Lot A: It's a wrap (more or less.)
The Croton Planning Board gives final approvals to the proposed five story, 100 unit affordable condominium project. Construction is likely to begin next spring, but some questions remain unanswered..
Last evening (June 17), the Croton-on-Hudson Planning Board, after months of deliberations and several sessions of public hearings, gave its “final” approval to the site plan for the so-called Lot A development. Approval came in the form of two resolutions, one that approved the subdivision of the three properties that will make up the site, and a second which gave overall approval to the developer’s site plan.
Both resolutions added conditions to the approvals, especially the site plan. It includes 25 conditions, three of them further broken down into even more sub-conditions that the developer—WBP Development LLC—will have to follow every step of the way as the project takes shape.
WBP vice-president John Bainlardi, who has appeared at each of the Planning Board meetings leading up to the approvals, and who was also a regular feature during the long process through which the Board of Trustees gave its own blessing to the project, expressed satisfaction that the next stage had been reached.
The Planning Board members also seemed satisfied for the most part, having shown little willingness throughout the body’s process to cause problems for the developer once the Board of Trustees had given its own approval. Thus the members put little pressure on the developer to come through on a condition in the original Request for Proposals (RFP), that some kind of community center or other feature that would be accessible by all Croton residents should be included in the development.
(As a reminder, the language of the July 24, 2023 RFP included the provision that proposals should:
“Assist in meeting the needs of Croton for public amenities by providing outdoor greenspace and an attached or separate indoor facility for community and recreational use by all Croton residents.”)
Although this issue came up several times during the Planning Board’s deliberations, Bainlardi consistently made clear that the developer was not interested in providing this, for financial reasons. Indeed, the Planning Board approved the project without even a clear plan for the developer to provide recreational and community space to the residents themselves.
The only Planning Board member who raised pointed questions during the entire process was Steve Krisky, although even Krisky seemed to end up satisfied with WBP’s responses. Yesterday, for example, he questioned whether condition 11 of the resolution, which would require that the developer provide only four charging spots for electric vehicles—out of about 100 parking spaces envisioned for the condo owners—was sufficient. (Two of the charging posts would have been inside the basement garage and two in the outdoors parking lot.)
In response to Krisky’s comment that this was not enough, especially with increasing adoption of EVs by the public, Bainlardi said that the developer should be bound by state law on the matter, and that “not less than 10%” of the parking spaces would have chargers. But Krisky persisted, arguing that even 10 chargers was still not enough, and suggested that at least 20 or 30 should be provided—or that the development should at least provide electrical “conduits” so that additional chargers could be added after the project was completed, as necessary.
After some additional discussion Bainlardi declared that WBP would commit to installing the requested conduits.
However, Bainlardi continued to be vague, as he has from the beginning, about the application that WBP has made to the state for subsidies for the project through New York’s Affordable Housing Opportunity Program (AHOP.) Getting these funds is essential for the developer to actually offer 100 affordable condos; without them, WBP has only committed to providing 20% affordable and 80% market rate.
The application has been pending for many months, with no clear public explanations for the delay. While Bainlardi has hinted at past meetings that the AHOP program has been waiting for the approvals and other details to be firmed up—and while it is possible that WBP has briefed the mayor and the Board of Trustees privately about what is going on—ordinary villagers remain in the dark about what exactly we are going to end up with across from our local train station.
So while the project might be a wrap in terms of final approvals, assuming WBP can meet all the attendant conditions, in some ways the final and most important act has yet to be played out.
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For shame.