Scarsdale Village Board Prepares to Adopt Fair and Affordable Housing Code
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Scarsdale is finally ready to adopt new Village code that would support Westchester County’s mandate to provide 750 fair and affordable housing units, per a 2009 settlement agreement with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A new law will likely be passed in Scarsdale that will require all future housing developers to provide at least one fair and affordable unit for every ten single units, or for every five to nine multi-family units. The fair and affordable units are to be marketed in accordance with the requirements, policies, and protocols established by the county. Furthermore, the exterior appearance of the affordable units must be compatible with all other units within the development. You can review the entire text of the recommended code here.
Three people approached the microphone to voice their opinions regarding the fair and affordable housing law during a hearing at the Scarsdale Board of Trustees meeting at Village Hall on Tuesday night. The board deferred the vote to allow time to consider the opinions of residents who came out to speak their minds.
Thus, if you’d still like to make a comment, it’s not too late. After delivering a complete review of the proposed amendments, Trustee Stacey Brodsky announced that a continuation of the public hearing is to resume during the subsequent meeting, which will be held on November 9th. Residents will again have the opportunity to speak their minds before the Board votes to adopt the recommended language into law.
Beatrice Underweiser represented the Scarsdale Forum’s Zoning and Planning Committee and voiced her organization’s support before she asked a question that turned the heads of a few board members.
“Who will pay for the monitoring?” Underweiser exclaimed. Under the new act, implementation and compliance will have to be monitored and it will not be done for free. A few of the Board members looked reluctant to take the question, but Brodsky came forth with a reassuring response. She stated that the developers and landlords will eventually foot the bill; but until then, Westchester County will be held responsible. Ultimately, the monitoring costs will not be coming out of Scarsdale’s budget.
Represented by Kit Rosenthal, the Scarsdale League of Women Voters also expressed their support of the proposed act. Their only concern was the marketing requirements for the units, as the League expressed their desire to make housing available to those who live and work in Scarsdale. The board did not have an immediate response for Rosenthal, and they may find this concern to be a larger issue than expected. In the section titled, “Affirmative Marketing,” the act reads as follows:
“The affordable units created under the provisions of this Article shall be sold or rented, and resold and re-rented during the required period of affordability to only qualified income-eligible households. Such income eligible households shall be solicited by the seller or lessor in accordance with the requirements, policies and protocols established by the County of Westchester and in accordance with the monitoring agency so designated pursuant to §310-116 of this chapter, so as to ensure outreach to racially and ethnically diverse households.”
Since the act requires the units to be marketed to racially and ethnically diverse households, a high majority of Scarsdale residents will not qualify for the new housing. This will surely be addressed on November 9th, as well as the Board’s replies to questions posed by local resident, Martin Kaufman, which were submitted in writing for further review.
So, why not come to the next meeting to express your opinions? There were less than ten seats filled by residents last night, so I’ll advertise this meeting right now. Scarsdale, a place that has a lacked low-income housing, is about to take a huge step towards complying with the terms of the settlement. This act has been a vital topic of discussion for all of Westchester County for over two years, and Scarsdale is two weeks away from a decision. Let them know what you think.
Here is the Scarsdale League of Women Voter's Statement that was read at the meeting:
Scarsdale League of Women Voters Statement on the Proposed Amendment of the Zoning Code relating to the provision of Fair and Affordable Housing October 2011
The League of Women Voters has a longstanding position in support of measures to increase the supply of housing in Scarsdale for a wider income range than now exists and therefore supports an affordable housing zoning code amendment. There remain certain provisions of this amendment that necessitate further comment from the LWVS.
We understand the proposed amendment of the Zoning Code relating to the provision of Fair and Affordable housing has been carefully reviewed and further clarified by the Planning Board and thereafter by the Board of Trustees with special notes for further clarification of the marketing and monitoring components. We also understand that this amendment will not limit FAH to Scarsdale residents and workforce but will be marketed broadly throughout the area. Our positions have historically included provisions for Scarsdale seniors, municipal and school employees and others on whose presence every community depends. We ask the Village to also continue to encourage affordable housing opportunities for Scarsdale residents and employees.
