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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005_05_25 Town Board Minutes MINUTES OF THE SPECIAL MEETING OF THE TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF MAMARONECK HELD ON MAY 25, 2005 AT 7:30 PM IN THE COURT ROOM OF THE TOWN, 740 W. BOSTON POST ROAD, MAMARONECK, NEW YORK PRESENT: Supervisor Valerie M. O'Keeffe Councilwoman Phyllis Wittner Councilman Ernest C. Odierna Councilwoman Nancy Seligson Councilman Paul A. Winick ALSO PRESENT: Patricia A. DiCioccio, Town Clerk Stephen V. Altieri, Town Administrator William Maker, Jr., Town Attorney CALL TO ORDER Supervisor O'Keeffe called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM and pointed out the location of exits. The following Notice of Hearing is hereby entered into the records: PLEASE TAKE NOTICE, that a Special Public Hearing will be held by the Town Board of the Town of Mamaroneck on Wednesday May 25, 2005 at 7:30 PM or as soon thereafter as is possible in the Court Room of the Town Center, 740 W. Boston Post Road, Mamaroneck, New York to consider a Zoning Amendment Petition — Forest City Daly. Purpose -This Law Amends the Requirements of the Business- Mixed Use Business Zoning District The full text of this Petition may be examined and copies obtained at the Town Clerk's office during regular hours (Monday through Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, or until 4:00 PM during June, July and August) at 740 W. Boston Post Road Mamaroneck, New York PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that at the Public Hearing all persons interested will be given an opportunity to be heard and that all persons are invited to submit written comments at or prior thereto. The stenographic original of the minutes are submitted below: MAMARONECK ZONING AMENDMENT HEARING FOREST CITY DALY 740 W Boston Post Road Mamaroneck, New York May 25, 2005 7:30 p.m. CARBONE & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Melissa Sasso 111 North Central Park Avenue Hartsdale, New York 10530 (914) 684-0201 May 25, 2005 APEARANCES: VALERIE O'KEEFFE - SUPERVISOR PHYLLIS WITTNER - COUNCILWOMAN ERNEST C. ODIERNA - COUNCILMAN NANCY SELIGSON - COUNCILWOMAN PAUL A. WINICK - COUNCILMAN PATRICIA A. DI CIOCCIO - TOWN CLERK STEPHEN V. ALTIERI -ADMINISTRATOR WILLIAM MAKER, JR. - TOWN ATTORNEY 2 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I just want to wait until all the hardware and electronic equipment is operative. We have a stenographer, and we have our Clerk, Ms. Di Cioccio, who has another machine. MS. DI CIOCCIO: I'm okay, go ahead. MS. O'KEEFFE: Before we start I would like to introduce, or have each person up here introduce him or herself to you so that you know who is up here, and I'm going to start with Ms. Di Cioccio who is our Town Clerk in the corner. I'll let everybody say who they are. MS. DiCioccio: Pat Di Cioccio, Town Clerk. MR. Winick: Paul Winick, Town Councilman. I am sitting in Judy Myers seat. I replaced her. She went to the County Legislature. MS. SELIGSON: I'm Nancy Seligson, Councilwoman on the Town Board. MR. ALTIERI: Steve Altieri, Town Administrator. MS. O'KEEFFE: I'm Valerie O'Keeffe. I'm the Supervisor of the Town of Mamaroneck. MS. WITTNER: Phyllis Wittner, Councilwoman. MR. ODIERNA: Ernie Odierna, Councilman. MR. MAKER: And Bill Maker, the Attorney for the Town. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Well, we are glad to see you all here tonight. This evening the Town Board is holding a special meeting to conduct a public hearing on a petition filed by Forest City Daly Mamaroneck to amend the town's business mixed use business zone. The petition has been filed in connection with a proposal to construct a multi- family residential development on the Forest City Daly Properties located on Madison Avenue between Maxwell Avenue and Byron Place. The proposal --- UNKNOWN SPEAKERS: No, not Maxwell Madison. MS. O'KEEFFE: Madlow? UNKNOWN SPEAKERS: Madison. MS. O'KEEFFE: On Madison between Maxwell and Byron. I don't know what I said before, but what I just said is right. The proposal will continue the existing business uses on the site. In a moment I will ask the Town Attorney to review the details of the proposed zoning amendment. We also will hear from representatives of Forest City Daly who will describe the proposed development. Before that, however, I would like to go over the procedures for conducting the hearing, and give a brief explanation of the four plus year process that has brought us to tonight's public hearing, but first, the procedures. Those wishing to speak this evening will all have a chance to talk, but we ask that each one of you sign in at the table in the lobby of the court room so that if you haven't signed in yet and you want to talk, or you want to speak, if you would be kind enough to go out and sign up. The speakers will be called in the order in which they signed in. So that the meeting moves forward in an orderly fashion, all comments and facts are to be directed to the Chair. When and if appropriate, I will ask Forest City Daly Representatives, the Town Attorney, or the Town's Planning Consultant, Harlan Sexton, who is here with us today, to respond to points made, or questions posed by the speaker. Please do not ask questions of Forest City Daly directly yourselves, but address the Chair. You will have your question answered, but we don't want cross conversations going on in the room. In view of the number of people here this evening, your comments on the first round will be limited to five minutes. Everyone who wants to speak will be given a chance to speak, however no one will be allowed to speak a second time until everyone who wants to speak has signed up and done so. I ask that you not simply repeat what a prior speaker has said,just, obviously, you can emphasize about something someone said and add your own comments, but if it is just the same thing over and over and over again it is not particularly helpful. 3 May 25, 2005 There has been widespread notification of the hearing this evening. The notice has been posted on our web site, in the Town Clerk's Office. It has been given to the news media. It has been posted in the lobbies of the apartment buildings in Washington Square. In addition, public notices were sent to all involved agencies, including the Villages of Larchmont and Mamaroneck, and it was also put in the town news letter which was sent out last week, which everyone in the town got. It said public hearing, go inside the news letter to find out the details. Also, Forest City Daly's application for a zoning change is the first application made since the Town's new notification law has been in effect. We have received from Forest City Daly an affidavit verifying that notices of the hearing have been mailed according to the notification law, and in addition a sign was posted on the site. Now let me just do a little bit of background. Forest City Daly first expressed interest in developing these properties back in the year 2000, more than five years ago. At that time, its proposal was to construct roughly 225 units of rental housing on the site, and to keep the three existing rental stores. The number of units now completed in the zoning amendment is 159. In 2000 the town retained Buckherst, Fish & Jackmar(ph) to conduct a development and a parking study of the Washington Square Neighborhood. The study paid particular attention to the Madison Avenue properties, because of the interest in developing those properties. The study evaluated four alternative uses, indoor,outdoor recreation, general business use, housing, and parking facilities. Although the study did not make a specific recommendation, it provided an analysis of each of these alternatives. Several public information meetings were held by the town to present the findings and the recommendations of the study. In addition, Forest City Daly held private meetings with people in the neighborhood to present its concept for development on Madison Avenue. In February 2002 Forest City Daly filed a formal application seeking to amend the zoning covering its properties. In May of 2002 the Town Board designated itself as the lead agency for the formal environmental review pursuant to the New York State Environmental Quality Review Law. The Town Board met with the Planning Board and the Board of Architectural Review to develop a scope for the environmental review. After a public hearing in June of 2002 the Town Board adopted a scoping document outlining the areas of concern to be evaluated in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement to be prepared by Forest City Daly. In June 2003 the Town received Forest City Daly's first draft of an Environmental Impact Statement. That draft was rejected as being incomplete. A second draft was submitted, and scrutinized by the Town Board, the town staff, and our planning consultants. It was determined that the revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement was worthy of public review, and so it was distributed to all involved agencies, and made available for public review. On January 20th and February 12, 2004 public hearings were held to receive comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Subject to the public hearings, Forest City Daly responded to each of the comments, and submitted those responses in the form of a final Environmental Impact Statement. As with the initial draft Environmental Impact Statement the Town Board rejected the first draft of the final Environmental Impact Statement. A second revision was accepted as complete in January 2005, about three or four months ago. After reviewing all of the documents and information provided by Forest City Daly, involved agencies, and the public, the Town Board in March of 2005 adopted findings under SEQRA, that is a State Environmental Law, regarding the proposal. The SEQRA findings dictated Forest City Daly that a further reduction in the size of the project would be necessary before the Town Board would consider its proposal. Accordingly, Forest City Daly refined the project and submitted an amended petition for an amendment to the zoning ordinance. That latest petition was referred by the Town Board to the Planning Board for comment. Thus, as you can see, the proposed amendment being considered this evening is the result of a lengthy comprehensive review process. In making its SEQRA findings the Town Board has taken into account the impacts of the proposed development, and the benefits to be derived by the community of such a development. We have been sensitive to concerns over parking, traffic, and the aesthetic impact. In addition, we have taken into account concerns of our neighbors in the Village of Larchmont. Tonight, the public will have an opportunity to comment upon the zoning amendment. Now I would like to ask the Town Attorney, Mr. Maker, to review the details of the proposed zoning amendment. After that I will ask representatives of Forest City Daly, Mr. Tung, to present the details of its proposal, so, Mr. Maker, please. MR. MAKER: Thank you very much. This particular zoning district, the BMUB District, which stands for Business/Mixed Use District— UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Can you speak up? We can't hear you. MS. O'KEEFFE: You can't hear? MR. MAKER: Okay, we'll try again. 4 May 25, 2005 The BMUB Zoning District stands for Business/Mixed Use -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: We still can't hear you. MR. MAKER: BMUB District stands for Business/Mixed Use District, which means that it is essentially a business district. It is a district that will allow any types of commercial use to stores, retail stores, offices, storage facilities, things of that nature, up to sizes that could be as large as 30,000 square feet, but it also has a special provision which allows for a mixed use of both residential and commercial uses, and if an entity such as Forest City Daly is able to aggregate 80,000 continuous square feet, which it has done, it has the opportunity to come forward and ask the Town Board to adjust the zoning ordinance in order to accommodate this proposal, and that is what is happening tonight. The ordinance is changed not so much in the uses. There are some dimensional changes that will take place. Currently, the maximum height is 75 feet. It will be increased to 75 feet. They will allow for a maximum of six floors. This will provide for a maximum height of six floors at 5 five, above the public parking. It would control the amount of commercial. The commercial components of development will go through a mechanism known as floor area ratio. Currently there are, approximately, 14,000 square feet of commercial spaces in the three stores that are currently there, the gymnasium, the liquor store and the cleaners. Those entities will stay in place if this amendment is passed, and if a special permit is given for it, although as I understand it, the proposal, the facades will be redone to accommodate those facades with the facades of the residential tower behind it. That is an important feature, because as I started to say, as a business use this could accommodate about 30,000 square feet of commercial use, but with the floor area ratio mechanism in place, under this mixed use space, commercial space will be limited to its current size, which is less than half that. The yard setbacks on the new proposal will force the developer to push back its building from Madison Avenue about 120 feet for its commercial uses, and up to 170 feet for its residential use. This component was placed into the statute, proposed statute, to make sure that the development, should it be improved, would not have a Manhattan like appearance, with the buildings being flush with the, street scape. In addition, the proposed law would allow for a maximum number of 159 units, but it would limit the number of three bedroom units to one three bedroom unit for every 25 dwelling units, which I think equates to about six three bedroom units. That was placed into the ordinance to control the number of children that might otherwise be attending our school systems, and perhaps put a further stress upon the school system. In addition, the Town Board has placed into this proposed amendment a provision to provide a certain number of what is termed as work force housing. Work force housing is housing for the people whose income are a percentage of the meeting income in Westchester County. The 80th percentile is what is used, and the current HUD Analysis median Westchester Housing income for families is something like $92,000.00, and so therefore these units would be set aside for a family of four that earns no more than 70 or$72,000.00, and it gets ratcheted down even further if you are a three-family household, or a two-family household, or a single household. Under the present proposal there will be one such unit for each 17 dwelling units to be built, which converts into nine work force housing units. The process doesn't end with the enactment of a zoning amendment. Should this law pass, the next step would be for Forest City Daly to make an application for what is called a special permit, in which they will give, submit highly detailed plans showing exactly what they are proposing. If that application is made to this Board, the Town Board will refer the special permit application to the Planning Board for an advisory opinion. The Planning Board in turn would refer the application to the various boards with which it ordinarily deals, including the Board of Architectural Review; the Coastal Zone Management Commission; the Traffic Committee; the Town's Engineer; the Town's Building Department; Fire Department; and County Planning Department, and the State DOT. The comments would be gathered together and the Planning Board would give its recommendation based upon the submission by Forest City Daly, and the matter would return to this Board for consideration at another public hearing, when all of the details are laid out by Forest City Daly. As part of that overall consideration, Forest City Daly has offered to construct a parking deck, over parking lot number three, do I got that right, which it would finance through revenues. So that is the synopsis of the zoning amendment, as proposed. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you very much, Mr. Maker. Now, Mr. Tung? Mr. Tung is representing Forest City Daly. You may continue. MR. TUNG: Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Town Council, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Andrew Tung. I'm a partner with Divney, Tung, Schwalbe. We are planning, engineering, and landscape architectural consultants in White Plains. I'm appearing on behalf of Forest City Daly. With me tonight are George Kruse from Forest City, and Jennifer Porter from Keane and Beane, our Project Counsel. We've had the opportunity, as the Supervisor 5 May 25, 2005 reminded us, to have worked with the town, its staff consultants, and members of the public over the past five years in first presenting our initial ideas for this project, and for this site, and then working through, first informally, and then under the auspices of the SEQRA process, since March of 2002. What is proposed both in terms of the project, and in terms of the zoning changes that would be required for the BMUB District, and what resulted, what the culmination of that was, in March of 2002 a 26-page finding statement by the Town Board describing how the project had been changed, and how the project's proponents, that is Forest City, had looked at all the aspects of the environmental situation surrounding the property that this project could affect, and as a result of that look, that hard look, the Board determined that the proposal, as it was shrunken over the various steps, and changed, looked to both avoid, minimize, and mitigate any potential impacts on the surrounding area, and some of the things which the Supervisor and Mr. Maker have described have been asked of the applicant, or offered by the applicant, as a result of those studies. What I would like to do tonight is to just point out some of the documents, some of the graphics that were used in the FEIS for what became known as the preferred alternative plan. This was the plan as it was changed after responding to all the comments during the DEIS, and this forms the basis for the zoning amendment, as it as well has changed, and as Mr. Maker points out, if the Town Board is to adopt this amendment, were the Town Board to adopt this amendment, we would then proceed to a further submission to the Town Board, and by referral to the Planning Board of more detailed drawings of the site plan, and the architecture, and that would go through still another review at another level of inquiry. This is taken from the zoning map of the town, and it shows the location of the BMUB District within the town, and it is bounded generally by Madison Avenue, Maxwell Avenue, and Byron Place. It is basically rectangular in size, bounded by those three streets, as well as the town yard to the south, and it is to the south of the Washington Square apartment area, and you can see on the aerial photo a smaller scale, the same orange boundary. The orange boundary indicates the properties that Forest City Daly has put together. There are six separate parcels to meet the requirements of the two acre or the 80,000 square foot requirement of the BMUB District, and you can see from the aerial the surrounding streets, Madison, Maxwell, and Byron. The Thruway is to the east of Byron, and the Thruway ramp to the west of Maxwell, the town yard to the south, as well as to the two Larchmont water tanks, and the Washington Square Area, North Chatsworth, Washington Square to the north of that. These six parcels constitute most of the area within the BMUB District. The remaining parcels are out of the corner of Byron and Madison, and this makes up. This is comprised of the existing retail center with its parking lot in front with the health club, the liquor store, and the dry cleaner, the restaurant out on