What About That Wall?

At a meeting of the Law and Land Use Committees of the Village Board on Wednesday night November 9, 2011, members of the Scarsdale Forum’s Zoning and Planning Committee went head to head with village trustees about the village’s management of construction projects.

Unhappy about the clear cutting of trees and the construction of a high retention wall at the Heathcote Manor project on Weaver Street, the Forum Committee, represented at the meeting by David Buchen, Lena Crandall, Dan Hochvert, Martin Kaufman and Bea Underweiser asked the Village to look into a revision of the building code and called for a moratorium on all development until this could be done.

However, given the unusual nature of this project, and its 20-year timeline, Trustees Brodsky and Mark defended the actions of the village's boards and staff and concluded that the sequence of events was unique and should not be the basis for a revision of Village building code.

In a November 3, 2011 letter to the trustees, the Forum committee cites “the clear cutting of the trees and the construction of an offensive wall along Weaver Street” and calls for the Village to “to limit or restrain such offensive blights upon our sense of the well forested, green nature of this largely single family residential community. A broad inquiry into our codes or our processes would be useful ex-ante new multiple unit development, instead of ex-post.” Given that the landscaping plan for Heathcote Manor was approved in 2004, the Forum Committee questioned why the plan did not have an expiration date so that new thinking about landscaping and flooding could be considered almost eight years later. They discussed the need for regulation on the maximum height of front-yard retaining walls and also wanted to know why the B.A.R. had not seen elevation drawings of the Heathcote Manor retention wall to help them better understand what it would look like when built.

The Forum Committee called for a moratorium on large-scale development while the Village considered zoning amendments.

Brodsky and Mark reviewed the history of the project in order to answer the Forum’s concerns. They found that the project had been on the agenda for 25 meetings of the Planning Board, BAR and Village Board since 1986. In their words, the project was “thoroughly reviewed and debated,” and in response to comments, “the Planning Board considered more than 70 different plans relating to the property.”

Though Brodsky and Mark agreed that the Village should look into assigning expiration dates for site plans, and asked the Village staff to investigate, expiration dates would not have changed the course of action for this project … “for reasons highly beneficial to the community and discussed below, this development proceeded as an approved cluster subdivision with a subdivision plan filed with the County Department of Land Records.” And after it was filed, only the property owner could change the terms of the subdivision.

Brodsky and Mark also noted that an early site plan called for nine homes and nine curb cuts along Weaver Street. This was later changed to one curb cut to mitigate traffic concerns, reduce lot coverage and preserve open space. On the matter of the retention wall, the trustees found that the Planning Board had acted “within its statutory mandate, (and) retained aesthetic control over the appearance of the wall. The height, length, and style of the wall were all considered. Various veneers and stone colors were discussed. The wall was redesigned to minimize its visual impact, and a detailed landscaping plan was developed to integrate the wall into the overall property design.” In addition, tree removal to facilitate the building of the project was approved by the Planning Board who also called for 250 replacement trees to be planted on the property.

The trustees noted that in the 25 years since this project has been in the works, large development projects have been built at Windmiill and Fairview Roads, at Christie Place and at Westchester Reform Temple. These followed the same approval processes, and therefore, the trustees concluded, “the Forum Report appears to arise from dissatisfaction with the results of one particular project at an interim stage of development and does not, in our view, support an overhaul of the entire approval system, which has worked and continues to work in numerous other cases.”

Their response concludes by saying, “Dissatisfaction by some with a particular result – and specifically an unfinished result --does not support the argument that the process in the Village is broken.”

Meanwhile, construction appears to be stalled at Heathcote Manor. Village Planner Liz Marrinan has asked the developer to plant some trees in front of the wall to mask it, but has received no response. Thought building permits have been issued for a few of the homes, little progress has been made.