, I'm sorry, this is to adopt the resolution to amend the zoning.
So I'm assuming you want a roll call.
Right.
I will.
And roll call.
I would again vote for the repurpose building, but since it's combined, I'm going to vote now.
Aye.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I won't say no, and I don't think.
Thank you.
Next item is approval of Town Board Minutes.
Motion?
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
All favor.
Bye.
I'm.
You're miscellaneous.
Need a motion to receive a letter from residents regarding gas power leaf
blowers, data July 24, 2023.
I'll make that motion.
I'll send somebody what I speak of.
Okay.
We just, we just, we've got to receive the letter first.
Okay.
So anybody here that wants to make comments on this?
Thank you, did right?
You can pick either microphone.
Let's just tell us who you are.
Okay, it's okay.
I'm really a big public speaker.
My name is Alex.
I live right in town.
I've been in a long time volunteer fireman.
I like this community.
That's why I chose to protect it, I guess.
And how can I say it?
So I feel like over the last few years,
a lot of people have been emboldened and empowered
to police everybody around them.
What they wear on their face,
at least what they inject into their body and other things, right?
What kind of car you can drive, what you should eat, this and that, and the name of climate
change, stuff like that, this leaf blow, this leaf blow issue being one of them, right?
To me, that seems very problematic, and I'm speaking up for a lot of people that couldn't
make it here because, number one, from a small business owner standpoint, the alternatives
the gas-powered belief blowers, or anything that's powered by fossil fuels, is extremely expensive, inefficient, and if you want to talk about the impact, the deleterious impact, the climate, you know, you have to, you have to mind these rare minerals, you have to do all this other stuff, plus it's people that are essentially slave labor, because a lot of this stuff comes from Africa, cobalt, stuff like that.
So, you know, there's climate hysteria that followed all the hysteria with the pandemic.
And, you know, it seems to all come from the same place.
And unfortunately, people that seem to be supporting this stuff, they feel they are the
arbiters of truth, of what is good.
You know, you're a good citizen if you do this, you're a good citizen if you do that.
And you're not a good citizen if you do this and that, you know what I mean, it's kind of creeping totalitarianism.
It's like latent tyranny, these people are just like waiting, you know what I'm saying?
Maybe it comes from a good, it comes from, you know, well, it's well-intentioned, but, you know,
the road to hell is paved with, you know, the same.
So, that's from a small business standpoint, right, trying to find alternatives to these things.
And if everybody does this, that's going to increase the cost of everything.
All these people like their pristine lawns, everybody likes a nice lawn, right?
All these services are going to be costing a lot more, right?
No matter what anybody says, right, the electric, the electric alternatives are out there.
They do not go the distance.
They don't have the power and they, you know what I mean, they require their energy intensive to procure the materials
to make them. So, whether you're looking at it from a cost standpoint or climate,
whatever, you know, climate standpoint, it's, it's all, it's, I'm sorry, I, you know,
I'm not used to this, I'm not used to talking to a whole point. To me, to me, it's just ridiculous,
you know what I mean? It's absolutely ridiculous. And I'm a vegetarian. I've been a vegetarian
for a long time, right? And apparently that's climate friendly. I was doing it a long time ago
before it became a fad, but I will be with the meat eaters.
You know what I mean? If there's, if it comes down to a fight,
they're taking away people's meat. I will be with the meat eaters.
I will be on the side of freedom every single time.
You know what I mean? Like that, maybe it doesn't make sense.
But you know what I mean? Like, I've read a lot of texts
by very powerful people to know that there is an agenda.
And, you know, through the media and through NGOs and through all these various think tanks and whatnot, a lot of these ideas, they are proliferated into our society.
And, you know, they've somehow, they've garnered all this support.
These people told us that we're going to be on ice age in the 1970s.
They used Leonard Nimoy as a marketing tool.
They told us that England and the Maldives will be gone by 2000.
They'll be underwater.
I'm sure a lot of people in this town have been to the Maldives after the year 2000 and
England, and they're doing just fine.
You know what I mean?
So this alarmist client nonsense, and using, they use the, they use the New York Times
headline.
And I noise, how noise takes off years of, takes years off your life.
Being, I don't know how else to put this, so I'm going to try to be like diplomatic,
being an eggplant emoji to your neighbors, to catch my drift, right?
The eggplant emoji, some people understand that, some people won't.
Just being, not being a good neighbor, policing your neighbors and fellow citizens,
since that's also, that also takes years off your life
because it's a lot of stress in yourself out
because you're hopped up on this propaganda
from whether it's Fox, CNBC, NPR, who cares,
it doesn't matter, right?
It's just, it's nonsense, you know what I mean?
It's nonsense and while it might seem like
it's somewhere out there in academia,
it's not, it's gonna,
so these people want to impact how other people live.