Madison, the three houses that sit behind along Maxwell, these are single-family houses, and the commercial/industrial area that is now being used by the tree service. There is access off of Byron. The proposal, as the Supervisor outlined, is to create a mixed use development on this site, that is to introduce the residential use that is present in the Washington Square area, either adjacent to commercial building along Myrtle, or in some cases in the same building further up along Myrtle. The proposal is to add the back of the site, or the south end of the site setback from Madison Avenue to construct a multi-family residential building, and to retain the existing retail center to renovate the front facade of that center, as well as to improve conditions, both circulation wise, number wise, and appearance wise of the parking lot out of Madison. Access to the residential building, which was mentioned, will be six levels of apartment over ground level, containing a lobby and parking, as well as two underground level areas of parking below that, so all parking for the residents will be below the footprint of this building. Access will be off Byron Place, and the front door of the building will face onto Byron Place. This pink area shows a drop off lane in here, and there is also access to the top level of the parking, residential parking deck off of Byron. There is a second access to the mid level of the parking off of Maxwell so that residents, depending on which direction they are coming from, can come to the building directly without passing through the center area of Madison. The building is basically six floors, as I mentioned, of residences and on the second floor, there is a resident terrace, and above that five more floors of apartments. All the various aspects of potential environmental impacts were considered during the environmental reviews, and so we looked at things such as utilities that currently serve the Madison Avenue area, and how this building would connect into those utilities, and we prepared conceptual grading plans, utility plans. These colored lines indicate existing utilities within Byron, Maxwell, and Madison, and how connections would be made to those utilities. We have looked at the stormwater conditions in the area. Right now, as you may know, there is an open parking lot here, and an open yard associated with the tree service. As part of the proposal stormwater management measures would be employed to control both the quantity and quality of the stormwater runoff, and all areas would be either landscaped or roofed, or paved, and directed to water quality measures and stormwater measures, such that the proposed quality of the stormwater will be better, both because of the nature of the land use changing and new controls that are put in that are not currently existing on the site, and also because it would be directed to the 6 May 25, 2005 existing storm system in Madison, and the peak rate of the runoff would not be increased in any of the various design year storms. Forest City Daly has also proposed to employ on the top of the building green roof measures that are both related to roof top terraces that will have planting areas, and the main roof where there is no general access, where possible, those will be planted in low maintenance vegetation so that that will be an additional stormwater benefit from the project. The parking conditions in the area, both as a result of Buckherst, Fish & Jackmar's study in 2000 and the Mamaroneck Town Task Force Study in 2002 indicated a lack of parking in the general area serving the residential buildings, because when many of these buildings were built there was no parking, or limited parking provided on those individual parcels, and so there is a number of residents parked either on the street or in town lots that are nearby, so this was a lot at Myrtle and North Chatsworth, and so it was made very clear to us that we had to first provide sufficient parking for our residential building, and so over time that amount of parking was increased until as finally presented in the FEIS that parking, as presented here, exceeds the ratio of parking that is provided at the Carlton House, which is the most recent of the buildings to have been built, and the one that really provides, to our knowledge, essential parking, so that all the residents and the visitors park on the site, and that the area around that is not affected by that building. Not only are we looking to improve parking for our residents, we are also looking to improve the parking out front of the sports center. I will come back to exactly how that is proposed in a moment, but also as part of the consideration of the proposal, as Mr. Maker mentioned, the applicant has agreed to help the town fund the construction of a single level deck on this parking area here, Myrtle and North Chatsworth, which was identified by Buckherst, Fish as a possible location to be able to expand the general parking capacity of the area, and we believe that this will be certainly a benefit to the neighborhood. This is not a place where the residents of the building will park, because they will all have sufficient parking below. The parking for the retail center will be improved through the extension of the retail lot to cover the area currently that is occupied by La Villetta Restaurant, so that will be extended to the east, as well, in order to get a little bit of greenery in that lot. As the lot exists now, the cars that are parked closest to Madison hang right over the sidewalk, and the cars stick right out there. What we proposed to do is to change this to a slightly angled 75 degree angle parking lot so that you enter at the back bay and circulate through, and in a one-way pattern you can go out to the other bay. That gives us a little bit more room to create a five foot area to plant an evergreen hedge, similar to what is out here further down on Madison, provide a little bit of separation from the sidewalk and the parking, and improve the circulation, or make the circulation clearer within the parking lot, and will also provide a right turn out onto Madison, so that if you are at the health club and you are parking over here, and you are going in this direction to Myrtle you can make a right turn out and go out through here, rather than circulating through the lot, all the way around, so we looked to make improvements both on the site and nearby the site. The proposed building is being designed by our architect Robert Stern from New York, and he has taken his inspiration from some of the Mediterranean tudor buildings up on North Chatsworth. As shown in that artist's rendering there, and the front facade, the facade that faces Madison Avenue of the retail building would be designed, as you can see poking through the trees here in a complimentary manner, so that facade would be improved, and then your building would be built to the rear. Madam Supervisor, that is an overview of the project as proposed tonight. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, Mr. Tung. We are here for a public hearing, so we want to listen to you, but before we do that we have to open the public hearing, so we need a motion to open the public hearing. MS. WITTNER: So moved. MS. O'KEEFFE: Is there a second? MS. SELIGSON: Second. MS. O'KEEFFE: All in favor? (Whereupon the Board takes a vote.) MS. O'KEEFFE: Is there anyone that came in since I made my preliminary remarks, and that person would like to speak tonight? I just ask that you to go out to the table outside and sign- in, and then we will get a card, and each person will be able to speak in the order in which he or she signs in. There are some seats up here, if anybody wants to come over here, if they are having trouble hearing, and there's a couple up here in the front. The first person to sign-in tonight is Ms. Wendy Padick. I will ask the people to be kind enough to come up to the microphone and adjust that microphone so that it is comfortable so that the people on the 7 May 25, 2005 television will be able to hear you, as well as the people in the room, and if you would be so kind as to identify where you live and how you spell your name for the stenographer, please. Ms. Padick? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: What is the zoning requirement on parking per unit, and what is being required of this group now? I just didn't catch the part. MS. O'KEEFFE: You didn't hear it? You didn't hear it. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I guess I didn't hear it. MS. O'KEEFFE: I mean, that is fine. f it has been said, and it was not heard, we will have Mr. Maker answer that question before we start. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: That is the difference between what they are offering ad what is being suggested by the -- MR. MAKER: The current off street parking requirement and the proposed, I believe, as I look at it, are the same. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Which are? MR. MAKER: So first of all there is no difference, and what exists is, for efficiency units it is one space per unit, and for a one bedroom unit it is 1.5 spaces per unit, for two bedroom units it is 1.5 spaces per unit, and three bedroom units it is two spaces per unit, and for any retail or office it is one space for each 200 square feet. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, Ms. Padick, there you go. MS. PADICK: My name is Wendy Padick. I live at 14 North Chatsworth Avenue. Is this working? MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MS. PADICK: The last time I was here was in January of'04 when I got up to speak about the concerns of my neighborhood with parking. Some of those concerns have been addressed. Subsequently, in February of'04 1 wrote a letter to Supervisor O'Keeffe and the Town Board summarizing what I had said in January of'04, and also addressing my concern about the traffic and the traffic study, which I understand was done in the summer of'03, August of'03, and my concern there is that August is obviously not a very realistic time to conduct a traffic study, because the schools are not in session, and many people are away, and at the January '04 meeting, Mr. Tung showed on the walls here the traffic flows of the various intersections of which there were 16 that had been surveyed, and they came to a conclusion of minimal impact. I believe that a traffic study conducted in the summer months of August '03 is not realistic, and that any conclusions based on such a study are invalid, and that the traffic study aught to be redone at a time when school is in session, and when people are around. My husband and I observed the traffic survey in progress, and we went up to the people conducting it, and we asked who was paying them, and we were told they were being paid by "the developer," so if the survey that we saw was the source of the data used to reach the conclusion drawn, that there was minimal impact, then the traffic flow study should be redone in a more realistic way, and then I added at the end of my letter that we have to be careful not to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, not to alter the character of our town to the extent that it is no longer desirable. This, as you know, is not a reversible experiment. Once completed we will have to live with the results forever, and I urge the Town Board to think about the risks of creating an undesirable effect on the community before voting on the issue of changing the zoning laws, and/or the parking rules, so I do not know how that turned out in the FEIS, if the traffic -- MS. O'KEEFFE: I know your letter was handed over. MS. PADICK: Right. Well, I faxed it up from Florida, which is where I was, and I don't know how the traffic study was conducted, if they changed it, if they amended it, if they redid it, and that is something I have not seen or heard anything about, and I think the traffic flow around our neighborhood, you were talking earlier about the sensitivity of the town to traffic concerns is something that is paramount in the minds of all of us who live in the Chatsworth Avenue 8 May 25, 2005 neighborhood, so I would appreciate any answer, information, Mr. Tung has on that point. Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Mr. Tung, do you have any comment with respect to Ms. Padick's comments? MR. TUNG: My only initial comment, subject to my checking, is that traffic counts are not normally done during the summer, because they have to account for school traffic, so that is not something that we would normally do, and I can verify exactly when those counts were taken. MS. O'KEEFFE: Now, Mr. Altieri, and I seem to remember something with respect to that. R. ALTIERI: I was just going to say that the traffic appendices in here show the date performed was in November of 2002. MR. TUNG: Thank you. MS. PADICK: Am I allowed to ask a question from the floor? MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, if it is part of the same thing -- MS. PADICK: Yeah. MS. O'KEEFFE: -- let's finish it. Come back up here. MS. PADICK: I just wanted to say -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Come on back up to the front. I want to get it clear, and I want everyone to be able to hear you. MS. PADICK: In that event, what was I observing in August of'03, people sitting on little collapsible chairs with bottles of water counting cars, and they said this study was being paid for by the developer, so that doesn't quite make sense to me. MR. ALTIERI: I think what you were seeing were the traffic counts that were being done as part of the design of the Myrtle Boulevard and North Chatsworth Avenue intersection by the Town's Consultants, DSE Engineering. MS. PADICK: Okay. That is not what the people doing the study told me. MR. ALTIERI: The sheets are right in here, and they say the date performed, November 2000. MS. O'KEEFFE: I remember very clearly sitting in the Town Board saying you can't use the summer as an indicator, because the summer is not a realistic indicator of traffic flow, and our papers show it was done in November, so I don't know what August was, but we did not depend on August to come to -- well, I shouldn't say we. The writers of the document did not depend on an August count to come to their conclusions. MS. PADICK: Well, as everybody knows, the five-way intersection of Myrtle, Murray, and Chatsworth, and North Chatsworth is already a horror show. MS. O'KEEFFE: And we're working on that, and that is pretty much who those people were, trying to figure that out. MR. ALTIERI: I believe so. MS. PADICK: So this development is going to only add to our problems. They certainly can't subtract from them. MS. O'KEEFFE: I do think we have clarified that the conclusions that were drawn upon data, that that was collected in November, not August, according to our books. We thank you very much, Ms. Padick. We are very pleased that you and your husband are very community minded, and I'm glad you are so alert. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Ron Leney. Ron Lenny, L-E-N-E-Y, 14 North Chatsworth. 9 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, sir. MR. LENEY: I'll first give the Town Clerk a petition to the Town Board signed by unit owners at 14 North Chatsworth. A very brief walk-through of the area contemplated by the development will show that some mistakes have been made. A lot of mistakes have been made in the past. All you have to do is see the people drifting around looking for parking spaces, identify the cars that are sitting in three hour spaces for six and seven hours, or maybe for two or three days, stand at the intersection of Myrtle and Chatsworth, stand there in the morning, stand there in the evening. The railroad station is right over there. That is not going to change. The people are coming from other areas, as well as the area of the proposed development. You can say that these mistakes started when 14 North Chatsworth was built without any parking at all, 14, 16, but that was 77 years ago, and maybe that's, you can say that is forgiven, that nobody could foresee the number of cars, but post war and pre war high-rise, high-density, development in that area were clearly mistakes that had been made over a period of years, and we are living with those mistakes now. Adding a deck to parking lot number three is not going to solve the problem. Building, we hear, an island down Madison Avenue, that is not going to solve the problem. Even realignment of the traffic lights, there are just too many people living in too small an area, because the Town Boards, at that time, in the past, allowed high-density, high-rise development, without sufficient parking, and also without taking into consideration that the railroad station was there. It was not going to move. This is all before this development starts, and what does the development do? It adds more high-rise, high-density, living. It adds retail. How can anybody come to the conclusion that this either solves the existing problem, or will create no problem in the future? The problem is there today. Adding more people living vertically, adding retail space, that is no solution to that. MS. O'KEEFFE: There is no proposal to add retail space. MR. LENEY: If the retail space becomes more accessible, and because it is more parking, and because there are people living right there, it will probably involve more traffic. If it doesn't involve more traffic, then there would probably be no reason to include the retail space in the development. All I am saying is, we have a problem today, before the development, and the development in no way, shape, or form, solves today's problems, and at best, the worst it can do, or the worst it could do is add additional problems, because it duplicates what has been done in the past, high-density, high-rise, in an area that already has a problem caused by that kind of permission granted by previous Town Boards. Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you very much, Mr. Leney. Ms. Peg Cozzi. MS. COZZI: Peg Cozzi, C-O-Z-Z-I, 21 North Chatsworth Avenue. I am here on behalf of the Chatsworth Neighborhood Association, and traffic has already been spoken about, so that is off my list. The members of the Chatsworth Neighborhood Association unanimously oppose any preferential zoning changes for the proposed development by Forest City Daly. On the parcels Madison, Byron, and Maxwell Avenues. Negative impacts of a complex of 159 housing units would bring, could bring, approximately, 400 more people to the area, and there are, approximately, 270 parking spaces, 270 cars, on 2.1 acres of land, which overwhelms an area which is already burdened, and decreases the quality of life for all the current residents. In addition to the traffic problem that has been spoken about, we are concerned about the noise and air pollution that comes from the additional traffic. We are very concerned about the increase load on the drainage system, which is already overburdened, and particularly about the downstream, the Pine Brook Area that has been talked about a lot of times at this Board, I think. Almost all the permeable land in this lot will be covered by the building. The additional person load on Metro North, which is already overcrowded creates a whole other set of problems that we can't even address. The Town has no way to address that. It doesn't look to me like Metro North is going to do anything to address it, either. The insufficient parking, provision for parking on local streets, which is currently inadequate, and there are no guarantees that new residents will use the parking that is provided, especially if there is a charge for that parking. There would be some people who would choose to go out to the street, despite adequate parking that is in the building. We are concerned about the burden on the municipal services caused by the population increase, locations for fire, police, emergency, sanitation, sewers, water, and schools are all likely to increase. We are concerned that there is an insufficient number of affordable housing units. Nine units are proposed. It represents somewhere around five percent. My understanding that an acceptable number in the research from people who study this would be about 12 percent, which is adequate, so we're talking 18 units, twice as much as what is being proposed. We are certainly concerned that if construction proceeds the traffic, the noise, and the air pollution is going to be unacceptable. Our conclusions are that an Environmental Impact Statement does not address 10 May 25, 2005 the traffic congestion, the air and noise pollution problem. It only vaguely addresses the street parking problems, addresses drainage, only by suggesting that the current situation will not become worse. The green roof concept is excellent, but it only supplies 40 to 50 percent coverage. It does not compensate for the longer permeable land. Forest City Daly uses Carlton House at 35 North Chatsworth Avenue as an example of adequate parking allocation to show a positive comparison of the units two spaces, however, the comparison with Carlton House is quite negative concerning land coverage. Carlton House has 142 units on 4.6 acres, while the Forest City Daly proposal is 159 on 2.18 acres. The Chatsworth Neighborhood Association feels that a project of this scale will greatly diminish the quality of life for approximately 1,200 people who currently reside here, with a dubious benefit certainly to the local community, and to the town as a whole, so our question is, what specific benefits would this project provide for our community? MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you. You asked a few questions, which I think we might want to address now, one of which was, if the parking in the proposed building is required, if people are required to pay for the parking, they might be incentive to go park on the local streets. Mr. Tung, would you answer that, please? I would like to go through them, if we could. Thank you, Ms. Cozzi. MR. TUNG: Yes, Madam Supervisor, this, or a similar question had been asked previously, and what we would suggest is that one, at least one parking space would be included with each unit. There may be single people that buy units, that there will be no need to have a second space. There is an available second space for those who need it, and who would acquire it as part of their rent, so the number of parking spaces was increased significantly over what was initially proposed. Part of the plan, and it is somewhat site related, but also design related, is that it was stacked in underground levels. Carlton House has a larger area of it. As you can see from the aerial photograph, most of the area is taken up by a parking lot, so that was an option that was both not desirable here, and not selected here, because that increases the impervious area, as well, so that the parking strategy for the building was looked at both physically and operationally to make sure that that's where the people will park, and I think that yes, it is conceivable that somebody would go park on the outside, and certainly when they drive someplace they'll have to park on the outside, but we want to make it as convenient as possible. There's access directly below the building. I think there will be an inclination to park within the building. MS. O'KEEFFE: I would like to clear up one other thing. Mr. Leney raised a question of the number, I think, at least tangently I picked it up, the number of additional parking spaces that would be constructed on the deck above parking lot number three. The implication is that there would be no improvement to the neighborhood. I mean, how many new parking spaces would there be there? MR. TUNG: I believe that was taken from the Buckhurst, Fish study. My memory is that -- MS. DI CIOCCIO: 70. MS. O'KEEFFE: 70, right? MR. TUNG: Something like that. MS. O'KEEFFE: So I just wanted to get that on the record, that under the proposal there would be 70 new parking units, which would be open to the people who live in the neighborhood. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Would that be a permit? MS. O'KEEFFE: We will get to that. That was just a question that was raised. MS. WITTNER: And as you said, Mr. Tung, every apartment in this proposal will have at least one -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Free. MS. WITTNER: Free spot. MR. TUNG: That is correct. It is included, yes. MS. WITTNER: Included in the rent? ll May 25, 2005 MR. TUNG: Yes. MS. O'KEEFFE: Is that true? Let me ask a question. Is that true, I'm asking generally, is that true in the Carlton House, does everyone get with their apartment one space? UNKNOWN SPEAKERS: Yes. MS. O'KEEFFE: Do they get more than one space? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: It is a different environment, because they own it, okay? MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, I know, but I just want to know, does everybody who owns an apartment, or owns an apartment in the Carlton House, get a space? UNKNOWN SPEAKERS: Yes. MS. O'KEEFFE: Do they get two spaces? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Some do. MS. O'KEEFFE: Do they pay for it? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Yes. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, all right, so it is the same thing. MR. TUNG: Right, thank you. MS. SELIGSON: Could we also ask Mr.Tung to address the drainage issue, or I will? MS. O'KEEFFE: Now, the drainage issue, there are two aspects there, one it would be going into the --well, two things have been raised. One has to do with drainage, and one is sewage. I guess you're talking about drainage? We are not talking about the New Rochelle Sewage Treatment Plant. We're talking about water that will go over the building, presumably, area, and because it is impervious, it would flow someplace, and would increase water. I think that is what Ms. Cozzi was trying to ask, and if you can answer them, maybe Councilwoman Seligson might want to share. MR. TUNG: I would be happy to. There are two aspects to the stormwater management. One is the water quality, and then a second is the water quantity. In terms of quality, the existing site is composed of the six different uses that I described, the retail center, the restaurant, the three houses, and the tree service. Some of the pervious area, or the only pervious area, and on the site today, are really the lawns around the three houses, and the dirt area around the tree service. In assessing the dirt area, they really don't serve a pervious nature They are packed down, and so in fact when it rains you get mud, and you get wash-offs of the dirt areas. In the proposed plan there will no longer be dirt areas. There will also be limited lawn areas around the front of the building, so there will be a change in impervious surface. Of the 2.18 acres, or 2.2 acres, there will be an addition of .4 acres of impervious, but that area of impervious includes a roof which has both roof gardens and a green roof area, and all the area will be either landscaped, or paved with hard paving, and the drainage from those areas will be directed to storm basins, and in the case of the roof and the area in front of the building, that storm drainage will be directed to a sand filter located in the center island, and a detention area. The sand filter will provide water quality treatment which by calculations done by the Standard Department of Environmental Conservation DEC Method will improve the quality of the stormwater that gets discharged to the system in Madison Avenue by reducing all the various contaminants that are constituents that are measured in those calculations, and through this stormwater detention system the water coming off the site will be managed and parceled out over time, after the peak of the storm so that the water going into this system will be less than or equal to the water going into the system now, over the various storms that are used to calculate that, so we believe both the change in land use, and the measures that are put in now will help to improve the stormwater treatment on the site. Right now there is very little except for some in the parking lot of the existing retail center. There is very little management of that stormwater on the site. 12 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Would you briefly describe the green roof, what it is and what it is intended to accomplish? MR. TUNG: The green roof is basically putting vegetation on the roof of a building in order to provide a couple of different benefits, one, by having vegetation on the roof, when it rains on the roof now some of the rainwater is taken up in soil, and also in the plants that use it to grow, and so that water, which otherwise on solid roof would collect on the roof and run off down into the drain system is left up on the roof and transpires the same way that that water that falls on a plant that is on the ground works. It also serves as insulation on the roof, because the roof which is otherwise black, or gravel surfaces, it's hot up on that roof, and the combination of the waterproof membrane and the soil, and the vegetation, helps to insolate the roof from temperature changes, so these are incremental benefits which, as more and more buildings start to have green roofs, we'll start to have more and more of an affect on the overall environment. For the specific environment of the site, it will help to reduce the amount of stormwater that comes off the roof. Because the green roof has not been specifically designed, we did not take credit in our stormwater calculations for this additional benefit from the green roof, but we are proposing to put it in, so we will get some credit, because even if you put up a planter with geraniums, it has a small benefit, and they pick up some water that would otherwise fall off into the stormwater system. MS. O'KEEFFE: Would this make the roof much heavier than it is? Does that cause extra construction? MR. TUNG: It has to be designed to carry that load, but there are two types of green roofs that are described. One is kind of a decorative green roof where you have a terrace, and we have got some of these where you have a terrace and then some planting areas adjacent to the terrace, and on any roof terrace you've got to accommodate the weight of the soil and the weight of the plants. On the green roof, the green roof is put where no one will normally be, and there will be a thinner section, because we are not looking to plant shrubs or trees, basically a sedum or a ground core, where they can use a thinner depth of soil, and so there will be some additional loading that will have to be designed into the roof structure. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you very much, Mr. Tung. Ms. Seligson, did you want to say something? MS. SELIGSON: I just wanted everyone to hear that from a drainage perspective, from a runoff perspective, it will actually be an improved situation, according to the proposal and calculations right now, than what currently exists. What currently exists is virtually entirely impervious surface with very little control over the quality of the runoff. MS. WITTNER: Also, the improvements to the parking area, we won't even mention that. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay. MS. COZZI: And my last question? MS. O'KEEFFE: Ms. Cozzi? MS. COZZI: My last question? MS. O'KEEFFE: You have another question we didn't answer? Well, not that we didn't answer, that we didn't address? MS. COZZI: Well, yes, which is what benefits will this project provide to our community? MS. O'KEEFFE: I think that that is a question to be asked at the end of the hearing, after we have listened to all the presentation. MS. COZZI: Okay. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you. I have that written down. MS. COZZI: Okay. MS. O'KEEFFE: Ms. Albert will you please come up to the front and tell us your name, and spell it for the stenographer, please? 13 May 25, 2005 MS. ALBERT: Esther Albert, 14 North Chatsworth, and I was going to ask the same question. We have been listening to how lovely this building is, and we see bicycles, kids on bikes there. I still don't know what good it does for Larchmont and Mamaroneck. I really don't. I asked the question last time we were here. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, well, I think that each one of the --well, we can ask Mr. Tung if he wants to respond to that. I know that we have been thinking about this for four years, so I don't want to answer that until we hear everybody's questions, but I think that that is a question that should be answered before we vote. MS. ALBERT: I also wanted to say that these,we have enough problems on Palmer Avenue in front of the post office on the Post Road. I was on the Post Road Saturday driving, I think it's north, and I had to make a left onto Chatsworth Avenue in front of the post office, to tell you the truth, I had to wait until the light turned red, and rush across, because there was no other way I could have made it. MS. O'KEEFFE: You mean you were on foot? MS. ALBERT: No, I was in my car, and I had to wait for the light to turn before I made the left, because there is just too much traffic, so this can only make it worse all over town is what I am saying. Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you very much. Okay, Mr. Donald Lasala. MR. LASALA: Hello. MS. O'KEEFFE: Would you be kind enough, Mr. Lasala, to tell us how to spell your name for the record? MR. LASALA: Sure, for the record it is spelled L-A-S-A-L-A, and my name is Donald, and I live at 2 Washington Square, and myself, my family, we have been involved in the management and the ownership of, I think it is probably the last building in the area, and I've been involved, personally, in the management for over 20 years now, and to speak to one aspect of the presentation regarding the number of children, now, I believe I heard that there is some sort of assumption that a three bedroom will determine children? Well, I could give you some information regarding our building. Currently, now, we have out of around 50 units that are rented, we have 21 children, and of those, all but three are living in two bedroom or less apartments, so easily 18 of them are living in two bedroom apartments, and I think there is a number of women who are expecting, too. The age of larger families is back again, and I know this isn't the case in some of the other buildings in the area where there are more elderly populations, and our building also had less children awhile ago, but going back say 20 years, there were very few children in the building, but now rental buildings are places where a lot of families start out. With the housing prices in the area going up, getting higher, people can't afford them, and they start their families, and they keep looking for houses they can't afford, and the families grow, and my understanding of this project is that it will also be a rental building, so I think maybe to put in a question, I'm just wondering how are we going to get people to only have children in the three bedroom apartments? That is all I have to say. Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Now, Donald, I think your wife had a question with respect to the parking garage, I mean the parking deck, and since you didn't use up your five minutes, and since it has to do with what we were speaking of before, if you would like to speak for her, if you want to cede one minute or two minutes to her, we can answer that question, which I told her we would get to later, so if you want to come up and ask the question you wanted to ask. MS. LASALA: Well, it's brief. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, come on up. Just say it so we are on the record. MS. LASALA: Susan Lasala, 2 Washington Square, L-A-S-A-L-A. I was wondering if the parking deck that they are proposing would be permit marking, or just free parking, that is all. MS. O'KEEFFE: Permit parking. 14 May 25, 2005 MS. DI CIOCCIO: With some for the retail, from my understanding. MS. O'KEEFFE: We were thinking with maybe some transitional parking for the retail uses like Joe Coe (ph) and Peter's, and all those places, but, basically, permit parking, which would accommodate residents who live in 15, 16, 21, or 17 North Chatsworth who don't have any parking now. MS. LASALA: Do you know what the wait is for a parking permit in those lots now? MS. DI CIOCCIO: About four years. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, we know. Four years. Thank you. Now we have Mr. Roger Hotte. MR. HOTTE: Yes, Roger Hotte, that's H-O-T-T-E. I live at 6 Sackett in Larchmont. There's two areas I'd like to address to the Chair. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, sir. MR. HOTTE: Page three of the proposal under work force housing -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, sir. MR. HOTTE: -- has a ratio of 5.9 percent of work force housing. MS. O'KEEFFE: Uh-huh. MR. HOTTE: I'm sure you are aware that Westchester County Housing Opportunity Commission, which is very active and recommends for the social and best interests of the county that 10 percent of all new construction should be applied for work force housing. The question I have to ask you, Mrs. Chair, what is the logic of our accepting 5.9, rather than 10? MS. O'KEEFFE: The logic was money. You take a look at how much, you try to figure how much it cost a developer to put together the project, to buy the land, to put together the pieces, build the building, and then how much can he or she take and still make a successful project, and take away normal rent, and what we did is we had an economic analysis done on our own, and we thought that this was probably reasonable. We investigated all kinds of things. We looked at 80/20 affordable housing. That didn't work. Then we tried to look at other ways to try to get a fair amount of affordable housing, and as far as I was concerned, the more the better, but I think that after extensive study we came to the conclusion that if you looked at the economic factors, that this number was dueable, and we wanted to have some rather than none, and we wanted to have the maximum amount that we thought the developer could provide, and still make a go of the project. That's where we came up with that number. MR. HOTTE: I appreciate your comments. I happen to feel that for the people that work in this town and so forth, I would like them to continue to be able to work in our town. MS. O'KEEFFE: We do too. MR. HOTTE: And based on the facts -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, we also have the comments from our department, so we also have other affordable housing within the Town of Mamaroneck, not in the unincorporated area. MR. WINICK: I just wanted to add something. I agree with you wholeheartedly that there should be, ideally there should be more affordable housing, and there is an amenity that is being provided by the developer here, which is quite unusual, which is the parking deck, which is going to provide parking for the neighborhood, and looks like it will cost well in excess, looks like well in excess of$1,000,000.00. That changes the economics, and I think it is fair to say if that was not also in the mix it would be a lot more compelling case to demand more affordable housing. There is a mixed blessing here. MR. HOTTE: Let me comment on your question, if I may. I didn't understand when Mr. Tung said assess in funding for another deck on the parking lot. Is that -- MS. O'KEEFFE: I'm going to turn to Mr. Maker, at this point. 15 May 25, 2005 MR. MAKER: Well, they are essentially going to pay the debt service that the Town will incur in order to build a deck. MR. HOTTE: And subsequent to that they will have no control or interest in that parking? MR. MAKER: Correct. MS. O'KEEFFE: Certainly. MS. WITTNER: None, whatsoever. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You stated that the developer -- MS. O'KEEFFE: One at a time. One at a time. Go ahead, Mr. Hotte. MR. HOTTE: And the developer will have no economic interest in that? It will go down to the full control of the town? MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MR. HOTTE: However way they manage it? MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MR. HOTTE: I would like to suggest then that it could be feasible to go down further and have two decks, because parking is such a critical element in this area. MS. O'KEEFFE: You mean just dig a hole and then have two decks, and one on top? MR. HOTTE: Have a total of three decks, the Ridge Hill One, and two others. You can go up or you can go down, and if funding is a problem there are ways to handle that, as they do in Manhattan. MS. WINICK: As I understood it, the problem is more an engineering one. It is a very narrow piece of land. The layer of the land lends itself to having two levels, because you are going to have separate access and egress to the two of them. You couldn't build, I was told by one of the engineers we talked to, a spiral or some other access that gets you to a third level. I'm sure it could be done at some cost, and in some way, but the engineer has made that analysis. MR. HOTTE: It would be interesting to see if he looked at all of the implications and technical problems. If it is something that is available, I would enjoy reviewing it. My background, I am a professional engineer myself. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, Mr. Hotte. We will follow that up. MR. HOTTE: We always figure there is always some way to accomplish, maybe not the best way, but there is always some way to accomplish, if that is a desirable thing to do, which I have not made a comment on. MS. O'KEEFFE: One of the concerns we had with respect to the number of decks was that in the study we have seen, or I have seen, anyway, and I know Mr. Altieri has read, is when you increase the number of decks in a public parking lot, maybe not even a public parking lot, you have security problems you don't have when you only have two decks, because you can see everybody. Everybody is out in the open. The decks that are there now, you can see if they are up one deck, and if go up one deck it is open to the area. Everybody sees them, and they can go down a ramp. They don't have to get caught in a stairwell, things like that, where we might have concerns about security, which you wouldn't have with just two floors. MR. HOTTE: I understand that. Thank you. I just wanted to pass on to you my comments. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you. MR. HOTTE: The other area I would like to bring up, this meeting forced me to review the Buckhurst Report, no, the Faradino report (ph) in '99, and the Buckhurst report that came up 16 May 25, 2005 again in 2000, and the Task Force. All of my summary, my conclusion of rereading those reports, there is tremendous congestion and parking problems that could be solved, of which I appreciate the town has made some improvements, but I say that does not solve those problems, and I think that area should be addressed. MS. O'KEEFFE: We keep looking at it, and it is a conundrum. We could very easily I suppose, but could just go enforce it very, very strictly, and that would mean that every three hours we would go give people tickets every three hours. If it is one hour, you would get a ticket every one hour. We have a problem where there are elderly people, and handicap people that can't move a car every three hours, or every one hour, so we try to accommodate the tenants or the owners of the building, while at the same time having enough rotation in the traffic so that you don't have people or squatters that stay in the same space all the time, but it is true that there are not enough spaces there now, and it certainly is true that when those buildings were built, Mr. Leney was talking about 77 years ago, I think that 17 North Chatsworth actually antiquated the other two buildings by a year or two. I think it was built in 19 -- in the teens. They didn't have any parking, either, but there was a woman with a goat that ran up the hill next to us. I can remember the goat, so we are trying to play catch-up. There is no two ways about it, we are playing catchup to accommodate as many of our residents as we can. We have made suggestions about 14 and 16. 16 owns the lot which is next to 14 about putting a deck there, but that is private property. We can't just tell them what to do, so we are very much aware of it, and we are trying the best we can to gather all the information we can. Mr. Winick was the Chairperson who I asked to do the Parking Task Force Study, who did a very -- even though he's an amateur, technically, he's not an engineer. He's a lawyer, and he's very smart. He got all kinds of information and put it together in a very rational form. Looking at all the different options we had, we had good traffic engineers, and we twist and we turn, and we try to accommodate everybody, and it is true, there are too many people in that neighborhood for the number of off-street parking spaces, so part of the whole exercise we have been going through with respect to this project is trying to accommodate the needs of the people who are already there. We don't want to harm anything. I'll let everybody talk who has signed up, okay? MR. HOTTE: All right. The last comment is a wish. I reviewed the 1999 annual report from your town, and there is one wish that I would hope that will continue, and it says, we are committed to reserving the suburban character of our town to enhance the environmental, and to reach out to residents of all sectors, and hope that will continue. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, sir. I want to thank you, Mr. Hotte, for using your brain matter to analyze all these papers, because it takes a community service spirited person to actually have the interest to get the information in all those papers. It took you a lot of work, and you were very diligent and industrious over the years to actually point out things that might have slipped by lay people, and I want to thank you. MR. HOTTE: To put it into perspective, this development is larger than 14 and 16 Chatsworth together. It is larger than the Carlton House, which was talked about before, so that puts a size of this project that is on the table. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you. Ms. Lisa Young, welcome. Please be kind enough to tell us where you live, for the record. MS. YOUNG: I live at 14 North Chatsworth, Apartment 6E. I have several comments, and several questions. I would like to follow-up on a question Mr. Hotte raised about the cost of the potential deck on lot three. My notes say, Mr. Maker, that you stated that the developer wouldn't pay for the deck, and then later it was said by Mr. Tung, if I'm not mistaken, that they would help fund the cost of that deck through revenues. Those are two very different statements, in my mind, and please clarify that for me, please. MR. MAKER: Because of the Wicks Law. MS. O'KEEFFE: Do you know what the Wick Law is? MS. YOUNG: No, and I don't think that the entire audience does, and I hope you would clarify it. MR. MAKER: There is something called the Wicks Law that requires certain types of competitive bidding whenever a public project is being built. As a result of that law, Forest City Daly cannot simply build the deck. The alternative is for the town to build a deck after bidding 17 May 25, 2005 it through the Wicks Law System, and having Forest City Daly pay the debt service for the cost of the bonds that the town will have to float in order to construct the deck, so, in essence, Forest City Daly will be paying for the deck. MS. YOUNG: And they would therefore be bound to continue to pay for the entirety of that deck service? MR. MAKER: Absolutely. MS. YOUNG: And what would be the recourse on the part of the town if Forest City Daly defaulted? MR. MAKER: We would sue them. MS. YOUNG: I would suggest that your initial statement that they were paying for the deck versus their servicing of the deck are two very different statements. I would also question, there are a lot of people in this room who maybe can address this better than I, but I have a recollection that 14 and 16 North Chatsworth in fact had a parking lot on what we used to call the Long Jeans Building, on a corner building as you go down Myrtle Boulevard and around the corner on the right where amongst others Allen Flynn's Insurance Office is, and I would go back to Mr. Leney's discussion about not making mistakes that we made in the past, and at one point that area, I believe, was a lot for 14 and 16 North Chatsworth, if not for other buildings, and at one point it was determined that the property was more valuable as rental property, commercial rental property as it was as a parking lot. MS. O'KEEFFE: You mean somebody at some point built that garage there? MS. YOUNG: That was a garage, and next door is 14 and 16 North Chatsworth. MS. O'KEEFFE: I don't have that at all. MS. YOUNG: It absolutely serviced 14 and 16. 1 suspect that the archives in the Historical Society might back that up. MS. O'KEEFFE: I'm just interested in it, because did 14 and 16 own that building? MS. YOUNG: I don't know that, Valerie, but I do have, I have had information and documents, and read documents that 14 and 16 used that parking, and if you look at the walkway between 14 and 16, that comes off of North Chatsworth. That is a paper street, and in fact vehicles enter between the two buildings when they were owned by one owner, and went either to one side or to the other, dropped off their packages, the cars, and then went back to that corner lot. Whether or not it was owned by the business, I can't answer, but those were spaces. There was in fact a filling station there, that filled the cars. MS. O'KEEFFE: That I remember. MS. YOUNG: All these things were valet things that long since are gone, but to go back to Mr. Leney's comment that we don't want to make the same mistakes again, the determination was that the property was far more valuable as rental property for commercial business than it was for a parking lot. MS. O'KEEFFE: I don't think that would have anything to do with the Town Board. MS. YOUNG: But what I am saying is that by giving up that parking space, we then took it, in effect, disenfranchised all those cars on the streets. MS. O'KEEFFE: We didn't give it up. MS. YOUNG: No, I'm not saying we did, but I'm saying by not holding Forest City Daily to a higher standard, and I am suggesting that if Forest City Daly's present proposal is only equivalent to what the town zoning and planning laws state -- MS. O'KEEFFE: It's not. MS. YOUNG: Yes, it is, I'm sorry. 18 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Wait a minute. MS. YOUNG: One space for a studio, 1.25, one space for -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Hold on a minute. Didn't we change that? No, no, you are right, but you are wrong. You know, I'm right and I'm wrong. MS. YOUNG: That is okay, I can be both. MS. O'KEEFFE: We had a zoning law that said one bedroom apartment had "x", two bedroom apartments had "x" plus one, three bedroom, "x" plus two. We changed the ratio to, am I right on this -- MS. SELIGSON: During the past few years we changed the ratio. MS. O'KEEFFE: During the past few years we changed the ratio to require more parking spaces per unit, but Mr. Tung knows the details better, but you are right, he's a -- MS. YOUNG: I believe both Mr. Maker and Mr. Tung stated that the current proposal meets exactly the town requirements. MR. TUNG: No, I didn't say that. MS. YOUNG: Okay, then I misinterpreted. MR. TUNG: The proposal, this is -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Come up, Mr. Tung so I can hear you, because they are not going to hear you on t.v. land. That's a good question. MR. TUNG: It is a standard requirement of the BMUB Zone. The BMUB zone parking requirements stays the same as it was previously. The actual supply that we are proposing exceeds the requirement by 52 spaces, so we are providing, we are required to provide under the zoning 232 spaces. We are proposing to provide 284 spaces, so we are far in excess of the zoning requirements. MS. YOUNG: Then I misunderstood. I stand corrected. MS. SELIGSON: Didn't we also review zoning for parking, and amend it to be more realistic with today's parking? MS. O'KEEFFE: I thought we did. MS. SELIGSON: And also when we did the design. MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, the net result is, my recollection, which may be faulty, is that we changed the zoning, the amount of spaces needed per unit. Maybe we didn't, but by the proposal from Forest City Daily, it had the effect of our having changed the zoning, because they are giving more parking spaces than is required by the zoning. MS. YOUNG: Okay. My last question, if I may, does bring up the question of enforcement, and I would agree with what you said, Madam Supervisor, that the present residency of all the buildings surrounding the Chatsworth and Myrtle and Washington Square area bring up the impression of whether we want to enforce what is posted as three hour minimum parking, or one our minimum parking, and I respect that that then opens up that lack of enforcement, or choice of lack of enforcement to people who aren't those residents, however, I would question that when you discuss the deck, Mrs. Lasala asked if that would be permit parking or free parking, and you said that it would be permit parking, but would also include parking for customers of Joko and the adjacent member, Peter's -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Or it could be your friend who wants to come and have lunch with you, somebody. MS. YOUNG: Agreed, a section where there would be free parking, and I would question that enforcement. I have had a 24 hour designated space in lot three now for about five years. I moved that space a year ago when a neighbor left and I was able to change my location. My 19 May 25, 2005 initial location was almost directly across from Joko, and my sense is that the enforcement within that lot is, shall we say lax, that regularly I would come home, frankly someone who was using one of those businesses if I came home early on Friday, and I commute on a very regular basis. I leave my house at 7:00, 7:15 in the morning. I'm home at 6:30, 7:00 in the evening. It is very difficult to get in and out of lot three in the morning. MS. O'KEEFFE: Because of the cars on the road? MS. YOUNG: Parking on Myrtle Boulevard between the two entrances of that lot are edge to edge, and to get your nose out of there, and the cars that come out of the gym, the cars that come off of 95, it is difficult to make a right turn. I wouldn't dare make a left turn, but I question whether where it says don't park between signs, don't park above here, that is not enforced, and I question whether it is in fact -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, that should be enforced. If there is any sight line problem, or safety problem, it should be strictly enforced. MS. YOUNG: And I question the idea of an island there on Myrtle Boulevard, as well, because the rubber posts that are there now are knocked down regularly, regularly, if not once a week. That is my last comment. I'm sure I have exceeded my time. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, Ms. Young. Now we have Ms. Jean Aronson. If you would be kind enough to come up to the microphone and state your name for the record. MS. ARONSON: Jean Aronson, A-R-O-N-S-O-N, 14 North Chatsworth. I have a brief question, and a very brief comment. MS. O'KEEFFE: You are at 14? MS. ARONSON: 14. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you. MS. ARONSON: I'm on the list for parking in lot number three. It is a very long list, and I know people have been on the list for a long time, and I'm towards the bottom, and have been told it will be six years, and there are a lot of people in front of me. If the deck is built, will the available spaces be allotted according to the list? MS. O'KEEFFE: To the people on the list. MS. ARONSON: So that, conceivably, might immediately take up all the spaces in the deck? MS. O'KEEFFE: Uh-huh, but you would have a parking space. You don't have one now. MS. ARONSON: No, because the only, I mean, I recently moved from Soder House in the Village to 14, and my comment goes along with Mr. LaSala's data is that I'm amazed at how many young families are in the building, how many young families are moving in, and I think it is because the home prices are so high, and then there are also people like myself who are almost empty nesters with college age children coming home, so the parking is really difficult. MS. O'KEEFFE: It is. MS. ARONSON: I think people are putting a lot of money into their condos and their co-ops, especially the young families. The best I have been able to do is pay $200.00 a year to get an 8:30 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. spot down across from the insurance company, which is virtually useless if you are working, or, you know, you just can't do it, so, I mean, my observation as an outsider coming in late is that the demographics have probably even changed quite dramatically since 2000 to 2005, and, I mean, I think that it really needs to be looked at, because it is quite dramatic. My second comment is having been a member of New York Sports Club, not living nearby, the parking there is disastrous. I mean, there are quiet times, but there are intense times where as a member you can be driving around the neighborhood looking for spaces, so I think it is very hard to gage the use of that parking area, because there are times when it is very, very difficult. You can't find a space in the lot at all. That is all. MS. O'KEEFFE: Let me ask Mr. Tung something. Mr. Tung, how many spaces are there now for the New York Sports Club? Thank you very much, Mrs. Aronson, and what is the proposal 20 May 25, 2005 for the New York Sports Club parking lot there? You have three uses there, the sports club, the liquor store, and the cleaners, right? UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Yeah. MR. TUNG: There are currently 49 spaces out in front of the health club that serve the retail center. There are an additional 15 spaces that are leased for the sports club on Byron, so that is a total of-- MS. O'KEEFFE: 64. MR. TUNG: 64. We are proposing to, by taking out the spaces currently, the La Villetta Restaurant, extending that parking lot and redesigning it, we are proposing as we have from the beginning to provide 68 spaces to increase by four, and to move these spaces from Byron to the front of the lot. Now, we could have done that by just extending the lots in this pattern that it is now, but in order to provide a little bit of a screening, as I mentioned previously, we are changing the circulation to one way, which I think should clear up, make more clear what way you are supposed to go within the lot, and that allows us to provide 60 spaces here. We are also placing eight spaces in the residential garage, or the garage that would be used by staff of the facility, so we are increasing the supply available for the center by four, and we are making those spaces closer to the center so that people as of today, perhaps they go in the lot there is no space, so they go into Byron Place. That circulation will be reduced because those same spaces will be provided here. MS. YOUNG: Excuse me. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, I'm going to ask Ms. Aronson if she wants to cede two minutes to Ms. Young, since she didn't take up her whole five minutes, if Ms. Young's purpose is on this question. MS. YOUNG: I have two questions. I have been in and out of that lot since I could drive. MS. O'KEEFFE: Please, you have to come up to the microphone, because people aren't going to know what you are saying. MS. YOUNG: Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Tung, but the circulation in that lot now is one way? MR. TUNG: Well, theoretically, it is one-way. It may be signed one-way, but because it's perpendicular parking, people can physically go in both directions. MS. YOUNG: It is signed one-way, and it certainly is not wide enough on either side of the spaces to provide for two-way traffic. MS. O'KEEFFE: Do you have a question? MS. YOUNG: And my other question is, the parking on Byron that is referred to now, it is my understanding from some of the tenants, business tenants in what we call the Coughman Building that some of that parking is available to them, as well, so it is not in fact at the discretion of the use of the health club. MS. O'KEEFFE: Let Mr. Tung answer that. I don't think that is right. MR. TUNG: There are two other parking lots that are available to the Coughlin Building. This T shaped lot, which at one point was part of the proposal here, as I understand it, there is a clock tower building. The Coughlin Building, I believe, parks on this, on the gray. The area that the New York Sports Club parks in is actually the dirt air beyond that, beyond the stripe spaces. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay? MS. YOUNG: I have both my friends who are tenants here, and members there, and I am told that they -- been told that that lot is available to -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Available to whom? 21 May 25, 2005 MS. YOUNG: Both business tenants of 178 and permit holders of the sports club. I'm not saying that is right, but that is what they told me. MR. ALTIERI: It is not right, because we have the lease with New York Sports Club. MS. YOUNG: Then I have been given incorrect information. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, you stand corrected. Thank you. Ms. Marilyn Lievenguth. MS. LIEVENGUTH: Marilyn Lievenguth, L-I-E-V-E-N-G-U-T-H. I just want to know, ask a question. If they don't get the variance, how large a place, apartment building, could they build, without a variance? MS. O'KEEFFE: That is a good question. Okay, it is not a variance now. This is a change in the zoning, itself. I just want to make that clear. They are not asking for a variance, but Mr. Maker will answer your question. MR. MAKER: As of right, under the current ordinance? MS. LIEVENGUTH: As of tonight. MR. MAKER: They would be able to build 99 units. MS. LIEVENGUTH: Would they still be willing to build 99, or isn't that feasible for them to do? MR. MAKER: They rejected that concept. That is why they are asking for the amendment. MS. LIEVENGUTH: And the one other thing I wanted to say is, I don't see many people from the Village of Larchmont here, where the traffic is horrendous, horrendous, and I'm not only saying the traffic in the area, I live at 21 North Chatsworth. The traffic down the Village of Larchmont, on the Post Road, on Weaver Street, every place else, is going to be affected just as much. It is just, we don't need another car in this whole town. MS. O'KEEFFE: I understand. Now, we did do a study, which is here. We didn't do the study. We had it done, and I think it is interesting to point out that a residential use, if I am right now, Mr. Tung and Mr. Altieri, generate less intense traffic at one time than a commercial use. For example, everyone doesn't drive out of an apartment house at the same time. Everyone doesn't drive out of my street, you know, Dante Street, at the same time. There are people driving in at the same time, so it is not as if you had a commercial use, or a business use, where everybody gets out of work at 5:00 and they all go and all come in, isn't that correct. MR. ALTIERI: Yes. MS. O'KEEFFE: So this particular use, meaning housing, has a less intense use, traffic affect, than if it were commercial or business. MS. LIEVENGUTH: However, on a Saturday you want them to shop in Larchmont. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MS. LIEVENGUTH: They are not going to be able to park in Larchmont. MS. O'KEEFFE: They can walk. MS. LIEVENGUTH: Now, come on, you think that they are going to walk to Foley's Hardware? They are not going to walk. They won't walk to the movies. They won't walk to Peter's. MS. O'KEEFFE: But it is people, you see people coming out of 16 North Chatsworth going to Food Horizon in a car when it is 75 degrees. They drive. I mean, people do what they do, if that's what's going to happen. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Well, if they're driving from 16 North Chatsworth to Food Horizon, you can be assured that they are not going to get out and walk. 22 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, this is for the young people that will probably be peppier. All right, who else do we have? Now we have Mary Hotte. Thank you very much. Ms. Hotte? MS. HOTTE: Actually, I wasn't going to speak tonight. MS. DI CIOCCIO: Spell your name and give your address. MS. HOTTE: I'm Mary Hotte. I live in Larchmont about 48 years, and I work at Community Problem Solving in Yonkers, if you can believe that. Coming here is like heaven, really. It is wonderful. What I really do, over the years I have been working in Community Problem Solving is to try to figure out a win win situation for everybody, and what I really want to talk about tonight is win win for everybody. What does the town get? What does Mamaroneck Town get from having this fairly large development, and they gain tax revenue, and this pays for our community services. I don't know the actual, I know better in Yonkers, the actual financial liability of this town, but a development like this is a real plus, and they gain it from the taxes, the real estate taxes, and the sales tax. You know, there is going to be at least 400 people coming into our --who are living in rental units, by the way, who are going to be spending money in our town, and so I want to say this, this is a lot of new people. It is a lot of new wealth coming into our community. That is what the town gets. Now, what does the builder get? Well, obviously they are not in it to play games. They are in it to make money, and what we really want to talk about is what does the community get? Well, it gains the revenue of the tax base that the people, that this whole project brings in, and it gains lovely new rental neighbors, but it also gains something that I am going to talk about, because it has been another interest of mine. It gains the opportunity to develop housing for our work force for people who actually live in the town who make less than $90,000.00, and who pay. I am interested in who is coming into these units, because they are luxury units. Is it going to be the people in the community, or is it going to be people from outside of the community? So what does the community gain from this addition? Now— MS. O'KEEFFE: Do you want us to try to answer as we go along? MS. HOTTE: No, these are all rhetorical, Valerie, you know that. I'll lead up to some of the answers, and if you want to respond, I'm interested. MS. O'KEEFFE: I just thought that was a question of fact that could be answered as we went along there. MS. HOTTE: Well, why don't you. I would love that. MS. O'KEEFFE: As far as the work force housing goes, under the work force housing rules of Westchester County, Steve, we can pick people -- MR. ALTIERI: Well, we would have to work with Forest City on some sort of a proposal. As it stands now, work force housing is defined as housing for those that are 80 percent of the medium income of Westchester County, and you are probably familiar with that. The answer is the eligibility in how we build those units has not been discussed in great detail, but certainly as we have done in Hommis Park and other areas, we could discuss with Forest City how those tenants would be selected. MS. HOTTE: I'm so glad you brought that question up. I served on the Housing Opportunity Commission of Westchester for 20 years, and I know very well the Town of Mamaroneck's records in developing affordable housing, or work force housing, the usual -- it is only in one community, which is White Plains where they are going up, that only fewer than six percent, less than six percent, has been allotted for affordable housing, and what I am asking you all, you have a choice now as community representatives, and as a town, to ask for more, because this is what I am talking about, it is a win win. You have a chance to ask for more, and when you said that there is no chance that the developer can give more affordable units, that is not true around the county. It really isn't true, and I know that there are funds that can be used, the state funds that can be used, and, actually, you know, there's a variety of sources, and so what you are saying, historically, is not true in this county, that more units can't be developed. MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, we have had long discussions, and we started with a much higher number, and we pondered back and forth -- MS. HOTTE: Well, Valerie, I work on the Housing Opportunity Commission. 23 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: We've got to remember that this is a very, very, very expensive underlying land that these people have bought. MS. HOTTE: Valerie, I really do know, and I don't want to get into this, but I do know that this town has not come to all the funding sources that are available for seeing that money can be put into this. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, that's true. No, I'm not saying that. We researched every funding source. Mr. Altieri talked about the 80/20 that we looked very carefully into where we could get a lot of money, but that's probably why we didn't do that. MR. ALTIERI: When we looked at the Hommocks Park Apartments, we used virtually every funding source available. MS. HOTTE: Yes, I know that. MR. ALTIERI: In the case of this project, since it's work force housing, those same funding sources are not available at that level. The funding sources for housing are typically available for what they define as low income housing, which means housing eligible for people earning 50 percent. MS. O'KEEFFE: Or less. MR. ALTIERI: Or less of the Westchester County meeting. MS. HOTTE: I would like to see that examined further, and I would like to follow-up on that one as a member of the Housing Opportunity Commission, but what I was going to say, getting back to the win win, and what does the town win, and what does the builder win, and what does the community win, what we also lose, you have community residents who are very unhappy with the situation as is being presented by the builder, and to some degree I have a sense, and I don't say this lightly, by this Town Board, for some reason, that every question that has been raised has been defended not only by the builder and the building, but also this Town Board. I have not heard one sort of response that is what I would call a defensive response to the questions that are being raised, and I wonder what the decision is going to be when it is going to be made, and how it is going to be made, and I ask you, please, when you are thinking about all these things, is this, I hate to use the word, is this a decision that is already preconceived, or is it still open? MS. O'KEEFFE: It is still open until the public hearing is over. MS. HOTTE: I know. Well, then I'm so glad that you say that, Valerie, because I would hope that you would listen to some of the questions that have been raised, and I am talking not just to you. You have been very responsive to all the questions we have raised, and I know, actually, there is a few family members here. MS. O'KEEFFE: There's no doubt that the questions are reasonable questions. MS. HOTTE: But, anyway, I would like you to again re-examine some of these questions that have been raised, and not respond as if the answers are all set. MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, the answers are not set. If it seems defensive, I have to apologize, because I am the one talking, but you have to remember, we have been working on this for four years. We examined the budget for four years, and exactly the questions that are being raised now, and that were raised in the previous hearings, are the exact questions that we raised among ourselves, and we raised it in public meetings and work sessions, and we pounded away and pounded away at the same exact questions, so if I have answered definitively, maybe it would have been smarter to just keep quiet, but I just thought that it would be more forthcoming for everybody to then come back and hit again. You know, if we can answer questions of fact we will answer them, but at the end we are listening to you, and we are elected to listen to you, but we are also elected to do all the homework, and we looked at the books and looked at the books, and so I have this stuff in my head. MS. HOTTE: It is tough. This is a very tough deal, but I was going to say, I do hope that the Town Council will ask for everything they can possibly ask for. If they have, in other words, let's make it a win win, and if we want, move for one part of it, whether it be parking, whether it 24 May 25, 2005 be this, whether it be that, ask for everything we can possibly get, if this is going to be what happens, okay? MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you very much. MS. HOTTE: Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: We appreciate all the hard work you have done, and all the good questions you have asked. Okay, Mr. John Coughlin. MR. COUGHLIN: My name is John Coughlin, C-O-U-G-H-L-I-N, and I work at 178 Myrtle Boulevard. I live in the Village. MS. O'KEEFFE: Of? MR. COUGHLIN: Of Larchmont. I just wanted to make a comment, or a couple of comments on what I have heard tonight. First of all, I was just, for a little history, everybody seems to tell how long they have been in Larchmont, or what was happening, but I was born in Chatsworth Gardens when my parents resided there. I later lived in 14 North Chatsworth, and in 172 Myrtle Boulevard, and I work at 178 Myrtle, so I know the area pretty well. I just would like to say that some of things that I heard tonight don't seem to be quite fair to me, you know, looking at it from the developer's side. It seems to me that the developer and the Board have done a lot of work on this issue, and that, you know, they have made some considerable concessions to this point, and I think that to ask the developer to solve problems like a parking problem that clearly has been here long before the developer ever entered the picture, to deal with traffic flow, which, you know, is a problem before this has happened, and to deal with things like water quality, and the load for Metro North, I think is putting an unfair burden on the developer. I also think that there are a couple of other things that should be brought into play here, or at least thought about, and maybe the Board has during the time that you talked about this, but, you know, with the location of this property, and the access to 1-95, and the fact that you got things like Cosco and Home Depot down in New Rochelle, I mean, a lot of these vehicles are just going to hop on 1-95 to go to certain places. I also think that it will be a younger group of people that will be living here, and I can tell you from experience, I don't even think about getting in my car if I'm going to the close side of Larchmont. I mean, I will drive over to Post Road, but I walk every day, go to Larchmont for lunch. I clearly would walk to the movies. I would ride a bicycle when I lived at 172 Myrtle Boulevard all over town on the weekends, and I think a lot of people will do that, so I'm not saying that there won't be any traffic, but as Supervisor O'Keeffe said before, not everybody is going every place at the same time, and the fact is, if you want to go up Weaver Street at 8:00 on a weekday morning, you're not going to get anywhere fast anyway, so I just wanted to mention some of those things, and in terms of what this brings to the town. I mean, clearly it adds to the tax base. It will provide business for retail stores, certainly, and I think it broadens and diversifies the community. I mean, look around at whose living in Westchester, and it would be, I think it would be good for the community to have younger people, younger families, and people maybe that have a little bit different economic circumstances than much of the community does, so in conclusion, I would just like to say that it seems to me that there has been a great deal of work done on this, and I would like to thank the Board, and I would like to thank the developer for, you know, participating in the process the way it seems to me that they have to this point. Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, Mr. Coughlin. Ms. Virginia Folick. Spell your name for the stenographer, and speak into the microphone. MS. FOLICK: Virginia Folick, F-O-L-I-C-K, and I live at 1 Washington Square. I tried to follow this development, and I know I'm going to say exactly what everybody else said. There is no parking in our area, and people drive around a lot, and it will be much noisier, and now looking at this board, if you come -- I come out of the garage. I'm lucky to have a tandem space. MS. O'KEEFFE: Is number one the one that is at the bottom off the hill? MS. FOLICK: Number three is at the bottom. MS. O'KEEFFE: So you're up near North Chatsworth? MS. FOLICK: Right across the street. MS. O'KEEFFE: You are in the middle? You are across from two? 25 May 25, 2005 MS. FOLICK: Excuse me? MS. O'KEEFFE: You are right across the street from number two? MS. FOLICK: Yes. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: They face 21. MS. FOLICK: When I get out to Madison, the corner of Washington Square and Madison, trying to get onto the road now is terribly difficult, one of the reasons being the trees they planted on the corner of your building, Mr. Coughlin. It blocks the scene from who is coming around the corner, and there are mailboxes there. MS. O'KEEFFE: Now wait a minute. There is trees where? Where are the trees? Tell us where they are. You mean the clock tower building? MS. FOLICK: Yeah. MS. O'KEEFFE: You say when you are coming down Washington Square you want to turn right on Madison Avenue you have a sight line problem? MS. FOLICK: I mean, turning right is less difficult. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yeah. MS. FOLICK: And turning left is incredibly more difficult. Right now -- MS. O'KEEFFE: Because of the traffic? MS. FOLICK: Yeah. Coming out of--what is the name of this street (Indicating?) UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Maxwell. MS. FOLICK: Maxwell, some people turning onto Madison coming off the thruway, or coming around the corner from Fifth Avenue, and also people coming out of the parking lot from the restaurants. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yeah. MS. FOLICK: And it seems to me, and I'm in this spot that has to watch for everybody else, and it is difficult to see people coming around this corner, because they planted trees here (Indicating), which is very nice. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yeah, we'll have to check that. If there is any danger with respect to the sight line there we might have to do something about that. MS. FOLICK: Plus there are mailboxes here where the postman stops. MS. O'KEEFFE: We can't do anything about the mailboxes. Are they blocking people's view? MS. FOLICK: Well, they block mine, but when the truck parks there, and also even though there is no parking for other trucks, they park there, and it is very difficult to see. That completely blocks the view. It is very hard. MS. YOUNG: People stop there on their way to the Thruway all the time at those mailboxes. MS. O'KEEFFE: We will note that. MS. FOLICK: Even people who have their SUV parking on the corner, it obscures the view from all those other cars coming down the street, so it is very dangerous to make this turn from around here coming around the corner. Also, they have a crosswalk in this direction now, if I turn right, and that crossing is hard, because if somebody wants to cross you should wait, but that might be the only moment you have to pull out before there is a whole bunch of cars coming this way and that way. 26 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MS. FOLICK: So it's really hard to get out, so I foresee that what you are going to have to do is put in a stop light here. