Commentary: Are village residents giving Croton's Planning Board lessons in how to evaluate a proposed major new condominium project?

Board members were on their game as they asked tough questions about two small projects in the village. But when it came to a major development at Lot A, their critical faculties seemed to fail them.

About 60 protestors showed up at last night’s Planning Board meeting/ Photo by Jessica Dieckman

This week’s Croton Planning Board meeting began promptly at 8 pm last evening (August 6), and the board members seemed to start off in fine form. Three new projects were on the agenda. The members immediately began attacking the details of the first project, grilling its representatives with sharp questions, declaring the design to be “ugly” and a blight at an intersection where many visitors to the village would first enter Croton. They sent the proposers back to the drawing board in no uncertain terms.

The board members were somewhat more sympathetic to the second project, but nevertheless raised lots of sharp questions about parking availability and the effects of the development—to be located on a major Croton street—on local street traffic.

By the time the board got to the third project, however it seemed their critical faculties were fading. By now the members were only lobbing softballs, leaving it mostly to some of the 60 residents who had showed up at the meeting during a severe rainstorm to ask the tough questions during public comments.

The third project, as close observers of the Croton development scene will know, was the proposal by WBP Development LLC to turn Lot A into a 100 unit affordable condominium complex. (The first one was a proposal to install an electrical charging system at the Croton Auto Park, and the second was a relatively modest project to build a three story apartment building at 325 South Riverside.)