And like I said, whether it's what you eat,
what you drive, whatever,
We live in America.
I'm a refugee immigrant.
I came here from the Soviet Union because my country fell apart.
And you know what I mean?
It fell apart because it's a small group of tyrants thought that they were going to, you know,
they're the end all to be all.
You must have come to please everybody.
You must have come here young because you don't.
Yeah, I was.
Yeah.
Can I ask a question?
I'm sorry, I don't mean to drop the newspaper.
Can I ask a question?
Sure.
You have a business that does landscaping.
I don't have a business.
But I'm standing up for a lot of people that-
I just want to understand it.
Yeah, no, no, I don't.
I have looked into, I remember talking to a couple of people about how could impact
your business.
So this is not practical in terms of how it could impact your business, but it's more
philosophical thing.
But it's, you know, I feel like it's, you can use it, or it's a, how do I say it?
You can use it in every, in many situations.
It's applicable from a philosophical standpoint.
It's applicable from a practical financial standpoint.
And just, and like I said, overall, you know, anybody, like I love the climate.
I mean, I like, I like the environment, I should say, not the climate.
I personally have adopted a section of 22 from the firehouse to the eagle
where I grab a few garbage bags and every once in a while I pick up trash.
Thank you.
You know what I mean, like I just, if, you know, you see it all the time and if you don't pick it up, nobody else would know so we have townwide.
So I can update the help sets, but it's great.
Absolutely. I see it on point basis.
So I do care about the environment, but I don't think that we should be, I don't think that people need to get all crazy over
you listening to people that have been wrong time and time and time and time again. They've been absolutely wrong about pretty much everything.
All of their dire predictions came to pass, and using it as a cudgel to beat everybody
over the head, like you're good, you know, like today you've got to stand with Ukraine
or you've got to hashtag this, this, whatever, you know what I mean, if you don't support
these things, you're somehow, you're, you should stand back and be quiet, you know what I mean?
Unfortunately, you're right, things have gotten very polarized, I think, is a simple way
to put it.
A big, big reason is the media, unfortunately, you, you created, you know, they created
And I agree with you that it's important to get along with your neighbors.
Absolutely.
I've lived in my neighborhood for decades and it's turning over and I get along with my neighbors.
And I make an effort to do that.
Absolutely.
Like I said, I love this community.
It's the first community that's all for me, any kind of security, but stability.
Right, I've been through 11 schools before coming to buy them hills and I lived in nearly a dozen communities all over the world
So cities, so you know what I mean? I just I think we can keep our town nice and polite and everything
And we don't have to involve these crazy policies, you know because some people think that they're going to save the world by
Following on so that's it. That's all. Thank you Alex appreciate your comments
Any other comments on this agenda item? No.
I'll second it. To receive. You want to make a second, Selene? I'll second. I made the motion. That's right. All in favor? All right.
The next item is receipt of Quarry Heights Potential Water Distribution System.
These ability study prepared by A.A. engineers dated July 19, 2023, south still here.
So motion to receive the, these ability study.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
On favor?
Hi.
So I'll give you a little background this year aware of what we're trying to do here.
This is a very, I don't know if everybody got a chance to look through it, but it's very, very, very detailed report.
But that very understandable.
Very, very understandable.
The fact that it's a factual construction.
I mean, it's very detailed of the area that we were focusing on.
And the biggest issue in the area is the rock.
And without a doubt, I mean there's a significant cost when it comes to laying this out to construct it due to the rock.
And it gave very detailed, what we did was, we did sections, the area last year that
had temporary water that was provided by, was just to join with the hoses, that was
this area that came down William Street, down James, up around Starkey, and then they
tried to go down Old Orchard a little bit to pick up a few houses there, but that wasn't
really feasible for them.
So what we did, we looked at that whole thing to put an actual water system in construction.
And there are properties there currently that can connect to public water.
And they're in water district six and they're not including this because they have a water
tap in their front lawn right now.
The other two areas that weren't covered in the original thought was going down Old Orchard, down to Rocky ledge to pick up those houses.
That's in here, and also Memorial Lane and Johnson Place, those are two dead ends.
So this scenario, this plan would require three interconnections to the Westchester water, joint water main,
which would require three master meter pits that we would be built from, then the water mains would be in the ground, and then individual service lines would be for the houses, and they would have meters.
At this point in time, I mean, this is great information, and you're aware the beginning of, I believe, in May.
the board received a letter about Westchester joint and their plans or concept of possibly
doing this or doing part of this in lieu of their penalties that they have because
they're under consent order.
This is on the website, right?
Yeah, it's on the website.
Yes.
I'll also have a, it'll be linked on our, on the water and sewer website too in a section,
just with the report.