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yeah, well, we talked about that. We talked about a stop light at the exit of the Thruway onto Madison Avenue. MS. FOLICK: I don't think that is good enough. MS. O'KEEFFE: The exit ramp. MS. FOLICK: Okay, if you put it here you are talking about controlling traffic from here, here, and here (Indicating.) Is that what you are saying? MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MS. FOLICK: Okay, well that is better. I have to say that, but as of now you are going to have traffic crossing here and here, and I don't think you should have a crosswalk here where the mailboxes are, and the mail trucks. MS. O'KEEFFE: What I am going to tell you is that this is a little bit, the general topic is definitely germane, but the specific thing with the mailboxes, if that is a problem now, I'm going to ask you to give your name to the Clerk, and we will put your concerns in right now to the traffic committee who might be able to do something about the trucks and the mailboxes like right now. MS. FOLICK: Okay, fine. I have two more things to say. It seems to me that there are a lot of, I mean, in our building we have a parking garage, two levels, and then a deck on top which satisfies quite a bit of the parking in our building, alone, our two buildings, but it certainly doesn't satisfy everybody's needs, and as you get younger people, if you are going to have roommates, not just families, but roommates, if today you are going to have two or three roommates, each one of them is going to have a car. Even if you have a family, and two people work, and they need to drive to get to where they are going, they are going to have two cars, so I think you said that there are going to be 159 spots, plus 70? MS. O'KEEFFE: No, 159 units. I'm going to ask Mr. Tung to tell us the number of parking spots. MR. ALTIERL 271. MS. O'KEEFFE: 271? MR. ODIERNA: I thought he said 284? MR. TUNG: 284. MS. O'KEEFFE: 284. 159 units with 284 on-site parking spots. MS. FOLICK: And he said there were going to be 52 extra spaces for the neighborhood, is that true, Mr. Tung? MR. TUNG: No, I said there would be 52 more spaces for the building than are required by zoning. MS. FOLICK: Oh, okay, but it seems to me that is not the slightest bit adequate for today, and I don't know where you are going to really put the cars that are going to come in. MS. O'KEEFFE: 284. MS. WITTNER: With the 159 units, apartments. MS. FOLICK: Some of which are three bedrooms. MS. O'KEEFFE: That is 1.75 spots per apartment. 27 May 25, 2005 MS. FOLICK: We don't have three bedrooms, and we have two cars. The other thing is, I notice when I looked at the Environmental Impact Statement that there was only one storm drain on Madison Avenue, and that was on the development side of the street, and I was wondering, coming from here, is the water supposed to flow into this drain, as well as all the water coming from there? MS. O'KEEFFE: I'm going to ask Mr. Tung to answer that. Is there only one storm drain on Madison Avenue? MR. TUNG: There are storm lines on both sides of the street, I believe, that are going to the west. MS. SELIGSON: She means catch basins. MS. O'KEEFFE: Catch basins. MS. FOLICK: I'm sorry. MR. TUNG: There is a series of catch basins. There is a main catch basin at the corner here. There will be one added here. There is an existing catch basin here. MS. O'KEEFFE: Are they all on the side of the development? MR. TUNG: There are ones on the side of the development. There are ones on the opposite side, as well, and they establish the storm system in, I believe Madison is crown, so there are catch basins on both sides. MS. O'KEEFFE: So the answer is there are catch basis on both sides. MS. FOLICK: I only saw one when I took a walk along there. The other question I have, I want to agree with Mr. Leney I think his name was who spoke second, and he mentioned noise pollution, and I think this is going to be an incredible amount of noise, as well, as since I'm sure there won't be enough parking spots, there will be lots of people driving around looking for spaces, and I wondered if it were possible to, whether the far side of the building, which is facing south and west, and east, whether you were going to have any windows over there? MR. TUNG: There will be windows on all sides of the building. MS. FOLICK: Okay. MS. SELIGSON: Can I just ask you, when you say you are worried about noise, do you mean noise during construction, or noise after completion? What specific noise are you worried about? MS. FOLICK: Well, yeah, I mean, since it is lower than we are, we are up on the hill, and noise always rises up and affects us, but, I mean, that is something that we could be put up with for a temporary amount of time. I was concerned about afterwards, cars coming and going. I don't know if it is going to be all young people in that building and the ambulances. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, Ms. Folick. I appreciate your comments and your questions. MS. FOLICK: Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, next we have Ms. Patty Gould O'Brien, and then Ms. Albert. MS. GOULD-O'BRIAN: I live at 2 Washington Square. I'm a broker with Burbank Whitmore, and I apologize for being late, because I was busy trying to sell condos at 2 Washington Square. We are trying to represent to these young buyers, and some older people who are selling their big houses and need a smaller space in a good building about the quality of life in this community. You all know what happened in the community. You all know what happened in Greenwich. It is grid-lock. People are fleeing from Greenwich, because they can never get anywhere. Many of them are coming here to look, and God bless them, we welcome them, but I wonder why there are zoning ordinances, if they are to be disregarded. Why should a developer be able to come into a community and tell us what they are going to build? What is 28 May 25, 2005 the purpose of zoning ordinances if it is going to detract from this quality of life that we are so busy selling that enables us to attract young people here who are willing to pay the very, very high real estate taxes and school taxes. I think it's being bigger than it is to be allowed to be will be deleterious in many, many ways. I will just echo the traffic situation that everybody has been talking about, and I'm sorry I missed the earlier comments, but the cars that whip around the corner past Peters, around that corner, I'm amazed no one has been killed, because as this gal said, trying to get out from that stop sign is worth your life, anyway, especially at any busy time, like all morning, late afternoon. It is very dangerous. I wish you would all just come and sit there and watch this, and pray as I do that nobody is going to get killed, because it could happen. The noise, the pollution, the water running, you know, all of these environmental issues,just because people are saying oh, it is going to be fine doesn't necessarily mean it is going to be fine. The traffic is going to be impacted greatly. It's impossible now. It should not be made worse, so, please, I beg you, and I'm sure everybody in this room, except Mr. Coughman, agrees that bigger is not better. Keep the quality good. That is why we all live here. We are talking about how long we have been here. My grandparents came in the early 1900's. I lived here myself as a wife and mother for 40 years. It is a special community. Why make it less special? Thank you. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, thank you. Ms. Seligson would like to say something, and I would like to say something, also, on that point, but just let me put it this way, if the Board were to not do anything, it doesn't mean that something less desirable couldn't happen on that parcel, or those parcels. See what I'm saying? I mean, if we just did nothing, under the present zoning something less desirable for the community might be built there. That was one of the things we have been thinking about all the time, or at least I have been thinking about, but I'm going to let Ms. Seligson speak. MS. SELIGSON: I just wanted to remind all of you that of course we also live here. We don't happen to live exactly in the buildings you live in, but I also am a member of the New York Sports Club. I have friends that live at 14 North Chatsworth. I travel those streets all the time, as well as everyone on this Board. Everyone on this Board cares so much for this community. That is why we do this. We are not paid a lot of money to do this. I know you know that, but we're essentially volunteers who give up most nights of the week to be working for and on this town, and we care so much about it, and that's why it's taken four years to get to where we are with this project, so I just wanted to remind you of that. I don't want it to sound offensive. I don't want it to sound like we already have all the answers. We don't. We have been struggling with this proposal for a long time, and it's a struggle all the time, because we hear your concerns, we feel your concerns, and yet there are some benefits to this proposal, and there is a serious chance, you know, you have to remember, it is private property. We don't own it. We can't dictate what goes in there, and they are, under the current zoning, without any changes, there could be commercial uses there that I think everyone would find much less appealing than even this proposal, so I just had to respond to that, because we do live here, also, and we all care about it, as well, and we try and make those left and rights on all those streets, also, and it is brutal. We know it. MS. O'KEEFFE: Now we have Ms. Albert. MS. ALBERT: Well, most of what I had to say has been said, and I said it last time we met, but I don't understand, Maryanne, excuse me, what the win win is. I think we lose if Forest City Daly comes here. I think it is a total loss. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, Esther, if you could just address your comments to me, like I understand under what the win win is that Mr. Hotte says, this way then we don't get it on the record right. MS. ALBERT: I just asked Mary, excuse me for using that expression, but I don't think that this Town of Mamaroneck wins anything with this building, and what I don't understand is if they can only build 99 units. MS. O'KEEFFE: Under the present zoning. MS. ALBERT: Under the present zoning, what is wrong with that? I mean, I don't think their taxes can cover all of what we want to do here, anyway, or I think less is better. I think the mcmansions, we had enough with the mcmansions. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, thank you. 29 May 25, 2005 MS. ALBERT: And I don't understand what you mean when you said, you were talking about that worse could be put in. It could be all commercial, but as I see it, this building will be six stories, plus one for parking. These buildings will be seven stories, really, so I mean what kind of commercial are we talking about? MS. O'KEEFFE: You could be talking about a supermarket that had twice as many parking spots with trucks going in and out all night long, a clothing department store. MS. ALBERT: We had that before. If you drive down Fifth Avenue, it's a mess. MS. O'KEEFFE: No, but I'm saying, instead of this we could have, if you left it alone, you could have a supermarket, quite a big supermarket with adjacent parking lots. UNKNOWN SPEAKERS: I would rather have that. That would be great. MS. O'KEEFFE: If somebody who wanted to build a supermarket, nobody has come around lately. I mean, no one has said to us they wanted to build a supermarket. There also was a proposal for assisted living in such a way that it would have to be built to hospital specifications. We looked all through that, and we went to the assisted living places, and we didn't like the way the assisted living places were run, and then we found out that it wouldn't have been our district it would have become single room occupancy hotels, because you can't modify the buildings into apartment houses. I mean, we've gone all around. We've looked around, I mean, and this was, I don't want to make an argument yet until the public hearing is over. I just wanted to say that as a matter of fact that people have come before the Board, and the uses that they suggested to us, we thought, unanimously, and we had more people on the Board at that time, would be much less desirable for the neighborhood than what a residential building would be. That is what we thought. MS. ALBERT: Why do we have to do anything? MS. WITTNER: Because it is privately owned land. MS. ALBERT: Because they own it? I guess it shouldn't have been sold. MS. O'KEEFFE: I would also like to say, I think this is important, we did a study, and we were asking the exact same questions you are, exactly the same questions, because we had the same motives. We want to make the thing as best as we can, our town. We did a study and we paid a lot of money for it. We looked to see, could you make a baseball field there, could we buy this and if we bought it, or if we get this, for the amount of money we would have had to pay for it, what could we do with it for a public use? Could you make a soccer field there? No, it wasn't big enough. Could you make a baseball field there? No, not big enough? Could you make a junior soccer field there, yes, but if you did you wouldn't have any parking for the people that dropped the kids off there. Could you put tennis courts there? If you put tennis courts there, you could put two tennis courts there, but you spent millions and millions of dollars getting the land, and the tennis courts wouldn't make us money, and hardly any people would use them. We went through every single thing we could try to see what we could use that land for. We had four things you could use it for, one was retail, one was the park, and they looked for athletic facilities. Could we put some swimming pool or something in there, millions upon millions upon millions of dollars, which we didn't have. You could buy it, then to build it, and it wouldn't serve many people, or not enough parking, so it was not as if we went out and said --we went out and said what could we, as the town, with a bunch of constraints that we have. We are not poverty stricken. What could we afford to do that would make it better for our community? We could not afford to do anything that would be advantageous to a large number of people, so that is how we got to the proposal of what is here now. MS. ALBERT: But how will this help a large number of people? MS. O'KEEFFE: We can each tell our speeches of what we think after we close the public hearing. I don't want to get into a dialogue back and forth. That is not my job. I'm just supposed to listen, but I just want to get across that we didn't -- MS. BROWN: Valerie, can I say one thing? MS. O'KEEFFE: Sure. You'll have to stand up, Barbara, and say who you are. 30 May 25, 2005 MS. BROWN: I'm Barbara Brown. I live at 21 North Chatsworth, and I've lived in this town now, I hate to admit it, 52 years. The one thing, you talked about the parking on Myrtle, but you didn't talk about the parking on North Chatsworth. In the morning, if you come out, most of the parking spaces that are empty at that point in time are taken up by people who are going to the railroad station, and do not want to pay whatever it cost to put their money in, and I think, this one guy whose been there, he parks every morning, and not only does he park, but he hangs over into the driveway. MS. O'KEEFFE: I want to ask Mr. Winick, who did the parking study who knows all about that, who can respond to that? All you have to do is call me up and we'll give the guy a ticket. MR. WINICK: I really do feel your pain, having driven around there counting cars. This is maybe a little bit of my piece about why I think there is certainly advantages to this proposal. The only solution to parking in the Washington Square area is a comprehensive one of which this is a piece, this parking deck, but is by no means the whole solution. The interesting thing that I found in developing the parking study, and in working with representatives of all the buildings, and then collating this mass of information we got is that I can guarantee you that no matter what we do, some people will be unhappy, and that we will only be able to solve it best, a large percentage of the problems, because some people simply have expectations that will never be met. I had people, I spoke to people who had parking spots assigned to them who believe that it was absolutely their right to be able to park in front of the building when they wanted to, leaving their permanently assigned parking spot empty, and parking on the street because it suited them. With that kind of neighborliness, you are never going to solve the parking problem. MS. BROWN: No, I understand that, you know, the local people, but I'm talking about the people coming up the hill. MR. WINICK: There are a lot of options that the Board is going to have to explore, and I think this project, in some way, is helping it, and is delayed, because you need to know if you are going to have these 70 some odd spots before you start solving the other problems. The concept that I think makes sense is to try to get permanent parkers like the people who live in the neighborhood off the street, get some kind of controlled parking in so that the people who are using the businesses can park close to the business, ideally, but can get transient parking. We would need a state law change in order to get a parking area, region, for residents, which I personally would be in favor of, to get the commuters pushed out of this neighborhood, because it simply can't tolerate that type of-- but it needs all of these things to make it work. I think this is possible. It will take awhile, even beyond the construction of this deck to get all these pieces together. MS. BROWN: May I ask you, you spent money to refurbish, you know, that little corner building which now has a police sign on it, however, I've never seen a policeman there. MS. O'KEEFFE: We are off the subject now. MS. BROWN: Well, he should be giving the tickets. That is what I am saying. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay. MS. BROWN: That is what I mean. MR. ALTIERL I was going to say that all of us notice the commuters that park there. If you will recall, it was about two years ago that we sent the police in force to enforce, and we got an incredible fire storm of phone calls from the people that live there, so for us there is this huge balancing act, because you have people that park there more than three hours. There are senior citizen people that have a hard time getting down to the cars, and we have the commuters, and we don't want the commuters there, either. The problem is to go to full enforcement, which disenfranchises everyone that lives in the neighborhood. MS. BROWN: The people in the apartment houses could be given stickers on their cars. MS. O'KEEFFE: Well, that takes a state law change. MS. BROWN: Which I have on my car. MS. O'KEEFFE: If you do that then your friend Milly can't come to lunch at your house. 