PLANNING BOARD GIVES “NEGATIVE RECOMMENDATION” TO MIDWAY SHOPPING CENTER PROPOSAL TO BUILD TWO NEW STRUCTURES, CITING NEED FOR ADDITIONAL PARKING AND TRAFFIC MITIGATION The Greenburgh Planning Board last night voted 5-2 to give a “negative recommendation” to a proposal to build two new structures at the Midway Shopping Center in Edgemont, citing concerns about a lack of sufficient parking, chronically poor traffic flow at the site, and the number of motor vehicle accidents jeopardizing the safety of pedestrians. At issue was a proposal to add to the northern end of the shopping center, near Ardsley Road, a two-story 10,000 square foot building and a one-story 3,500 square foot building, and a request that the required number of parking spaces be reduced to accommodate the number of parking spaces that would be lost if the project were built. Several planning board members said they might have been inclined to support site plan approval if the applicant had been willing to include in its new structures a parking garage so that parking spaces would not be lost. The applicant said that would be too costly. Last night’s vote does not end the matter, however. Because Midway sits on more than five acres, the final say on whether to approve the Midway proposal now rests with the town board, where only three votes are required to give Midway the approval it needs. Before the town board votes on the matter, however, it will have to hold a public hearing, which will give opponents of the proposal another opportunity to register their objections. A number of residents from Edgemont had objected to the Midway proposal during a series of “public discussions” held by the planning board. Also opposed was Shop-Rite, which entered into a 40-year lease with the applicant when it moved into Midway a few years ago, and is apparently suing for alleged breaches of its lease arising out of the impact the proposed new structures would have on parking for Shop-Rite customers . The applicant had wanted the planning board to approve a plan for “shared parking” in which the number of required spaces would be reduced to account for the fact that most of the space in the new buildings were to be used as restaurants which supposedly would only need parking at night, as opposed to during the day when parking would be used by customers in the shopping center’s retail stores. However, even with shared parking, the shopping center would have still been several hundred parking spaces short of what is required. . Public safety was cited as a major concern, with planning board members noting that there were more accidents in the past three years involving Midway than were reported at the much larger Crossroads Shopping Center on Tarrytown Road. Others expressed disappointment that the applicant had not only failed to improve deteriorating traffic conditions at the site, but was taking the approach that if its proposal was not recommended, the public should not expect to see any public safety improvements. Other concerns had to do with constructing the new buildings on the northern end of the shopping center where traffic congestion is considered the worst. Fewer problems were cited with the southern end of the shopping center, where Red Lobster is located and there is apparently less of a problem with traffic congestion and safety. The applicant, however, was not interested in expanding at the southern end of the site. Last night’s action by the planning board marked a rare rebuke to the planning board chair, Fran McLaughlin, who generally seemed to support the Midway application, albeit with conditions intended to address the parking and safety objections. Indeed, in recent years, the planning board has almost never rejected a proposed site plan from a commercial developer. Whether the Town Board will now muster the three votes it needs to grant site plan approval, thus effectively overruling the Planning Board, depends on one hand, how badly the town board wants to see new commercial ratables in the town generally and in Edgemont in particular, and on the other, how much it wants to alienate Edgemont residents opposed to the proposal who already have little confidence in the town board’s ability to make smart land use decisions particularly as they affect Edgemont residents. With reassessment on the horizon, it is possible that the percentage of property taxes paid by homeowners in Edgemont will increase substantially as compared to the percentage paid by commercial property owners in Edgemont.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 21:12:48 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015