But it's in the minutes, I mean in the agenda, you can link to it.
All that's it.
It's Roman numerals.
The whole report.
Happy with the cost.
Everything, everything is there.
So, that particular concept by Westchester's joint still isn't out of the picture so we've been told.
They may get back to us by the end of the month because they're working out their legalities of how this can really...
I'm going to share this report with them because it'll be helpful for them to go to
the authorities and say, look, this is what we need to expend in lieu of the penalties
and we're willing to do this.
That would be a great thing if it happens.
But if it doesn't, then we have to go with Plan B. So I think once we find out for sure
from Westchester Joint, what their determination is with the authorities on their end.
And once we have a better idea whether that will or won't happen, we should then plan to, I would recommend that we plan to get the word out with the residents and we have, well, we did it when we did the source.
We used to meet in the community center north by planes when we built the source down there and we met with the residents and we explained everything that was going to happen or could happen, and we got their feedback because what would have to happen is we'd have to form a water district.
And that water district would be responsible for the cost to construct this.
And it's not inexpensive because of the rock.
But we would attempt, and it would be part of whatever engineering we do.
And we've done it before in the process of doing it right now.
Last board meeting, you had an application for one of our projects for grant money.
So, and there could be significant funds out there for this project, but the remaining
portion has to be split up in a way, everybody's going to have that cost.
And just, we would just make a bond, sure, a bond, and it would be good to go, how,
could we go more than 30?
We can go 40, we can go, we can go, we looked at 40 when we were looking at North White
Plains.
Yeah, but it just rates higher, it's maybe the less desire.
Right, we looked at a couple of different concepts.
Yeah, but we know we could probably get some grant money.
I'm saying a great number would be maybe 60% of the cost is $4.5 million this project.
So it's, we're keeping an eye on it, so we're going to get grants for 60% of it.
We could possibly see that much because there's different there's different grant opportunities out there for this type of a
Project yeah because they're definitely a need of a public order supply. Yeah, there's I mean there's no alternative aside from this right right so right so it mean it it would be it would be it would be a
An advantage in a in a grant application because of the situation. Yeah, it would be you know
Kind of moved up on a list, you know
there's a whole scoring process and a lot of these grants and you know that type of thing.
So but we would pursue everything possible to get as much funding as we could.
And you would obviously use the investigations that are going on with the contaminant.
Could you, I'm sorry, could you just come up because people that are very interested in this,
which they are?
Nico Marina, sorry, you would also use the contaminated water investigations that have been going on
by all the different.
That's part of it. That's more of the need for why you need a pump.
Exactly, that's exactly right.
Now some of the other properties that I mentioned earlier
that are in order district six that have connections,
that you're going to see some work starting soon,
the state is going to come in and start connecting
with those folks.
And now it's my two front neighbors.
Yeah, because they have filtration systems
that state servicing.
They'd rather hook them up to the public water supply.
And we made them aware that when we had our PFAS meeting
at the library earlier this year,
And we gave the list to the state and they've contacted Westchester Joint and the residents and they're working things out
They even have another subcontractor because what they're finding is they've got an issue at the rock. Yeah
It's a problem. No, I know I was actually the one that brought it to their attention to notify them
So this is great because so if I do the math right this is 45 homes right right about 45 homes right about 4.5 mill according to the estimates
That ends up being 100,000 at home.
You said, let's just join waterworks, might pay,
might be able to get grants, I'm guessing it could be.
What's just the joint waterworks to do,
their original plan was to put a water system in the area
that they put the temporary water system in last year,
which is a little smaller than this,
but maybe we could work with that.
That's what I'm saying.
So maybe you get that, maybe you get a grant,
maybe you get a combination of them.
Either way, we'd have to form a district there.
And then everybody would kind of eat, if we have to only build, let's say, 25% of this, if Westchester joint does three, and it's a big or if.
But if they do it, that's great, and if we only have to do as a district, 25% of it will still try to get grant money, whatever it can.
And then if you are getting Westchester joint, what it works to do it because when my neighbor and I brought sewers into my neighborhood, some lines would run out there.
How would you work it would all 45 homes share in the remaining cost?
Yes, because they'd be in the district.
Okay, so it would all benefit from that.
It would be great.
And then let's assume you get the cost down to reasonable level.
It's a lot of money, but you bond it over certain number of years.
You know, maybe they get it down to 25 a house.
Then with the report also points out is each house will have to pay to connect on their own.
That's the other thing that's not in here.
Right, so what this is is building a water main system.
the water main grid distribution, and those interconnection vaults with the master
meters for Westchester Joint and fire hydrants and water services and an attack in front
of lawn.
And the homeowner, like they did with the sewers, they had to connect and pay to connect
from the sewer into the house.