31 May 25, 2005 MR. WINICK: Or else she'll have to park further away and walk. MS. BROWN: But you get rid of the commuters who are sitting there day after day. It is the same car. MR. WINICK: You have to decide who you are going to inconvenience, and on which time of day you are going to do it, because there a lot of different people that all want to be there for different purposes. It can be made better. MS. BROWN: I was tempted to hit him before I sold the car. It is very hard to get out of the lot. MR. WINICK: If you sold your car, thank you on behalf of your neighbors. MS. BROWN: No, I mean I got a new one. I have a spot. MS. O'KEEFFE: Jean, come on up. MS. ARONSON: I just want to make a quick comment. You know, in hearing all the work and time, and effort, that has gone into this project, I hope as a caution, knowing how much work has gone into it, and how invested you've become in a prolonged process like this, when you put years and years and hours of work in it that you will be very cautious in your decision making, because you are recognizing that you are very invested in the whole process where it makes it more difficult to make a decision, and that is really all I have to say, because I think while everyone recognizes and knows that all of this work has to be weighed, you've done a fantastic job doing that. The work, itself, makes you invested in the whole process, and I just think as someone who has just come in, it is a disaster area around there, and I think there is a tipping point like in Greenwich where, you know, once you go over you can't go back, and I think 70 parking spaces will be gone. The list may be down to three years, but it is really, you know, in the scheme of things it is a drop in the bucket. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, Alicia, if you could come up, please, Ms. Young? MS. YOUNG: I have a question, and I'm not sure that everyone who I wanted to ask it of is still here, but Mr. Lasala referred to 2 Washington Square as a rental building, and Mrs. O'Brien referred to selling condos in that building. Is it in fact a rental building? MS. O'KEEFFE: It's a condo. It is going from rentals into condos. MS. O'BRIEN: It is a conversion that has been accepted by the State Attorney General. It's taken effect, and we're selling. It is a non eviction plan. The people who are there as renters can stay. MS. YOUNG: I would suggest then that people who would purchase apartments there have perhaps a longer term investment, or such an investment in this community then, and whether that is true or not, that would be my sentiment, and people who are here for the longer hall tend to be families, and, again, two parents, two cars. MS. O'KEEFFE: I look at it a little bit differently, because Washington, 2 Washington Square was one place where people who weren't particularly rich could live there. They didn't have to have a whole chunk of money to put down to buy an apartment, and now this is going to be a rental building that no longer exists, so the new proposed building is not for people who don't have any, you know, lower income, but at least it's a rental building. If everything is co-op or condo, you have almost homogenized your people in your community more than we ever have before. MS. YOUNG: I'm just suggesting that the condo nature versus the rental nature too will only increase the expectation of parking. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, I hear that. I think your point is very good, very well taken. Is there anybody else who like to say anything? Are you sure? MR. MAKER: I think there is one fact, not a point, the original petition by Forest City Daly in 2002 called for 186 units, no work force housing units, and no parking deck, and today the proposal is the 159 units, the nine work force units, and helping with the paying of the parking deck over time, and I also think the traffic light is another amenity that was not originally 32 May 25, 2005 proposed in the one that you were talking about at the exit ramp, so that just happens to be a fact, and I just thought that it was appropriate to put on the record. MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you, Mr. Maker. Okay, this is your last chance. Nobody? All right, now, Mr. Maker, as far as the procedure goes, do we close the public hearing and then do the SEQRA? MR. MAKER: We've already done SEQRA. MS. O'KEEFFE: Oh, we've done the SEQRA, that's right. This is unusual then. MR. MAKER: This is unusual. MS. O'KEEFFE: So is there a motion to close the public hearing? MS. WITTNER: So moved. MS. O'KEEFFE: Is there a second? MR. WINICK: Second. MS. O'KEEFFE: All in favor? (Whereupon the Board takes a vote.) MS. O'KEEFFE: Now, don't leave. You're going to find out what we are going to do here, probably. I think we will take a break for three minutes, and that will be six after ten. We are going to come back here. (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.) MS. O'KEEFFE: Welcome back, everyone, and I would like to thank you for your courteousness tonight and your interests in your community, and expressing your opinions. You were all very articulate and thoughtful, and we really appreciate it, because it shows how prepared you all were that you each brought up a separate topic, more or less, or put a different angle on the topic. The most recurring one is the traffic that people have the most concern about, but we are very impressed by the courtesy of which you addressed the Board. Now, we've closed the public hearing, and I think, if it's the Board's pleasure, we will vote on the application for the change in zoning, but before we vote I'm going to ask each Council Person, well, I'm going to ask Mr. Maker if he has anything to say procedurally, and then I will ask each Council Person to say something. Mr. Maker? MR. MAKER: No,just that if the Board chooses that one of the members can make a motion to adopt the local law, as presented and published, and if that motion is seconded then there can be a discussion and a vote. MS. O'KEEFFE: Is there a motion to accept the proposed change in zoning? MR. MAKER: Well, let me just stop you there for a minute. That is what you could do. If you would prefer to have the Board discusses it before any motions are made, that is also acceptable. MS. WITTNER: I think I would like to discuss it. MS. O'KEEFFE: You would like to discuss it before there is a motion? I think that is fine, too. All right, I'm going to go from the junior to senior, so I'm going to ask Mr. Winick to speak first. MR. WINICK: It's tough being the new kid. There was a question asked during this public hearing that we just closed about what the benefits are of the proposal, and I should say, even though someone here said that they were concerned that people would be very invested by virtue of participating in the process, I can offer you at least this comfort, that I did not participate in this process. I'm about two months on the Board. I did do the traffic study awhile ago as a volunteer. I have read my way into understanding this Environmental Impact Statement, and the process, and while I've always had an interest in this town government, I have not had this position, and having gotten invested that way I've taken what I like to think is a fresh look at this. What I want to do is talk for a minute or two about what I think the benefits of the project are, and why I think it has a place, and why it is being considered now. There are some very immediate short-term calculable benefits. There is, approximately, 33 May 25, 2005 160,000.00 increase in revenues in the town, the town tax. There is an excess of$400,000.00 in additional revenue to the school district, as a result of the construction of this project. There is the parking deck that will be built as part of this project, and that I think will be an important part of the comprehensive solution to parking in the Washington Square area, which I think can be vastly improved. I don't honestly believe anything can stop the onslaught of private car ownership. I live on a street where I have a 100 foot long driveway. My kids are home from college. There are cars all over the place. As long as you think everybody over the age of 18 should have their own car, and should be allowed to use it whenever they want, you are going to have more cars than you can deal with in any community, certainly not just here, but I think it can be made much better. I think it can be made much better in favor of the residents of Washington Square, and this is part of that solution. One thing I was concerned with was in coming to an understanding of what the alternatives were to this project, and there were some things that gave me some comfort that this project, far from perfect, makes some sense. One was that there are commercial as of right zoning for this project could get a 30,000 square foot commercial development. If anybody wants to think of something that is problematic for Washington Square, the idea of something like, Lord help us, another CVS, or some combination of commercial property which has constant traffic flowing in and out of it on that curve is to my way of thinking far worse for the local parking and traffic conditions than an apartment house which has some coming or going, but essentially is a much more static project in terms of parking. The other thing is, and I started from the preface that you can't do nothing. This town does not own this land. It can't afford to acquire it, so something is going to happen on that site, and someone is going to do something to the town there, and it is a matter of my view of controlling that. A commercial development in the midst of all these residential houses, to my way of thinking, would be disastrous, far worse than what we have now. The other question I had was, how well do we understand the economics of the project to know that we have pushed the developer to get as much as we can, because I think I would love to see more affordable housing, work force housing, as part of this project. I would like to, you know, frankly I would like to skim the developer for as much as we could. The town engaged a private consultant in real state development, because that was an area of expertise that was outside Steve's province, and the Board's province, and that, because we did not get Forest City Daly's numbers and not that I expected them to give them to us, but real estate development is certainly well understood, the construction of rental housing is, and our consultant gave the Board comfort that what we got is, you never know what the last dollar is, but is pretty much what is there to be gotten. This deal is not leaving a lot of benefit for the town on the table, so I take what comfort you get from that. It is not a perfect project. It is anything -- less would be more, of course, so I wanted to make those points, that I think there are substantial benefits to the town as a whole, and we are responsible, of course, to the town as a whole, and I think there are substantial benefits to the Washington Square community in having this use happen rather than something else, and having this be part of a parking solution. I am very sensitive to what got said here. Change is not enjoyable. Change where you have your investment, like your hot seat where your apartment is, is not very pleasant, but I think that this is the kind of project that can be managed well, and I think, frankly, I am not the handmade of this developer, but Forest City is a terrific developer among the group of people that develop rental housing in this country. They have a great reputation. They turn out a really nice product, so if we are going to do this, I take some comfort in the fact that this is the developer that walked through the door, rather than many others that you would not deal with. MS. O'KEEFFE: Our next junior member is Nancy Seligson. MS. SELIGSON: I love being senior to Paul! Many of the points that Paul made I happen to agree with, and it was interesting to hear his point of view in that he doesn't in fact have that investment in this project. I thought that was a very interesting point to bring up, that after working on this project for so long there is some sense of investment in it, because our sweat equity and time and resources have gone into it, but we also are continually sensitive to the different interests of the community, and the different residents in different areas. We've all spent time in the area and thought about it, and looked at it, and tried to imagine what it would be like, and worked very hard with this developer to try and create something that would be appropriate in that area. Many of you spoke tonight about the concept of density, without necessarily using that word, and talked about the suburban character of our community, which we all cherish, however, this is a very urban suburban community. This already is a very dense community. We already have the infrastructure to service that dense community with the railroad station right there, with the sanitary sewer systems, with the schools, with everything that already exists. In that area in the Washington Square area we have these magnificent apartment buildings, which in and of themselves lend to the character of our community, because they are such attractively designed buildings. I had the opportunity to be in one a couple of weeks ago, and even walking inside the building, it is amazing how 34 May 25, 2005 attractive and appealing those buildings are, granted the traffic around them stinks, but the traffic around America stinks right now. It is not just Larchmont and Mamaroneck. It is literally everywhere, and I don't know what we can truly do about that. As Paul said, you know, everyone wants to drive their own car, and not only a car, they want to drive an SUV, which is really a truck, which kills us in the air pollution department, parking department, in sight lines, in even any kind of courtesy on the road, because you're dealing with such large vehicles, but I think density is a serious issue, but I don't think it is inappropriate for this area. It already is a dense area. It already is an area with magnificent, beautiful, apartment buildings. This particular developer has proposed using an architect that can create another beautiful apartment building that will use some of the aesthetic aspects of the other buildings around it. I happen to think that the current situation there is not so aesthetically pleasing. I think it is too bad to come into the Town of Mamaroneck and have that area as it is right now. I think aesthetically it actually could look nicer with an attractive apartment being there. I also was very concerned about any kind of increases or burden on municipal services, and adding to the pollution burden that we already have. I am satisfied that we will be creating a better situation for the runoff of the water from that property. I'm not happy that there has to be an increase in the sanitary sewer effluence, but we don't control that. It's the county that controls that, and they have gotten permission for that. I think that it is probably true that there could be more children than we anticipate, but that is also an unknown, and a difficult thing to truly assess. Given the modes of analysis that currently exists, our expected modes of analysis for determining how many children will live in an apartment complex, we have used various different evaluations and come up with some pretty negligible figures that the school system says yes, they can handle. I would hope and pray, and try and encourage these people, if we go through with this, that live there to walk as much as possible. I know that it is not the American way now, but it certainly would make everyone's life a lot easier, and a lot better. I also have to bring up the fact, again, that this is private property, that something is going to happen to that property, that we can't control it entirely, but we feel like we have been able to work with this developer to control some of what will happen there, to make it a smaller building. If we don't change the zoning for them they will not build anything, or they will sell it to someone who will build something very, very different. They cannot make a go of it at 99 units. We know that. I desperately want it to have more work force and affordable housing in this building. I fought for it, and I tried to look at the numbers on my own. I tried to make the argument for it, however, the trade-off is then, oh, yes, we can put more affordable housing units if you let us build many more units altogether in the building, so that would increase the size, density, and flowing traffic of the building, as well, and that got nowhere, even within the Town Board, because everyone feels so sensitive to the size as is being currently proposed. So I'm trying to say that we looked long and hard at it, I have, and I think it's not a bad proposal for what we have to deal with in that particular area, and I'm sorry that it is not going to please everyone if we go through with it, but I think this is something that will help the community, and I think it will add to the aesthetic appeal of the area, as well. MS. O'KEEFFE: Mr. Odierna. MR. O'DIERNA: I think this is probably one of the most difficult things I have had to do in my elected career. I love to talk, as you mostly know, but we really have been especially good with not saying anything until the public was heard. We wanted to hear all the different opinions and directions that people were coming from, and as you all realize, especially for some of the folks in our front row, we love you dearly, and we have listened often and hard to your suggestions. There are things that we have shared. We each come to the deliberation with different aspect ratios, different skills, different gut concerns. We are all in favor of doing whatever we can for the environment. I have been knocking on doors for several years campaigning, and on behalf of the Local Civic Association that I have been a member of, and I talked to a lot of seniors who love the neighborhood. They've lived here for 30, 40, and 50 years. Many of them are ready to sell their homes. Unfortunately, many of them are widows, many of the kids are out of town, and they really don't want to leave the neighborhood, but there's a limited number of condos available. They don't have an enormous amount of money to spend, and a rental can make a lot of sense to them. If they sold their house and they got $1,000,000.00 for it, and they paid $30,000.00 a year in rent, that's 30 years more life that they could live in the community, so that's kind of neat that they would be able to live in a luxury, local residence, so it may not be just young starting out families who are eager to raise kids and go to the Larchmont school system. I think you would get a more mature population, as well. If you look at this geography, you start to scratch your head and say who would possibly want to build next to the town dump, the highway, and the railroad? I mean, what's the big attraction? Well; A, it's Larchmont; B, it is near the railroad. You don't need a second car. Most people have two cars because one member of the family whose working is on the way to the railroad, and is going to leave the car at the railroad, so you can live without two cars. 35 May 25, 2005 They do have 284 spaces, and 159 apartments. That is almost two spaces per apartment, so most of the apartments are one and two bedroom apartments. You have to assume there is going to be two people in most of these apartments. I don't think it is really going to be as bad as anticipated. One of the big pluses already of this development is to make all of us focus on the very serious parking problems that have been generated by 14, 16, and 17 Chatsworth, and we thought about them before, but now we really want to focus. I was asking Pat, the waiting list for the lot three, and, Pat, what did you say it was? MS. DI CIOCCIO: 45 to 50. MR. ODIERNA: About 45 to 50 waiting on line for a six year wait. Four to six years, whatever it is. Well, with the addition of 70 more spots in the deck that is not going to just cut into, but it should go a long way toward alleviating that problem, which makes everyone's co-op more valuable, because now you can talk about it. You can't just sell the spot and be able to off- load without there being a big parking issue. B y the same token, I think by the 159 apartments, those people are potential buyers of co-ops at some point in their lives. Many of them will be coming to see if they like the community. They will be your neighbors. They will be spending money at the same places you are. They will be coming to our concerts at Memorial Park, and hopefully they'll love it, and they'll want to stay. Not all of them are going to buy houses. Many of them are going to want to buy co-ops, so there's another potential plus, and I often wonder, as we got many