Author Michael Kanner is a graduate of Union College with a background in English and a passion for the written word. He worked at Scarsdale Golf Club as a tennis pro before offering his services to a private clientele, and he loves hearing constructive criticism from anyone willing to speak their mind. Michael can be contacted at Michael.Kanner4@gmail.com
Pagan and Ryan Meet at LWV Debate
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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Seven-term County Legislator and Democrat Bill Ryan faced off with Republican challenger Iris Pagan at the LWV debate on Wednesday, October 19 at the Scarsdale Library. Pagan, a newcomer to politics is a teacher who worked her way through college at Pace and ultimately earned her doctorate in education from Columbia Teacher’s College. In her opening statement she said she was running because high taxes threaten the American dream. Ryan, the former Chairman of the County Board of Legislators and an experienced voice in county and state government asked voters to re-elect him so that he could continue to “find the best answers” to confront declining revenues, high taxes and budgeting in the face of the 2% tax cap.
The format of the debate allows for only short statements and rebuttals and in many instances forced timekeepers to cut off the candidate’s comments before they could be fully developed. The League posed questions about affordable housing, the tax cap, Medicaid and the stagnant economy and here is a recap:
Affordable housing: In Ryan’s view the $51 million dollar affordable housing settlement, signed in 2009 allowed Westchester to buildhousing and avoid paying estimated damages and penalties of up to half a billion dollars to the U.S government. According to Ryan, Westchester is ahead of schedule on the construction of these units and is doubtful that Scarsdale will play any role in fulfilling the mandate for 750 units. He reassured the audience that the county had not found any discriminatory local zoning and did not plan to challenge the localities.
Pagan was determined to raise a red flag about housing and repeatedly cited a May, 2011 letter from HUD that added more stipulations
Though Ryan pointed out that a July letter from HUD had clarified these issues, Pagan insisted that the “Ryan/Spano” settlement had morphed into an “integration plan,” and called for the audience to “stand up against federal housing” which in her view threatens to bring affordable housing “next to neighborhood schools.”
In response to a question about how the county could meet the 2% tax cap, Pagan said she “would focus on social services and making sure that programs are running efficiently and effectively, adding “We need to look at the recipients to be sure that funds are going to their targeted use.”
Ryan called the cap a “budgeting nightmare” that does not keep pace with the average rate of growth of expenses or mandated costs. He said that the cap allows counties to raise $90 million to cover $280 million in mandated expenses.
In a question about stagnant local revenues, the candidates parried back and forth about why White Plains does not have it’s own Industrial Development Agency (IDA). Pagan argued that an IDA would bring more business to the area while Ryan contended that White Plains is covered by the county IDA and that forming an additional IDA would be redundant.
Next the conversation turned to moving Medicaid costs from the county to the state level. Currently, 40% of the Westchester County tax levy goes toward funding mandated Medicaid payments. Assemblywoman Amy Paulin is one of the sponsors of a bill with bipartisan support that would shift the responsibility for Medicaid to the state over a nine-year period. In total, $211 million in expenses would be removed from the county budget. The state’s Medicaid Redesign Team would look to generate savings through reform and a new payment model. Pagan argued that the shift would mean lower county taxes but higher state taxes for local residents.
The question and answer period touched on safety concerns, consolidation of services, tax reduction and the housing settlement with little new ground covered. Ryan’s familiarity with the issues and the numbers resulted in a smooth, logical presentation while Pagan struggled to form complete thoughts and sentences and fell back on canned phrases and rhetoric. However she did have a dedicated group of supporters in the audience; a mix of Scarsdale and White Plains Republicans who cheered and clapped with vigor at Pagan’s efforts to state her views. Perhaps their enthusiasm will invigorate the November vote.