They'll have to connect from the curb stop into the house and the cost of the meter and
that type of thing.
And the problem with OECES, who are rather rock, it presents two problems.
Number one, it's expensive.
Number two, it adds uncertainty.
You don't know what you're gonna have there
even in a relatively short stretch.
Right.
But one thing people might consider
is when they're doing it, assuming they get that far,
joining together and kind of hedging the risk.
So everybody shares in total costs.
Some people might not want to do that.
And I thought it was very interesting in the report.
The two points were raised.
And one was that this bedrock is going to have
have to be taken off-site, they can't reuse it, and which as soon as I read this, and
I had never thought about this before, there isn't really room for the staging.
The staging, yeah.
Before that, you know, where you're going to have materials, where you're going to have
your equipment, and so on, and so that's going to be possible.
There may be, though, we might be able to, I mean, there's areas that the town owns there,
a couple of lots, and there's other property that the county owns, and New York City also
owns a big piece of property there. We might be able to get permission to, you know,
we'll cross that bridge when we got to. But it's a good point. It is a good point.
Because you're very limited in the space. Look, they're built in the order right now on New
King Street. Right. And they had to switch gears and they switched the operation to nighttime
because of the traffic, because of the limited space on the road.
The space shouldn't be a problem when they just built to hold the huge holding tanks
right down the street and then there's a vacant, rocky ledge lot that's not being used at all.
That's right. We could work something out with some somewhere. Yeah, that's the city of white planes.
My other question was so we would have to pay for the connection coming into our house.
But right now there's a connection in mine two across the street neighbors.
They're not going to be paying for their connection into the house.
Right. Because the state's hooking them up because the state's paying to service their filters.
And our filters are getting service, too.
Okay, but I mean we got, you know, they paid for, we haven't gotten that for yet.
Right, but they paid for a whole filtration system, but there's no public water supply in
front of your house.
Right.
That's the difference.
There is one there.
You know, but before this all was going on, they were requiring my two across the street
neighbors to pay for the connection coming into the house, but then all of a sudden things
changed and now they're not paying for it.
Right.
They have a poet system in the house like you do, but you have to have access to a water
system.
It's the same thing with me.
I have a poet system because I have a PFA situation, but I have no water on my street.
So they can't connect me for free to anything, because there's nothing.
Originally before the PFA was in an issue, the residents that were there had to pay for
the option to hook up to that connection at their cost. But PFAS wasn't an issue then.
Then the state came in and tested their well and they found this PFAS and they put in a filter.
Now the state said, oh, there's a public water supply, we'll hook them up to that rather than
keep servicing the filters. That's the difference. So I always have a question when all the water's
There's nothing fair, doesn't it?
And that's the only thing that's happening.
Huh? Is it me?
No, no, no.
But no, the reason is, the reason is because the U.S. state
determined that it's cheaper for them to connect houses.
And I totally get that.
And service that forever, because they're going to service it.
Right, so, but if we don't, if we don't agree to connect to it and pay that money,
then they're going to be servicing our poet system forever anyway.
But unless you have water to connect it.
You don't have an option right now because you don't have the pipe in this, you know.
Yeah, but the people in front of me that had the pipe there had an option, they still
got the poet system and they were, they were still servicing it.
Now, all of a sudden, I said something at the last meeting about how the two investigations
should come together and work together to get this done a little bit faster.
And that's when I found out that since the water lines there, the state should connect them
for free. So now I I reached out to them and they're getting connected for free. Okay.
Okay. And that that was that was after they already have poet systems in their their house
already. So if they build it in front of our house, we still have an option to do either or but
you could work out with the state at that time. No, I totally get it. The other thing I wanted to just
put on record.
Is that the whole entire block of William Street, across the street, two neighbors, my next-door neighbor, me twice, and my neighbor on this side, all have changed their water filters in the past year. So I don't know if it's from the construction that went on with the two holding tanks and the ground was shaken up, but I did it twice in one year, a pump, water pump.
Oh, you're pumped.
You're pumped.
For my well.
So.
The grounds is either we're drowning and we're dredging up stuff because there's no water
or, you know, things are getting shaken up from everything that's going on up there.
So, Kat, you want to come up?
Yeah, Pam Grimaldi, I'm on Sturkey Road.
I'd read some correspondence about water works being fined by DOJ.
To the tune of like three million and their proposal was to put that towards a water system.
In lieu of paying penalties, they're making a recommendation.
I don't know.
So would that three million offset the four and a half?
I'm sorry?
But would that three million, just the number I read, would that go toward the four and a half, you're saying it would be the cost?
What?
No, I don't know.
It's distributed evenly throughout the process.
No, no, no.
What?
I think their plan was to construct this.
And they pulled the number out saying they thought it would be $3 million based on the length
of pipe tubing that they ran last year with the hose.