communications over the past three to four years, and five years, from real estate agents, if they were getting commissions on rental sales, or on rentals, what their attitude would be about being so opposed to the proposition. That is another whole subject. The tax revenue to the town is substantial, and as Paul mentioned, to the schools is substantial, but I think the big question marks in my mind that were not really big question marks in my mind is things like noise. I don't think apartment houses make a lot of noise by themselves. I mean, sure there are going to be people, but I don't think you're going to see cars streaming in and out like ants, you know, at their castle. People don't tend to run in and out of apartment houses that much. I mean, they may walk. I would love to see some small food shopping in the area. With that kind of an asset, that many additional, very visible residents, it may make it more economically feasible to have a food shop here. I mean, people could walk to it. It would make infinite sense, but you don't need a Target Store. Target loves to find spots like this, and that would bring traffic, continuously, in and out, and make no sense at all for the community. That's what we fought against with Ikea. So while we weighed what could possibly go in there, your choices weren't great, and this seemed to be almost a choice from heaven. It was an enthusiastic very professional developer whose bringing us what I think is going to be a beautiful facility, and something we are all going to be proud of. As Nancy mentioned, when you come off the Thruway, and you're on your way to somebody's house or apartment in Larchmont, first thing you see shouldn't be what you see today, and I think this is going to be one of the nicest things you could possibly be looking at as you enter the Town, which is really our entrance, so that's kind of some of my thinking on the subject. MS. O'KEEFFE: Ms. Wittner. Okay,just hold on while we do a paper change. MR. ODIERNA: I had been contacted over the past month or so from someone that I met at the Summit, and an interesting proposal, you have to be careful what you wish for, because you are liable to get it, but we were talking about the parking problem, and this gentleman represents the company that builds robotic parking lots. Now, what the hell is that one might ask, but as soon as he said robotic parking --well, let me not go my plan, my catapult plan for getting people over the highway, but the robotic parking lot is something where you pull into it, and it might be a three or four story structure, and you push a couple of buttons when you are out of your car, and it takes your car and positions it someplace in this building, and when you come back to it you hit your code again, and it delivers your car. You never walk above the spot where you drove your car in. There are places around the country that have these. I'm not saying we're ready for that, but if you needed to put more than the 70 spots, you wouldn't have a security issue. The question comes up, as Valerie has raised previously, people are not necessarily going to want to look at an ugly structure outside their windows. You know, in looking now across the highway, and across the railroad, and over to Larchmont, and if you're even high enough you can see the sound, so this building would have to be really attractive, and I'm not saying that is our solution, but we are going to keep thinking about the additional parking problem in the area, and as Paul mentioned, the concept of a state law is not beyond the realm of possibility, given a preference for parking decals on the street. We would love to see people in the lot. We would love to see people all accommodated, but we should be able to do a better job of controlling who is on our streets, and it is not impossible to do. 36 May 25, 2005 MS. O'KEEFFE: Thank you. Ms. Wittner. MS. WITTNER: I'm not going to repeat what my colleagues have said, because I agree with all the points that they made. I would say, though, that I guess some of the people in the audience gave me the impression that they thought that we were gung hoe for this project from day one, and we weren't. We worked very, very hard on all aspects, from environmental issues to the size of the building, everything, and I would say up until the point where we knew that we could agree on a smaller building than first proposed, plus the work force housing apartments, I wasn't sure that this was going to go through. I don't know how my colleagues felt. MS. O'KEEFFE: I agree. MS. WITTNER: You agree? MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes. MS. WITTNER: So please don't assume that this was, you know, a failure from the start. It was not. I think --well, all I'll say in confirmation is that it is excellent. It will be a beautiful building. I think what is there now, I agree, is completely unsightly, and I think that this building will give environmental improvement that we don't see in the older buildings. I know it will. Nothing was mentioned about the parking lot, the type of oil and grease separators that are going to go into this. There are a lot of things that we thought about, and that the developer has suggested, so I will cast my vote in favor of the project. MS. O'KEEFFE: I moved to "Larchmont" I didn't realize it was the unincorporated area in the Town of Mamaroneck. I moved in in the 1950's. I was seven years old, and I used to walk down to, there was no Thruway. I used to walk down to Myrtle Boulevard and North Chatsworth Avenue, and it was different in those days, because it was considered "the Village," if you lived in the apartment house, so if you lived in 17 North Chatsworth, you were a kid, you went to Chatsworth Avenue School, or in any of the other apartments. If you were a Roman Catholic and you lived in those apartments you were assigned to Saint Augustus Church, not in Saint John Paul, even though it was built. It was once you got halfway down Murray Avenue between let's say Edgewood and the light, that was "the Village" start, so, anyway, we go down there and on the road, the road that goes over the Thruway now on North Chatsworth there was stores. There was Plaza Pharmacy, and I don't know if there was a Gristedes -- UNKNOWN SPEAKER: There was Gristedes, and there was the candy store. MS. O'KEEFFE: The candy store, right. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And there was the deli. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, and there was a deli, so this would be the destination of where I lived at Weaver Street and Orchard Road. If you didn't go over the tracks where blind Joe's (ph) store was into the village, so we sometimes didn't feel like going all the way over. You just went down to this neighborhood, and at that point the only apartment houses were 14 and 16 North Chatsworth, 21 North Chatsworth, and 17 North Chatsworth. That was it, plus 172, or whatever it was Myrtle Boulevard. There were also houses standing where parking lot three now is, and the Torterilli's (ph) I think lived in those houses. So we used to hang around down there, and you could get a coke and it would cost five cents in the Plaza Pharmacy. Doc Meraro owned the pharmacy, and it was taken over by Andy Pinka, and you could get candy bars and stuff, and on the backyard of 17 North Chatsworth was where the goat lady was. It was all a hill, and it went all the way back up to where 1 Washington Square is, so there was no 1 Washington Square or 2 Washington Square, and there was no 3 Washington Square, so I can remember that, and when they built those 3 Washington Square buildings, I thought for the kids, my friends, that it was really cool. They were extremely modern, and they had "balconies." I mean, this was like really hip, you know, but it was kind of sad that the goat lady and the goat had left, because a certain remnant of"rural life," which was kind of an acronym in there was gone. Everything was calm. Everything was fine. Then I guess I was in law school, or I might have been older than that when all hell broke loose, and they said that they were going to build an apartment house where 35 North Chatsworth now stands, and I lived in Yonkers at that point. Fake Yonkers. Yonkers, but with a Bronxville post office, and I would come over to my mothers, and every time I picked up the paper there would be more hysteria about this apartment house. It was going to cause blight. It was going to cause pollution, and the worst part of it was that it was going to change the character of the community, and I agreed with it. 37 May 25, 2005 1 thought this was a really bad idea. I liked the way we walked from the marsh land from North Chatsworth known as the Digiocomo railroad station, and there were a couple of old houses that was kind of cute, I thought, and the worst part about it, I thought, was the fact that Westchester County was going to switch some land, and I thought that Westchester County was in bed with these developers. It was going to be terrible and awful, so I was not in favor of it, but I didn't get mixed up in it, because I didn't want to, but then when I saw 35 North Chatsworth, and went in there and saw what a nice place it was, even though they had a hard time in the beginning trying to sell all the units, I realized that the town fathers and mothers had forced them to put enough parking in there so that the cars were not driving all over like crazy, and there weren't people coming out of the place all day long, and all night causing a lot of trouble, so that somewhat elated my initial reaction, and I look back on it and said maybe I was wrong on that. When we had the proposal for this building, the initial proposal, I just said no, there are too many units here, there is no real work force housing, and what are we getting? The question we said is what are we getting out of this? If we are going to let an apartment building with people and cars come, what are we getting for it? How can we justify changing zoning if we are not going to give a concomitant, maybe not exactly equal, but something at the same time that is going to benefit the community, so I thought back to when I first ran for Supervisor, and one of my proposals was put a deck over parking lot three. That will give 70 more spaces. Now, somebody can say they will be eaten up in a minute, but 70 spaces now is 70 spaces we don't have yesterday. My mother lived in both 17 and 14 North Chatsworth. She was able-bodied most of the time, but some of the time she wasn't. I know what it was like to go down there with my car, to try to park, to try to go to the doctors, try to go to the store, try to park, try to bring the groceries up, so I know exactly the frustration down there. I thought the 70 parking spots in a deck would ameliorate some of the problems, plus the fact that I thought it would help the saleability of the co-ops and condos in the neighborhood, because there would be more parking, and people who didn't have parking could say well, you got a list and there is parking across the street, and tell the truth to the people, I tell them in like a year-in-a-half you'll get a parking spot. Some of these poor people have been there and they think they're going to go right across the street, or at least they tell us that, so I thought that that would be good. Then my other thought was, which made me very nervous, is when I looked down Myrtle Boulevard I like the fact that there is open sky. I like the fact before you get to New Rochelle it looks like there is something in-between it, so I was anxious and fearful of some great big tower that would look like a New Rochelle building, or White Plains, or just dark in the sky, get rid of the sun, so I pushed and I pushed, and I tried to get models to see what it would look like from the top of the hill. When you look down you don't have this massive thing right on top of you. We looked at pushing the building back so it is not right on the line of Madison Avenue, and also we looked at models because it shows you where the light would go, and also whether or not you had this completely closed urban feeling if you are like up by the corner of where the police booth is, and I was convinced that after they took a prance around that it would happen, but then I said to myself, why should I go for this? I mean, I tossed and turned. I'm Supervisor. I'm the Supervisor once in my life. This is a big deal. I don't know if this would turn Madison into like, you know, like Queens Boulevard, or something where it is so packed with people where it really changed the suburban character of the community, and then I looked on the other side and I said well, they could bring in stores. They could bring in trucks. They could bring in all kinds of automotive uses. Better that we have a very good developer, who I checked out with all my friends, who is one of the best architects in the western world, who closes off future development, and it finishes the neighborhood off in such a way that it enhances the aesthetics of the neighborhood, and it keeps the property values up, and at the same time, being a rental unit, which Forest City Daly, as far as I know, has never turned into a co-op, or condo. It let's us have some of the diversity that we now have, because what is happening now is all these buildings go co-op or condo. When people leave or get very old, if they're on rent control and they've been there, they are not replaced by school teachers and middle income people. They are replaced by more wealthy people who buy the place, or move in, so you are changing the mixture of the neighborhood where we always had a kind of, people knowing each other that were to the cookie cutter type people. That is what we like. We're not one of these other more fancy type people, so rental will do that to a certain extent, but certainly the work force housing will do it, so I balanced it. I twist and turned. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking I don't want to make a mistake, and then I finally check my figures that you give me. We can get the garage. We get a higher ratio, or is it a lower ratio? I always get that mixed up. The higher, we get a higher ratio than any other places all over in Westchester County per unit. Per unit we get more parking. We looked at all the neighborhoods around it. We looked at Yorktown, how many parking spots per unit did Scarsdale get, did Eastchester get, these places, and we had pushed to get what we got now, and we were satisfied that this was the best we could do. Now, does that mean that this is going to fix anything? I think it will fix the parking for some people who live there now. Will it fix all the cars that are going 38 May 25, 2005 around too fast on Myrtle Boulevard, no. Will it prevent unsightly and nasty uses in the future there, yes, so I had to balance it, ying and yang harmony, and I come out at the present moment with the work force housing that we were able to squeeze, and the number of parking spaces we were able to squeeze, and based on the knowledge I have from our economic consultant, this is a good deal, overall. Is it perfect, no. Would I like to have had the money to make a park there, make it like France where I could have all kinds of flowers and gardeners on our payroll changing all the time with little benches, and dogs walking on leashes, yes, but we don't have the dough. So that is my conclusion is that this is the best we can do, and it is a gamble, and if you do nothing you are gambling, and I think if you do nothing you are being a less responsive public official than if you do something good now. That is my conclusion. MS. WITTNER: And this was part of our sessions time and time again, all the reasons you just heard from Valerie. MS. O'KEEFFE: And everyone else. The other thing that impresses me, and I don't say I'm a convert to environmental issues. I would call myself a conservationist in the mode of Teddy Roosevelt. I am convinced that these innovative approaches with the green roof, the cutting edge environmental to infrastructure with these separators and everything else keeps us going in the Town of Mamaroneck, as we should be like we got wind power. We trying to do everything right here without being crazy, and I think this will be an example for a future developer that is good for everybody, but, believe me, I don't in any way disregard the feelings, concerns, worries, about the people who live in the apartment houses now. I think I may be joining you pretty soon. I don't know, maybe, I hope Ernie gets some kind of a hoist or something to put my car on. MR. ODIERNA: It could be fun to watch the cd that they sent. MS. O'KEEFFE: Anyway, we don't do this lightly, and I know that some people are going to be disappointed. I'm not a pollyanna like great, we are doing this. I think this is the best thing we can do. I think this is the best way to do it, but it took me a long time to come around, so if anyone wants to make a motion. MR. ODIERNA: All right, I make a motion that we approve the proposition of the law known as the 2005 Amendment to the Mixed Use Business District Law. MS. WITTNER: Second. MS. O'KEEFFE: Okay, we'll call roll, Ms. Di Cioccio? MS. DI CIOCCIO: Yes. Mr. Winick? Yes. MS. SELIGSON: Yes. Ms. Wittner. MS. WITTNER: Yes. Mr. Odierna. MR. ODIERNA: Yes. MS. O'KEEFFE: Ms. O'Keeffe, yes. Okay, that took us four years. I hope we made the right decision. If we didn't, remember Guy Fawkes Day, but I think that everybody will be happy when it is over. Now, there is always difficulty during development. Now, remember, we've got to go for special permit, so we have to study traffic, we have to study noise. We have to study everything. We have the Planning Board in on the act. We have all the other boards in on the act, and these people are obsessive compulsive types, so they will go over everything with a fine tooth comb, and we hope to be working cooperatively with the Planning Board in a very interested, intelligible way, so I'm sure we will see you again for the details, and thank you very much for your time. Ms. Wittner would like to say something. 39 May 25, 2005 MS. WITTNER: I would like to make a motion to close the meeting in memory of Mary Noyer. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Oh, God, she did die. MS. O'KEEFFE: Yes, she died last night. MS. WITTNER: Those people who might not know,just many of us first knew Mary through her husband Maurice Maury who was the Mayor in the Village of Larchmont in 1976. Mary was a member of the school board from 1979 to '83, Chair of Parks and Recreation. She started Junior Soccer League, and she was involved in school affairs. Her children, I think you probably all know Liz Feld Noyer, Charlie, Dr. Charlie Noyer, Nadine, Christine, Maryann, and of course her son Larry predeceased. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: And her twin. MS. O'KEEFFE: And her twin who is still here. That is Helen Jennings. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Helen Jennings, who is very, very, very ill. MS. O'KEEFFE: Now, there will be a private funeral on Friday. UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Her sister has been in the hospital for five months. MS. O'KEEFFE: So all in favor of closing this meeting, is there a second? MS. WITTNER: Second. MS. O'KEEFFE: Offer your condolences for the Noyer Family. All in favor of adjourning say aye. (Whereupon the Board takes a vote.) Ms. O'KEEFFE: I would like to thank Mr. Altieri, and I would like to thank Mr. Maker for all their help throughout this entire process, for guiding us along, staying with us through all of this, and I would also like to thank the Clerk, Ms. DiCioccio, and I would like to thank all of you surrounding me, and also Judy Myers who is not with us, because she is now the County Legislature, but she spent many an hour pushing us in the right direction on affordable housing, especially. Thank you to everyone. (Time Noted: 10:56 p.m.) Prepared by: Melissa Sasso, Court Reported Submitted by: Patricia A. DiCioccio, Town Clerk F ADocuments\M in utes\2005m i nfl05-25.05s pecmtgx.Doc 40