At one point in the evening, judicial candidate Ed Borelli stopped in to introduce himself to voters. He is running for NYS Supreme
(Pictured at top: Bill Ryan and Iris Pagan)
Photos by Sara Werder
Are Secret CNC Deliberations Undemocratic?
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Here is a letter to the Editor from Harry Reynolds of Bradley Road: Dear Editor: In August, I filed objections to the proposed amendment of the Non-Partisan Resolution because the amendment (a) deemed secret the identities of persons seeking the system’s nominations and (b) deemed secret what those applicants said, or failed to say, when they appeared before the Nominating Committee, and what the members of that Committee said to them.
Some in the Village were taken aback by those secrecy provisions which seemed unjustified because of the lack of any supervening cause that would sanction them for the public good. Indeed, there is no electoral system in the free world that provides for them.
The Procedural Committee killed the secrecy provisions, leaving it to its chairperson to inform the Inquirer last week that “We decided to table the confidentiality amendment until next year”. The attempt to encase secrecy in the proposed amendment was simply swept out of the public view. Secrecy provisions for which the Procedural Committee had eagerly sought the public’s favor were left by that Committee without any explanation for its decision to table the proposed secrecy amendment until “next year”, notwithstanding that a formal renunciation of that secrecy by the committee would affect the conduct of the system’s business in the intervening year.
Is it possible that the Procedural Committee could not decide whether the secrecy provisions, repellant on their face in a democracy, were not condemnable out of hand?
Put another way, what would our voters, to say nothing of our high school and middle school students, think of our Non-Partisan System’s belief that political parties should not be part of our village’s electoral system and, therefore, Scarsdale voters should not be told the identity of applicants for electoral office and should not be told what those applicants know, believe, plan, or desire concerning the public office that they seek? Would they not say that the necessary price of avoiding the rancor of political parties is not, and must not be, the creation of a village of politically ignorant voters?
It may be argued that the Procedural Committee’s tabling of the secrecy issue to next year was so unreasonable as to raise a question of the trustworthiness of the judgment of the Non-Partisan system. However, there is no reason to question the good faith of the Committee and the tabling of the issue suggests that there is support for the objections that have been raised against the secrecy provisions. Accordingly, it has been decided that the running of an opposition candidate in order to place the issue before the voters will await the Committee’s decision.
Harry Reynolds
Bradley Road
Who's Representing You In Scarsdale? Go Figure!
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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There is no doubt that most Scarsdale residents are confused by how we elect our mayor and trustees. No matter how many times I explain the Non-Partisan system to my very intelligent friends, it’s never clear to them why we elect a “non-partisan” committee of nominators to nominate candidates for a “no-contest” election.
For many years, Village governance had little impact on most Scarsdale residents, and so it was left to the few who cared to take the lead. But last year was different. When the Citizens Nominating Committee named their slate of candidates for Scarsdale Mayor and Village Trustees, two non-party candidates decided, for the first time in recent memory, to challenge them. Scarsdale suddenly had a contested election on its hands, and voters were galvanized.
And galvanized in a big way: 1,028 votes were cast in 2011, compared to just 150 in the 2010 contest.
Why was 2011 different? Several factors contributed:
1) Many absentee ballots were included in the CNC election for nominators. Some charge that the candidates themselves delivered these absentee ballots in bulk to the Procedure Committee.
2) Many repeat performers were elected to the nominating committee, some with conflicting allegiances. From the outside, the committee looked like a group of self-selected insiders.
3) Though proceedings are supposed to be confidential, there were rumors that unsubstantiated charges about one of the candidates were made right before the voting, with no opportunity for rebuttal.
4) The voting procedure for mayor and trustee at the CNC was also called into question when some contended that the names of one or more leading candidates were dropped during a final election round.
The result? Voting grew nearly tenfold. Village Hall was overwhelmed with voters, many of whom did not know how to cast a write-in vote. There were poll watchers on site, as well as police. Though the CNC candidates emerged as the victors, the entire non-partisan procedure was called into question.