So they just did some calculations and say, you know, if we built this and blew that in
healthy area, you know, maybe it would be a good thing and maybe they would approve
that in lieu of their penalties and they came up with that number. I've since
provided them with these numbers and they're going to use these numbers to go
back. So, you know, we'll see. You know, it'll it could be a really good thing if
that happens. And just I just was thinking it's kind of ironic that
Ken's go down was built from rock from our neighborhood so that New York City
can have all their water. But our community where most of the stone cutters lived
Don't get water.
That's exactly where the rock came from, from Censical Dan.
That's water, water everywhere.
Yeah.
So, one question I was asking before this would be the last one, I think.
Sure.
One thing I was wonder, it's great to have public water in a lot of ways.
How expensive is it?
Well, their rate, roughly, they would probably end up paying Westchester joint probably.
Probably, I think their wholesale rate is something like $3,200 per million.
What's that translate to further?
$3,020 per thousand to us, but then we would have operating costs on time.
What's the average bill going to be a month?
Depends on how much they use.
It does very rough range.
You know, we have all different rates.
20, 100, 200.
Well, we bill quarterly.
You know, you figure if it's 100 gallons a day per person in a house, it depends how many people are in the house.
They use $30,000 a quarter, what could it be?
$90, $95, maybe $120 a quarter or something like that.
All right, so not break the bank money.
Yeah, and by the way, thank you report was great,
very detailed and actually incredibly easy to process.
Okay, we're working on it.
So we hope it's, you know, it's very important.
Yeah, but I don't know what we can do to advocate.
But let us know we can do to advocate with regard to, you know,
having, you know, Westchester County joint water works if, you know, helping with the cost and
looting. We actually had a meeting with them, but last week before we were talking about the
possibility of if this happened again this summer what we could do, and that's when they mentioned
to us that they'll probably have an idea by the end of this month of where they're hoping they'll
have an idea and this might help them also. Of whether or not they can do this in lieu of the
You might go to this and say, look, this is a problem area.
Let us do this in lieu of the penalties.
It'll be a benefit.
It's a win-win.
What are they?
You know, just throw any money out of the penalty.
That's their thought.
You're facilitating it by doing this report and studying.
And again, where there's such a dire need.
Sure.
It's really, I mean, I think that to say, do you want to pay a penalty versus provide water
to people who've needed this for a long, long time.
I mean, I remember when the sewers were going in and what it was like there with the
with the rock. I mean, they had equipment. It was like a gigantic circular saw and it
was it would go down the road and just chisel a groove and then they come down the other side
and they made a channel and then they would just ship out the rock and move it. They had a solid
solid rock. I think we need to do. There's been running numbers. It's still expensive
to bear the costs of the two million over the course of a brand different
sure ten year 20 or 30 or 40 year and so I think one of the keys here is we
have to maximize we have to turn over every rock for a hundred and get more
money like you know the 60 percent we got to do what we did with the sewers I was on
the board right right first on the board when that all happened and we got
east of Hudson we got all these other groups to join and we pieced it all
together to get it done. And one thought I have is because every time I talked to our
new congressman here we said anything you guys need let me know. We may exhaust state
funding but maybe this federal funding and I'm going to reach out. I think that's mentioned
to him. Here's what we got. It's not a big ask. You know what? With two million and we can
get two six or two five. Now we can take that monthly expense off your equation and then
And so we have to connect, but it's a lot different than carrying that out a lot.
And we could start to pursue that once we know what direction we're headed.
Once we know whether it was just a joint unit or out of it or whatever,
whatever may be, then we could start that process.
This report, I believe, is an asset because a lot of, as you're aware, a lot of those grant opportunities that we have.
You have to have the report ready to go, and this is pretty much saying,
I mean, this is what we're going to build, you know.
You're not sure we're ready.
Yeah, and I mean, it gives costs, so very well spent.
This is very, very helpful for that process.
And a few months ago, we hired a grant writer.
Yeah.
And Kevin, have you already talked to her?
This was one project that we had spoken to her about.
The initial meeting.
So is that our grant writer knows that this is a priority.
And we let her know a lot of the projects
that are coming down the road, you know.
But I think we just have to do everything we can to say.
Congress will be all right.
So team effort, see where we get like we did, you know, it brought back the sewers and that was
Just piecing together money from here money from there money from there and the residents at the end because at the red
They there wasn't enough and they had to get to buy the remember
Yeah, I just got on the board and we're not gonna doers getting people to sign to agree to
Participate in it. I think at the time there was still one house if I remember with with um an outhouse for something
That's right.
People couldn't believe it.
It is.
But I remember not going on that door, like.
Yeah, I don't know.
It wasn't out out there.
People didn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it either.
