Our Existing Building Code is Failing Us

(The following letter was sent to us by Mary Beth Evans and Dan Moretti of Edgewood Road)
Dear Mayor Arest and Village Trustees, Thank you for proposing a temporary pause on single-family housing development. This pause is necessary to allow you time to address long-standing but increasingly critical issues regarding the quality and scale of new construction, along with the loss of the tree canopy and open space in Scarsdale.

Our existing Village codes and regulations are clearly failing two of the four main community goals articulated in our Comprehensive Plan, namely: “1) To preserve the village’s existing architectural character and scale of development” and “2) To maintain the image of a village in a park” (Comprehensive Plan, Scarsdale, NY, pp. i-ii). Moreover, if permitted unchecked, current building trends in a context of continued global warming threaten to exacerbate existing Village-wide stormwater management issues and related costly property damage.

We both grew up in Scarsdale, and since we moved back in 1995, the sizes of new single-family homes being constructed here have been steadily increasing. We understand the need for new development and the rationale for tearing down and replacing some old homes, but the most recent trend seems to be to build as much house as possible – to more than double the square footage of the previous home -- at the expense of open space and mature trees and seemingly without regard to how the volume or bulk of the new structure relates to surrounding properties.

In our area of Edgewood, many lots are in the range of 5 - 10,000 square feet. As the Village Board recently noted, much of 247 Nelson RoadEdgewood was developed during the 1920s as “a more modest neighborhood” (“Findings of the Village of Scarsdale Board of Trustees, 247 Nelson Road,” p. 6). But we’re now seeing modest sized parcels being consumed by well over 4,000 square foot homes, with 6 bedrooms and 7 baths and 9 to 10-foot ceilings, such as one would more typically find on half acre or larger lots in Scarsdale. If our building and zoning codes continue to permit this, in short order much of Edgewood will lose its tree canopy, will no longer resemble a “village in a park,” and will be vulnerable to more frequent and damaging flooding.

The new homes we’ve started to see going up in Edgewood also have asking prices that are well more than double what they’ve replaced. This represents a further narrowing of the range of housing stock diversity, making Scarsdale an even less economically diverse place to live. We note this in response to a questionable statement that one resident developer made at the November 14th and again at the December 12th meeting, when he claimed that a 6-month moratorium would prevent new families from moving in and thus serve to impede diversity in Scarsdale. To the contrary, it is the high cost of single-family homes, along with the continued absence of more affordable multi-family housing, that has been a major deterrent to young families moving in and the main impediment to diversity in Scarsdale. In this regard, we believe it is appropriate that the current proposed moratorium does not affect multi-family housing construction, and we urge the Board to finally address the development of the Freightway property and for Scarsdale to start doing its fair share in meeting the dire need for more affordable housing in Westchester.

At the November 14 and again at the December 12th meeting, other developers reminded us that we rely on increases to the tax base to keep Scarsdale property taxes in check. We agree that this is a benefit. Yet, it is a benefit we now see as coming with lasting costs. Certainly, it’s time for us as a community to start weighing all the costs against the supposed benefits of a permissive single-family housing development policy. A 6-month moratorium is the most even-handed and fair way to allow the necessary time and space for this long overdue process to happen. Even those who are against the moratorium say they support the idea of revisions to the building and zoning codes. But without a moratorium, how does Scarsdale prevent 6 more months’ worth of construction based on current codes that so many agree are allowing lasting harm to be done to our community?

Sincerely,

Mary Beth Evans
Dan Moretti
Edgewood Road