Chronicle Editorial: Full transparency about the Lot A development means knowing who will benefit from the land sales involved. [Updated]
Croton Point Realty Inc. could make a windfall profit from the sale of its land adjacent to Lot A to WBP Development LLC. Who are its owners? We need to know all of them.
As most readers will know, three parcels of land are slated to make up the proposed 100 unit condominium building proposed to be constructed across from the train station entrance on Croton Point Avenue: Parking Lot A; a smaller village owned parcel; and a privately owned parcel adjacent to Lot A, which is currently owned by Croton Point Reality Inc.
If the project is approved, all of this land will be purchased by WBP Development LLC to form one large property. On April 23 of this year, according to a July 11, 2024 letter from WBP Vice-President John Bainlardi to Mayor Brian Pugh, WBP entered into an Agreement of Purchase and Sale with Croton Point Realty for the parcel it owns.
The sale of the parcel owned by Croton Point Reality is reportedly expected to bring about as much to its owners as the sale of Lot A to the village, ie more than $2 million.
According to the most recent records available, the president of Croton Point Realty Inc. is realtor/investor Stephen T. DeName, also a former president of the Croton Lions Club.
Before the sale of village property to WBP is finalized, the people of Croton should insist on knowing the identities of all of the owners of Croton Point Realty Inc., including any partners, investors, or other participants hidden by any kind of limited liability (LLC) structure. This would insure that there are no conflicts of interest involving anyone who has been involved in decisions about housing policy in the village, or any other potential conflicts, whatever they might be.
This is especially important because the village will not tell the people of Croton anything about the supposed single alternative/competing bid to the winning proposal, put forward in response to the Request for Proposals issued by the village in July of last year.
The Croton Chronicle has editorialized about this refusal by the village to divulge the competing bidder, and pointed out that withholding this information—even if it might be justifiable in the short-term by supposedly maximizing the sales price of the village land—is in the long-term detrimental to the rights of villagers to determine what is done with village land and participate in mapping out the future of the village.
Here is what we said about this last May:
“The village’s position is that no public hearings are required for this sale, as long as the Board of Trustees declares the property unneeded for municipal purposes—which it has done. While any development on these properties would require approval by Croton’s Planning Board and other village bodies, the sale itself and the basic plan for the site have already been approved by the Board. It is, as they say, a ‘done deal.’
Village officials have told us that two proposals were submitted in response to the Request for Proposals issued last July. Would it not be important, before the sale is finalized, for villagers to know something about the other proposal and what plans it envisioned for the Lot A site?
We think so. A 95 unit condominium right across from the only entrance to the Croton-Harmon train station is likely to have profound effects on traffic and other quality of life factors that will profoundly affect the life of the village. And those who buy the condos will be profoundly affected by the late-night nose from the rail yard, which is already an issue for many residents, even those who don’t live close to the station at all.”
These are not just theoretical concerns. As an example, the village did not make the several competing proposals for the development of Maple Commons (the former “Katz property”) available at the time it was considering them; only a recent Freedom of Information Law request by the Chronicle made those available. Some readers who have perused these rejected proposals—all of them by reputable developers—have commented that the one chosen was not necessarily best for Croton.
Obviously a development at the Lot A site will have considerable impact on the village for as long as any of us may live, and well beyond that.
In issuing this call for transparency we do not claim to know who the owners of Croton Point Realty Inc. are other than, according to available records, Stephen T. DeName; thus we make no accusations concerning conflicts of interest against any individual or organization. There may not be any at all.
But we do strongly state the need for full transparency on the part of those owners as well as the Village of Croton-on-Hudson and its officials and employees, and we urge villagers to make their own opinions on this topic known to village government.
Anyone wishing to discuss these issues in confidence can contact us at:
TheCrotonChronicle@gmail.com
Update concerning Croton Point Realty Inc:
With the help of some crowd sourced reporting, we can provide some further details.
Croton Point Realty Inc is a domestic business corporation registered with the New York Department of State under DOS Number 3634779. It was first incorporated on February 22, 2008. However, on June 29, 2016, the state dissolved the corporation; this can sometimes happen if a company has not paid its franchise taxes for two or more years, according to an expert we consulted.
Then, on May 22, 2023, the corporation apparently paid its taxes and was reinstated. Interestingly, this date is several months after the village contracted with its frequent consultant AKRF in December 2022 to develop the Request for Proposals to sell and develop Lot A (pursuant to the passing of the Local Law 14 in November 2022 to allow for transit oriented mixed use and and multi-family residential buildings in the Light Industrial zoning district.)
In other words, the owners of Croton Point Realty Inc. knew, as we all did, that the village planned to sell Lot A and that this sale was likely to dramatically affect the value of their next-door property (we all know that properties are frequently combined to allow the construction of larger projects, as in this case.) It may or may not be coincidence that Croton Point Realty Inc. regularized its status to be ready to take advantage of any opportunities that might—and in fact, did—come its way.
We will continue to update this post as more details become available.
**********************************************************************************************************
To share this post, or to share The Croton Chronicle, please click on these links.
Comments policy: No personal attacks, please be polite and respectful.
Thank you. This has been quietly under discussion locally for quite some time. The Chronicle bringing this out into the open is a good thing.
And another interesting note was this proposal being received on July 11th it was on July 18th the village began to discuss giving developers of affordable unit housing an exemption on the one time parkland fee (a tax that is put directly into the parks) this also saves the developer about 700k and removing its need to pay into our parks. Something that all new construction pays into to keep the park budget healthy. And although its a requirement there is no village accessible green-space (requirement per village code) in the plans submitted. Just a few other under discussed facts about this project.