This year the TVCC leadership appointed David Brodsky and Michelle Lichtenberg to chair the Procedure Committee. They had the tough job of addressing the issues that arose last year, crafting any necessary amendments to the Non-Partisan Resolution and restoring confidence in the Non-Partisan system. The committee worked diligently on drafting amendments to address some of the issues that were raised. These are not easily distilled to a few words, but here are the essentials of their proposed amendments:
1) Only one member of a household should serve on the Citizens Nominating Committee (CNC) at a time.
2) A former mayor or trustee should not run for the CNC directly after their service ends. The amendment calls for a cooling-off period of one year and seven months. They originally proposed a three-year waiting period but reduced it after comments from the community.
3) No one can serve consecutive three-year terms – however those who filled a vacancy can run for an additional three years.
4) No member of the Procedure Committee, the School Board Nominating Committee, the School Board Administrative Committee, the School Board or the Village Board can run for the CNC.
5) Absentee ballots will be sent to a PO Box in individual envelopes.
6) If last minute information about a nominee is introduced at the last session of the CNC, voting should be deferred to a subsequent meeting unless the chair is overruled by a 2/3 vote of the committee.
Are these amendments far-reaching enough to restore confidence in the system? Probably not – but they are a good start.
In my mind they fail to address some key problems with the system:
1) The Chair and Vice Chair of the CNC are not elected, but chosen by the TVCC. (In fact, the TVCC President herself usually chairs the
2) The TVCC appoints eleven people to serve and run the Procedure committee, none of those elected by residents.
3) The rules do not prohibit repeat service on the CNC – which often results in members of the TVCC serving over and over again – along with former trustees and mayors. Wouldn’t it be better to widen the membership of the committee to the broader community and seek out those who may not already have a long record of service to Scarsdale? Perhaps they would bring new blood to the pool of candidates for mayor and trustees and take a fresh look at Village issues.
4) The amendments do not stipulate how voting should be done within the committee –a complex process that is open to interpretation by the Chair and Vice Chair and gives them power to sway the results.
However, the amendments are a good beginning and I recommend you vote for them when we elect the new members of the nominating committee on November 15.
But what is written above is just the background for the discussion at the meeting of the Scarsdale Forum on Thursday night October 6th, where Brodsky and Lichtenberg presented the Procedure Committee amendments and discussed their merits on a panel with Larry Bell. Bell chairs the Non-Partisan Procedure Committee of the Forum who drafted its own Non-Partisan Procedure Report.
Why was a second report necessary? After all the official Procedure Committee already included 11 appointees from the TVCC. Why would the Forum (formerly TVCC) Executive Committee charge the Non Partisan Procedure Committee with drafting their own set of amendments, which were then published expeditiously before the official Procedure Committee could even issue their recommendations?
Puzzling indeed. Especially since many members of the TVCC Committee had served on the CNC during the prior years when the CNC’s actions had been called into question. Were they trying to rewrite the rules to prevent themselves from abusing them?
Even more puzzling was Bell’s presentation. He largely agreed with the Procedure Committee’s amendments and also recommended the formalization of the confidentiality policy in regards to “refuting allegations” and facilitating due diligence. However he took issue with the proposal that would prevent members of the same household from serving simultaneously (Bell and his wife both currently serve on the CNC, and Mr. Bell is a former chair of the committee). Bell contended that voters should have the right to choose whoever they like to represent them. He said that Scarsdale10583 had published a “hit list” of those who should not serve on the CNC, referring to a list on this site of the conflicting allegiances of last year’s CNC committee’s members.
Then he brought forth a seeming allusion to Nazi Germany, quoting Martin Niemoeller with the words,
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out.”
At that point, the audience looked stunned. As far as I could tell, no one was quite sure what Bell meant by this quote. Did he feel that he was being personally singled out by the amendments? What was he saying about the Procedure Committee?
