Commentary: The movement to stop development of Lot A takes its last gasps before the Planning Board.

A small group showed up to protest, but Planning Board members are already, in effect, picking out the color of the curtains with the developer.

WBP Development VP John Bainlardi (left) and Planning Board chair Robert Luntz (right)

The movement to stop development of Lot A and an adjacent property was very impressive while it lasted. But the days when 80 to 100 villagers would show up at meetings of the Board of Trustees or the Planning Board—and their protests sometimes met by threats of police action—are over, at least for now. Once village officials had put the unexpected menace of a lively write-in electoral campaign behind them, there was nothing stopping them from giving their approval to the 100 unit condominium project.

The mayor and the trustees listened to constituents and their concerns, they held public hearings, they commissioned studies, they got recommendations from the Planning Board, and then… they agreed to let the developer, WBP Development LLC of Chappaqua, do exactly what it had proposed to do in the first place. Only recently did villagers even find out what the alternatives might have been, via a New York Freedom of Information Law request by the Chronicle.