48°
The proposed site would consist of 54 units of senior affordable housing on county-owned property near the intersection of Theodore Fremd Avenue and North Street. The Planning Commission will discuss the issue at its meeting Tuesday night and make a recommendation on re-zoning the property to the City Council, which plans to set a public hearing for Wednesday, Feb. 26. Mayor Joe Sack said that he also hopes to hold an on-site public hearing where the development would be built.
"I want to give everyone from the neighboring community and the community at large an opportunity to go down to the site and to work around poke around and take a look at what's down there and where this development might go," Sack said. He also said that he plans to have the city send out written notices to all the neighbors so that they are informed about the project and its progress.
"So we're going to make sure throughout this whole process that people are fully aware, fully on notice, fully informed, so that when it comes time to make a final decision, everyone feels comfortable doing that."
There has been talk of building affordable housing on the site since the 1980's. Under the county's agreement with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, 25 percent of the 750 affordable housing units to be built in Westchester can be designated as senior housing. According to Norma Drummond of the Westchester Department of Planning, the county could have placed all 25 percent in a development in northern Westchester, but decided to reserve some units for Rye because of the long interest in building senior affordable housing.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation did discover some contamination on the site during testing in 2011, but has said since that the site is developable, according to Drummond. The county Department of Health did some testing this summer, and determined that the site was fine for development as long as there is no enclosed residential space on the first floor. The plans for development call for parking garages on the first floor of the two buildings.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Rye and receive free news updates.