Anyway, we will, um, yeah, please come up and tell us who you are.
Robert Pisa County lives on Johnson Place.
So does the DEC have any, um, communication with you on the rest of the project?
On the waterside streets?
So, yeah, they're in the process, they communicated with Town Administrator last week on where they stand and what they're waiting for, they're actually waiting for some information from a subcontractor for some additional rock in tying in those other properties, but that's going to happen, they also met with Westchester joint to go over the actual connection points out in the street and wherever everything is.
Right, I know they were looking a lot of marks.
I don't know if you know, you see all the marks on the right.
I spoke to them several times.
Yeah, I was down there and I saw it.
Well, the marks, I said something.
They, they, well, they said that there was a pipe on Johnson Place.
And I told them that certainly wasn't.
And I showed them that there wasn't one of the games.
But so I know they're going to do all the houses on old orchard.
But are they going to look at, appeared that they were going
to try to help.
So are they an avenue for grants to, to do, you know,
Johnson Memorial and down.
Well, Johnson Memorial is in this study, right?
That's in this study.
So they willing to take it all of that and once we get going once we know where we're headed with that at least we have a
Sort of a plan here, but are they are they are they an avenue for the money and they an avenue for the money are they willing to?
Oh, I don't they might they might work something out to connect people right?
You know say if I and I can't speak right I don't know because I'm sure they don't want to keep taking care of the public
We all have that happened right from every three months to change and you know second imagine how much it cost well
Well, that happened here right here in Ormock, right on Wampus Avenue.
Right.
There's a lot of people who had connections just like an old orchard right in their
lawn from our water supply and they never hooked up and a lot of people said, you know
what?
When my well goes bad, that's when I'll go to the expense of hooking in.
And a lot of them never did.
And then the state tested their well and they put their filter in and they said, oh, there's
a public water supply.
We're going to hook you up and they hooked up the whole street.
I just feel that they should, if they're willing to, if they're, you know, hooking up the
How does it allow you to maintain these poet systems on the rest of the neighborhood that they should be contributing to this project?
If there's a system there, I can't speak to them.
Hopefully they'll be there.
That would be reaching out to them.
And it needs to be evolving.
That's good.
People that will eventually have access to like I never will they'll be never water on my street
And I'm right off the main street, but you have sewer now, right? Yeah, I didn't connect though
But we have sewer, but we'll never have water on our street. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you, so okay
Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any else on this any comments? Okay, thanks for coming
For this topic
Oh, okay
We've got to sit tight then.
Thank you.
And so you've got the next one too, right?
Yeah.
I've got another one.
What item are you here for, Ron?
I just wanted to comment on it.
I think it.
Thank you.
You know, I have meetings with bullets and building.
And people don't know about it.
You should come up, actually, can you?
Why don't you?
I should have the only one here if it's okay, Ron.
Of course.
because we got a long agenda left.
Sorry, I'll just make it quick.
A lot of people are lazy, they don't go to the website,
they don't know what's going on.
They hear millions of houses are going to be built, blah, blah, blah.
And it all gets, and my point is, I remember once, Michael,
that you came to town, and I forgot what the subject was,
was just a sort of educate people in terms of what's going on.
And if I could do anything to help you relative to that,
Like on a Saturday or Sunday, here's an information thing so people don't have the
wrong ideas about what's going on because all of you are very diligent in terms of
you know being sensitive to you know the building and oh are they going to be
doing too much or all this kind of stuff so all I'm saying is I'm happy to
volunteer in some way if you want to do something like that I think it's important
because people are lazy and then people say things that without any facts so if
There was a fact book of what's going on and why we're doing it and how we're attacking it, et cetera, et cetera.
I think it would be helpful and get more of the word out.
Right. Thanks for the offer.
So just a quick comment on that because we always talk about communications and informing the public.
And Selim's been our liaison with the Tech Task Force, which will become a committee, which is involved in communications.
The clerk's office does an excellent job of communicating.
We have to always be careful that we don't oversaturate because then people say, oh my gosh, I got an email a day from a town and they don't pay attention to it.
So that's where we have to be very careful.
The easiest thing, I had this conversation with, I want to reveal too much information, but I was at a doctor's office and he happened to live in town.
And you're complaining about something I solve this problem, but do you get the town
emails?
No.
Well, everybody needs to get the town emails, because every two weeks, you'll get an email
from the town clerk with the notice for the meeting, with the link.
You can click on the agenda and see what topics were like.
This gentleman came for the leaf blower.
So there needs to be some rebonds to responsibility in coming upon residents, but we need to balance
that with information going back out and just not oversatch the rate of what we do.
And I agree, there needs to be, people are, if they're very interested, they'll come
or attend and participate, but we need to find that right balance in making sure we're
pushing out of them for information in all segments, social media, email, TV, all that,
and not making it so much where they say, oh, it's another one, I'm not going to read it.
