Greetings RRA Neighbors,
In solidarity with our neighbors in North St. and Gedney Farms, it is important that we support their opposition to the 701 Westchester Ave project. If we allow the city to rezone at will, provide special permits, and approve projects like this one, they will continue to approve projects that impact our neighborhood without our input. We will see a similar process playout at the 1313 Mamaroneck Ave corporate park across from Saxon Woods. This will drastically change the character of Rosedale and the south end of WP. This is also a reason why we and many other neighborhoods are pushing for maximum input in the city’s new Comprehensive Plan and the process to create a new plan.
Please review the following letter from Gedney and contact our leaders with concerns that you have about development in and around Rosedale that will impact traffic and safety throughout our neighborhood.
PUBLIC HEARING – CHANGE IN ZONING – 701 Westchester Ave
255 Main Street, 2nd Floor
June 7th at 7:30PM
There will be a PUBLIC HEARING at City Hall on June 7th to determine if 701 Westchester Avenue will be rezoned as a Campus-Office Overlay District. An Overlay District allows the owner to change the use and height of the property. Here, the property was designed to be, and has always been, an office park. Granting the property owner an Overlay District would be a significant development and would allow high density apartments to be constructed in a location where it was previously prohibited under the City’s Comprehensive Plan.
The Gedney Association Board unanimously voted to oppose this change in zoning, joining four other south end neighborhood associations, including Old Oaks Association, The North Street Civic Association, the Rosedale Residential Association and our neighbors in Havilands Manor. This proposal together with 1133 Westchester Avenue, which was recently re-zoned an Overlay District, would result in approximately 700 new housing units with an estimated additional population of at least 1,200 to 1,400 people in White Plains.
701 Westchester Avenue consists of 55 acres and is directly behind the Colonial Road neighborhood on North Street and across from the White Plains High School Campus on Bryant Avenue. If approved, the rezoning will allow high density residential buildings and permit 360 rental apartment units and an estimate of 611 vehicles. There are five additional properties along Westchester Avenue, North Street (the former General Foods complex) and Mamaroneck Avenue totaling 235 acres that are also eligible for this rezoning, thus allowing greater density and height than the underlying Campus-Office zone. If implemented for the other properties it could change the land use character in the south end of the City by adding over 1 million new square feet of multi-family housing.
Until the Common Council unilaterally adopted this new Overlay Zone, the Comprehensive Plan clearly stated that apartment buildings should not be permitted in the outlying parts of the City, but rather such development remain Downtown. The Comprehensive Plan states, “Residential development in and adjacent to the downtown, unlike the lower density housing in the Close In and Outer Area neighborhoods, should be viewed as part of a coherent economic development strategy”. This goal is also consistent with a letter from the Westchester County Planning Department which also recommends that multi-family buildings be situated Downtown.
Unlike the office buildings whose tenants come from all over the New York metro area and thus primarily use Westchester Avenue, the residents of the proposed apartment complex will utilize local streets such as North Street, Bryant Avenue, and Mamaroneck Avenue to access local stores and other services. There will be added traffic congestion not only from residential vehicles but from public service vehicles such as sanitation, delivery and mail services. Hathaway Lane and Heatherbloom Road are particularly vulnerable of becoming cut through avenues to access Mamaroneck Avenue and Ridgeway. The property also sits across from the White Plains High School campus which raises safety concerns for pedestrian traffic given the lack of continuous sidewalks along Bryant Avenue and North Street.
There are also concerns about the impact to municipal services, particularly the Ladder 34 Firehouse (stationed at Ridgeway and North St.), which continues to operate at part-time status. The south end of the City has only one, small firehouse serving the entire area. According to a YTD 2021 service status, Ladder 34 has been in service about 50% of the time and the service levels have been trending down and are expected to be largely out of service through September.
We urge you to attend the meeting and/or email the Common Council
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