Depot — » » From page 1
facility for years. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Spano said. “They’re occupying some of the most primo property on the water’s edge with their MTA buses.” In 2015, Spano sent a letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio expressing his frustration with the extended process and his hopes that the situation could be resolved without resorting to the courts. Since that time, Spano said his administration has made a number of attempts to find a new site for the MTA bus depot and has held multiple conversations with officials of the mayoral administration in New York City. “That’s really all we get,” Spano said of those conversations. “We get a lot of, ‘Oh, this is nice conversation,’ and then they go cold.” “Maybe they’re trying to wait us out, but they certainly don’t want to deal with this.” Yonkers officials claim New York City has failed to respond with a reasonable price for the property. The city has asked that Yonkers pay $25 million to fund construction of a new bus garage in addition to the cost of the land. New York City in 2005 paid $10.5 million to acquire the property at the foot of Alexander Street from Liberty Lines Express. “I daresay if these buses were stored along the Manhattan or Brooklyn waterfronts they would be relocated in a heartbeat,” Spano said. Requests for comment from both New York City and the MTA were notreturned at press time. The property sits adjacent to Manhattan-based Extell Development Co.’s proposed 1,395-unit luxury rental apartment complex. The six-building development with 51,800-squarefeet of commercial space would sit on 22 waterfront acres stretching from the former British International Cable Corp. property at 1 Point St. to the vacant Excelsior Packaging plant at 159 Alexander St. The bus depot, used by the MTA to service bus lines in the northern Bronx and lower Westchester County, also sits
Home — » » From page 1
hoods,” said Stanley Silverstein, executive director of IAHD, at a March public hearing. IAHD was started in 1957 by a group of parents of children with developmental disabilities. The nonprofit employs 800 people and provides services to another 800 through 30 group homes, with 20 in the Bronx and 10 in Westchester. The plans for the group home on New York South Avenue caught the attention of residents in the proposed home’s Prospect Park neighborhood. The public hearing on the proposal last month lasted more than two hours. Residents cited the size of the group home and a saturation of similar facilities nearby as reasons for the Common Council to oppose the plan. Michelle Perkins, president of the Prospect Park Neighborhood Association, said the proposal is too large for the resi-
6
APRIL 10, 2017
WCBJ
north of a 609-unit apartment complex planned by developer AvalonBay. “It would be a gateway for those two developments,” Spano said of the planned Alexander Street extension. “If the bus garage stayed there, you would have to drive through this bus garage to get to this beautiful waterfront housing. It’s an eyesore on the waterfront of Yonkers.” In March, the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency agreed to hold a public hearing on the possible condemnation of a portion of the bus depot property needed for roadway improvements, which would be the first step to an eventual taking by eminent domain. The Yonkers City Council approved an initial condemnation request in 2015, but Spano said utilizing the IDA is more appropriate since that agency is expected to be involved in the overall Alexander Street redevelopment project. “It’s just not fair to taxpayers of Yonkers,” he said. “They don’t pay New York City tax and they shouldn’t have to share in New York City’s burdens.” Michael Rickon, a Manhattan lawyer who specializes in eminent domain cases, said though it is not particularly common, the use of eminent domain by one municipality to acquire land owned by another municipality has “happened many times before.” “The general rule is, a government cannot condemn the property of a higher government,” he said, citing a number of cases where New York state acquired property owned by cities across the state. However, in the case of Yonkers and New York City, when neither is an overarching body, the protocol for invoking eminent domain would be identical to the procedures of acquiring land from a private property owner, Rickon said. Spano said he believes Yonkers is “perfectly within our rights” to gain control of the property. “They’re not an overlapping government,” he said. “They’re a city.” Yonkers Deputy Mayor Susan Gerry said that while she does not believe it is common for a municipality to condemn another government’s property, taking control of the site for public use “would seemingly apply here.” “If you want to take that approach of which public use trumps, or has more value to the public and the community, we believe that sleeping buses on the waterfront is going to
dential neighborhood. The neighborhood streets are narrow and often busy with children and other pedestrians, she said. Neighbors are concerned about increased dangers from potential traffic caused by staff members and other uses from the group home. “What we’ve tried to prove to the city is largely the safety issue,” Perkins told the Business Journal. “We are not against having a home for the developmentally disabled in Prospect Park.” Under a state law known as the Padavan law, group home proposals are treated as a single family residence for local zoning review. A municipality can only suggest an alternative site or object to the establishment of a group home if it would create a concentration of the facilities that would alter a neighborhood’s character. The state has the final say on the proposal. Silverstein said that previous group homes proposed by IAHD have faced similar
ALEXANDER STREET BUS DEVELOPMENT NYC-MTA BUS LOT ◀◀ An aerial view of the Alexander Street redevelopment area where the city of Yonkers is ready to use eminent domain to acquire New York Cityowned property.
lose,” she said. For Spano, while the looming court battle was one he had hoped to avoid, he is prepared for the fight. “We keep hearing that it’s like David and Goliath,” he said. “And that excites us.”
resident concerns about traffic and safety. “Those are the types of concerns brought up, this is not unique to Prospect Park,” Silverstein told the Business Journal. “Concerns about what will this do to traffic? What will this do to safety? Who are these people that are going to live there? We hear that often, but we don’t often have the municipality object.” The resolution passed by the Common Council on March 8 objected to IAHD’s proposal on the grounds that the establishment would “result in such a concentration of community residential facilities that the nature and character” of the neighborhood would be altered. The council voted 6-1 in favor of the objection. “I have lived near a group home and didn’t have any issue,” said Councilwoman Nadine Hunt-Robinson. However, in this, “I conclude we have reached oversaturation point and that the proposed community residence would irreparably change the nature
and the character of the community.” Councilwoman Beth Smayda cast the only vote against the objection filed by the city. “I need to live with my decisions also,” Smayda said. “And I truly do not have it in my heart to tell these potential residents that they are not welcome in White Plains.” There are 35 group home facilities in White Plains, according to a map posted on the city’s website. While this would be the first in the Prospect Park neighborhood, there are facilities nearby on West Post Road and Tibbits Avenue. IAHD’s application said a “saturation pre-study” from the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities found that there was not an abundance of similar homes in the neighborhood. The proposal will next be reviewed April 19 by a hearing officer designated by the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.