Yeah, I'm just concerned about this.
I appreciate your offer.
I'm concerned about misinformation.
You all are doing a really terrific job and people need to understand that.
And so, as I said, I remember you once came orders on month square, whatever.
And Marianne, I did two Saturday morning things here.
And I think that's really helpful because that sort of wakes people up and gives them a better
feeling about what the town is doing and instead of having misinformation.
And that actually was born out of bad information that was posted on social media saying I was
in all kinds of crooked things and I said, you know, I don't really follow social media
But I mean, I'm going to have some meetings and everybody has a concern come out talk so that was that was born out of that
Well, anyway, I'm happy to volunteer in in terms of how appreciate anyway. Thank you
Thank you. I'm seeing you in a while and Mike
So I agree with elder saturation
Maybe you could think of some sort of education effort for residents reminding them of the important things every year
Hey, sign up for this pay attention for this is how you find out. I'm going to give it's a good idea
And I'm going to give I'm sure he's watching at Loverman credit because he tells me all the time that we should do very
Every simple reminder is pick a thing or two and just weave it into what we do all the
time even if it's a meeting.
Just general things, so I agree with you and there's many ways to get information out and
it out.
I just need to always try to improve it, which is a lot of what you've been working on. Okay, so we are up to what else do you have, Sal? The proposal from DMV engineers.
Consider a proposal from DV engineers and architects for the evaluation and basis of design report regarding the interconnection of what a district number eight airport campus extension to what a district number four and authorization for the supervisor to sign the agreement. Any comments or questions?
So you've got, oh there it is, okay great, that's really good.
Just so everybody knows what this is, on the map you'll, you see, you know, as you're
aware, water main construction has begun on New King Street, it was out there yesterday,
they're about down in the vicinity of Safe Flight, they've come up Airport Road and they're
coming across.
So they're doing the work at night and that that water mains it's happening so
the plan for airport campus is they they've agreed to extend which they just
discussed again tonight. They're going to extend that water main from the end
of New King Street which is the red line on the map and they're going to bring it
across 6.84 up to the front of their site.
We've discussed with Westchester Joint, the original plan, the original study that
DNB did for us, the feasibility was that Westchester Joint wanted a water tank in the vicinity
of that entrance and we were looking at a million gallon tank to have enough volume to pump
in their off-peak hours.
Since then, Westchester joint is reconsidered and they have agreed to
allow us to put a pump station where that red line goes to purple. There will be a pumping
station there with a force main, so to speak, that will be dedicated to just filling a water
tank on the corner of Route 120 and Cooney Hill Road.
We're working with Swiss Re on that to get that water tank sighted there.
That does several things.
So that force main, that pump station will be there just to fill that tank as needed.
The Cooney Hill site where the million gallon tank will be, we're proposing a million gallon
tank.
We'll also have multiple benefits.
It's going to have a connection to come back out and maybe solve some of airport campuses
pressure, because they need to build a pump station in a tank in their site.
They might not need that.
We're going to try to make this all happen, you know, at the same time.
So they would have a connection there that would back feed to them.
and then we would build a pump station at that tank to go north on 120 and go into old post-road.
The extension of that purple line, the yellow line is the water main that exists on old post-road right now in front of the Totson Toddlers building.
So that's how we would get water from New King Street to service airport campus
And then have the ability to supply all of Armock into the, our existing distribution grid from that supply.
This is what it is for.
Right.
To feed water just for.
Now this report, this is just for a basis of design report.
In order for them to give us all the details that they would have to calculate all of these components and what it would take.
you know, what's going to take to build a tank at that site, you know, how much rock,
how much the, you know, environmental, whatever may be necessary, pump sizes, electric
service requirements, emergency generators, buildings that would be required.
They would, that, this basis of design would, would study all of that so they could have
a better handle on giving us a proposal for the actual design.
That's why in their, in their proposal, they should say to be determined because they
really can't get a grasp on any of those numbers yet it's just it's just not
there's not enough information yet but the concept is there the concept will
work and it's just making it all happen. It's pretty exciting and it just seems
like I forget how many years ago where you talked about this concept and I
was thinking oh never gonna happen you know I mean you know what you know it's
funny when when I first heard that Westchester County was bringing water to
New King Street. This went through my head and I called Paul Cutsie and he said, yeah,
he goes, okay, let's take a ride. So he took a ride and he goes, yeah, you can do this.
He goes, do a study. You have the same engineer that's doing the work for the county.
They have all the information. They had their pumping information. And that's the first report
we got for them a couple of years ago. So it's exciting. It'll be a great asset for the
for the community, and I would hope the board would approve this.
