Tarrytown Village Notes, Part 3

The following notes are from joint Tarrytown Board of Trustees and/or Planning Board meetings over the past month and are intended to provide the reader with a summary of where major issues stand:

In a joint session on January 17 at Village Hall, the Planning Board and the Trustees listened to Village consultant Frank Fish, of Buckhurst Fish & Jaquemart, Inc., present the first draft of the Ferry Landings “Findings” document.

This action is the last step in the New York SEQRA process and follows the acceptance of the project FEIS. A follow-up “working draft” session was scheduled for January 31, with a February 6 intended date for the joint acceptance of the final “Findings” document.

In another action involving the Planning Board on January 23, the subject of allowing the South Broadway General Motors Training Center to add a modification to their service facility was considered. This action would include the personnel development and training for GM’s new Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles. A presentation from GM was led by the company’s Detroit-based Field Operations Supervisor for Fuel Cell activities, William Shepard, who indicated that “public safety” was high on GM’s list of priorities. That position was instantly met with strong dissent by a number of citizens as well as representatives from the adjacent JCC property. Chairman Stanley Friedlander indicated that further discussion of key safety issues would be necessary in future Planning Board sessions. Public comment was clear that they had no issue with substitute fuels but felt that a less populated, safer site should be selected.

Wilson Park’s developers were to continue with a January 23 public discussion of their DEIS, but a last minute request from Wilson Park & Land Co., LLC to move to a future date was allowed by Chairman Friedlander. Several inconclusive public comments were made on the project primarily dealing with house density, tree removal and runoff, particularly toward the Tarrytown Lakes. The discussion will be continued at the next Planning Board session.

A new office construction development at l55 White Plains road, handled by Crescent Associates, was questioned by the Planning Board in terms of traffic volume. Friedlander and the Board indicated that traffic studies done in the past were outdated by, as yet, unmeasured traffic coming from two new developments in the Rt.119 and Taxter Rd. area. A new Sheraton is being built plus a new Avalon apartment house, each in the Town of Greenburgh. Neither were included in the traffic measurements of the Crescent Associates project. The Planning Board expects to raise these issues with the developer.

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About the Author: Arnold Thiesfeldt