Of all people, Larry Bell has had ample opportunity to air his views. As a past president of the Scarsdale Forum, he was contemporaneously the chairman of the CNC. He serves on the leadership committee of the Heathcote Five Corners Coalition, and is an elected member of the CNC, the same nominating committee over which he formerly presided. He is also on the Executive Committee of the Scarsdale Forum.
Though a few questions were posed during the Q&A session that followed, the room was relatively quiet. In a discussion about why the TVCC Committee disagreed with the one person/one household rule, Bell turned to Brodsky and Lichtenberg and charged, “You wanted to throw some people a bone – and that’s the bone you threw in. Let’s get down to the real issues!”
Perhaps the “real issue” with the Non-Partisan System is not the system at all. Could it be that a few persistent members of the Forum are over-reaching and dominating the CNC deliberations and the voting process? The TVCC committee’s efforts to shadow and second-guess the official Procedure Committee is a good example of the lengths they will go to undermine the process itself.
In my view, they befuddled a conversation that was already too complex; one that I have trouble interpreting myself -- no less explaining to a friend.
(Pictured at top: Larry Bell, Bk Mungia, Michelle Lichtenberg and David Brodsky)
Photo credit: Bruce Wells
Trustees Appropriate Funds for Heathcote Stormwater Study
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Infrastructure issues were top priorities at the Scarsdale Board of Trustees Meeting on September 27. Flooding, sewage overflows and crumbling roads are plaguing the Village, and with limited funds available Village Managers are spending what they can to address these issues.
Mayor Flisser reported that she attended a meeting with Barry Road residents accompanied by Village Managers and the Superintendant of Public Works Benny Salinitro to discuss what could be done about the stagnant Hutchinson River tributary at the end of Barry and Tunstall Roads where there is a recurrent sewer overflow. There appears to be a need for a stormwater management program in this area that is also affected by the City of New Rochelle and the Town of Eastchester.Residents shared photographs that showed the condition of the tributary and new construction nearby.
After discussion, the Village staff agreed to the following:
- Contact New Rochelle to determine what they are doing to maintain the river and to find out if they can identity the source of the blockage. New Rochelle has taken recent action to clean up debris on their portion of the stream.
- Set up an inspection of the river in cooperation with New Rochelle.
- Contact the US Army Corps of Engineers to consider de-silting or other projects for the river.
- Check into eligibility for County grant money to fund projects that will reduce flooding associated with the river.
Salinitro agreed that dry sweeping the road after a sewer overflow is only a partial clean-up solution. He will research methods to sanitize the road surface as necessary. A follow up meeting will be held around October 20th.
In the Public Comments section, the conversation turned to flooding of the Sheldrake River Basin around Cayuga Pond. Doug Ulene, Neil Tucker and Alissa Kanowitz urged the Village to act quickly to find a solution to the problems in that area. Kanowitz, who has experienced major flooding three times in the past month alone showed pictures of the overflowing pond, her submerged swimming pool and yard to the Trustees. She said, “The problem is getting worse. We cannot afford to wait for years. We need to fix this immediately. We have only been here for one year and we never would have come had we known this problem existed. “
In response Trustees passed a resolution appropriating up to $47,000 for a study of the Sheldrake River Basin that would identify the problems and offer solutions. The funds will allow engineers from Dvirka and Bartilucci to do a preliminary plan for a stormwater improvement project for the area. Once this is completed, Trustees will have what they need to evaluate the issue, analyze improvement plans and estimate the costs.
Roadwork: The Village also passed a resolution to appropriate an additional $400,000 for road repair, resurfacing and curbing. The original 2011 -12 budget only included $320,000 for road work, a steep reduction from the $990,000 spent in 2011-12. This new appropriation will bring funding for roadwork to $720,000.
Last, Trustees passed a resolution to allow the Scarsdale Youth Football league to use lights on the field three times per week from October 1 through November 12. The lights will give the league extended playing time and will be turned off by 7:30 pm.
Trustee Brodsky announced a Public Hearing on Tuesday October 25th at Village Hall to review amendments to the Village Code on affordable housing.