And we have the money for this portion of it in our budget.
So I'd like to make a motion.
Please do.
I'll make a motion to approve the proposal from D&B engineers and
architects for the evaluation, the basis of the slide report regarding interconnection of
What a district number eight airport campus extension to water district number four and authorization for the supervisor signed the agreement and thank you, Sal.
Next item receded real estate appraisal from RDM valuation zinc for vacant land located on Alpine Drive.
This was Mary Beth Wellington, was the neighbor, and her friend Tony, can't remember his name, Tuscano, I think, came to offer $1,000.
We have the appraisal, so we need a motion to receive it.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
All in favor?
All right.
Next item, consider a word of bid to Graham Restoration Co, for the Trust Project at the North Castle Public Library,
very on-munk branch and authorization for the Supervisors
to sign the agreement.
Kevin Olen, good order here.
Yes.
That's great to be going on this.
So remember looking at them with Rob,
good couple of years ago.
So it's really significant.
Is there a motion to award the bid?
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
On favor.
Hi.
Consider recommendation from Keller's sessions
for a release of wetland mitigation bond
in five-year extension of maintenance
and monitoring bond through October 27th
regarding three-middle patent road,
with the Grave Project. Any comments or questions?
I'll make that motion.
On favor.
Hi.
Consider recommendation from Collode Sessions for Extension
of Wetland Mitigation Planting Bond and 5-year Extension of Maintenance and Monitoring Bond.
Regarding 45-Rollingham LLC, 45-Rollingham Drive.
Comments or questions?
I'll make that motion.
On favor.
Hi.
Consider recommendation from Collode Sessions for Extension of Wetland Mitigation Bond and 5-year
Extension of Maintenance and Monitoring Bond.
We're going 20 banks for a row D. P. H. O. Project.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
On favor.
Hi.
Can you read the next one?
I lost my voice.
I'm going to wall again.
What?
I'm back.
Okay.
Received a donation to the Recreation and Parks Department.
For the Byron Hills Preschool Association to be used for programming for preschoolers.
And we thank them for that.
Absolutely.
I'll make that motion.
You get the recognition.
I'll second.
On favor.
Hi.
And then consider recommendation from colleagues sessions for release of wetland mitigation
bond in five-year extension of maintenance of monitoring bond regarding the Moderna Senior
Housing Project, Olmankosgorod, Armand.
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
On favor?
Hi.
One agreement is consider authorization for the Supervisor Design CSA Unit 2, M-O-A regarding
specific titles and having any data on this.
Thank you for the work on it.
No.
Well, absolutely, this is this settle to deal with the grievance that we realized before.
We discussed an executive session.
It was something that we're working towards in the contract anyway.
Great.
I'll make that motion.
Third or second?
I'll second.
Good job, Kevin.
Hi.
Hi, personal.
We did a big, consider the probationary appointment of Ruth Bernie to the position of senior
office assistant office manager, Billing Department Effective September 5, 2023.
Well, definitely make that motion.
I'm so happy.
Thank you.
Good news.
A second.
All in favor?
Aye.
That's great news.
Consider approval of terminal leave payment for James Mizzouca, police department.
Any comments or questions on that?
I'll make the motion.
A second.
All in favor?
Aye.
D.
No, I'll just check something.
The D is consider approval for court-clark Nancy Hall and assistant court clerk Elizabeth Esposito.
We'll attend the New York State Association Magistrate Clerk's Conference in
Verona, New York from September 17 through the 20th, 2023.
In the comments or questions?
I'll make that motion.
I'll second.
All right.
The motion to approve the consensus agenda.
We'll make that motion.
I'll second.
All right.
And before we close in memory of, enjoy the rest of your summers, the summer, we don't forget
We've got about the shredding machine on Friday.
I think it's just Alice and 10 to 1
and outside concert next Saturday.
And then it's in the town square.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
And we'll close tonight's memory of Aaron Silver,
Northway Plains resident,
John McGraw and Armandt resident,
Antenino, De Carlo, father of Franco, many of you know Olens Gavi, restaurant, and Joe
Dibernatus resident Normank, and I had dedicated his meeting to Joe.
He was a good friend, it's not common you make friends at my age with people that are
in their 90s, and he was just such a terrific person, and his wife Mary Joe, her hearts
go out to her and thought some prayers.
and Joe was just a guy who lived his faith,
spent a lot of time with him in church-related events,
and had a lot of wisdom and a sad loss.
And so we're going to miss him and all the things we do,
especially around the church.
And then we touched a lot of people in some of our mission work at church.
So with that, we'll close the memory of all four,
and I want to ask for a motion to close tonight's meeting.
I'll make that motion. I'll second on favor. All right. All right. Thank you all.
Thank you. Thank you for the break everyone.