Comprehensive Plan

The Village of Ossining is on the right track in developing a new Comprehensive Plan to deal with the realities of a municipality that has lost its industrial base and whose zoning may no longer adequately address its present or future residential and commercial needs. The 1959 plan and its ensuing zoning are obsolete, as are the never-adopted successor plans. In adopting a new Comprehensive Plan we will set the pattern for economic development of the Village for the next decade. The Plan is being created by a committee of citizen volunteers who represent many geographic areas and social organization affiliations. The Committee has the guidance of Village Planner and an association of consultants. It has received responses from 1500 residents in answer to a written survey and will begin to hold regular community meetings in October. This work will bring us closer to a workable, detailed plan for the future of the Village. I am liaison from the Board, helping to steer the work of the Committee.

Moratorium on Construction

I believe a moratorium during the development of a Comprehensive Plan, as proposed by some well-intentioned citizens, would be counter-productive to the process and to the needs of the Village. The creation of a well thought-out and constructed plan, with ample opportunity for citizen input, will take a minimum of eighteen months; we cannot afford delay the renaissance of the Village that long. The only time a moratorium on construction might be of use is in the period between the adoption of the Master Plan and the passage of new zoning laws to conform to it. However, I believe that the Master Plan and the zoning law amendments should have their final public hearings at the same meeting or rapid succession of them, followed by their immediate adoption, making a moratorium unnecessary even then. It will be a very long meeting.

Downtown

That Plan must include the responsible development a vibrant Downtown Business District, encouraging new commercial and business enterprises while supporting those merchants who have loyally contributed to the Village. Our zoning for the district should also encourage the protection of existing residents and the development of new affordable housing by offering incentives to developers and by mandating its inclusion in the zoning. We need to encourage more destination restaurants, bookstores, entertainment and cultural facilities. Since I joined the Board, new restaurants have opened throughout the Village. Lucy’s Pizza is coming back with a new Chinese restaurant next door. Taking a lesson from the success of the Farmers’ Market, we should encourage other specialty food stores. The newly remodeled C Town is a great example of a store that, by offering merchandise not widely available, caters to our diverse population and brings other people to shop in our Village. The soon-to-be-started Super Stop and Shop may do the same for the Arcadian Shopping Center. Ossining once had a great diversity of ethnic foods available in our stores. I hope our richly diverse population will once again support such stores. We will look, once again at the feasibility of establishing a home for a year-round indoor farmer’s market, as well. The Board will soon decide on a developer for the "We Can Do It" parcel on Main Street and for the former DPW site at the foot of Main Street at Water Street. This last and its adjoining remediated park will at last tie the Downtown District to the Waterfront.

• Parking

  As our zoning encourages new businesses and homes Downtown, it must include creative solutions to our parking problems. The new meters and greater code enforcement are steps in the right direction. In the Comprehensive Plan, I believe we must require developers of new construction on open land to build and maintain sufficient in-ground or multi-level parking for their tenants and customers. As the plan for Downtown develops and we encourage new commercial ventures, we have authorized test borings for siting a multi–level parking facility. However, merchants on the Crescent tell me that, for now, they would prefer to have more customers fight for parking than more spots without cars.

Waterfront Development

We must look at the Riverfront as a whole and build parks with guaranteed access for all citizens, recreation facilities, new or rehabilitated residences at all economic levels, businesses, and restaurants — destinations that will draw longtime and new residents and tourists to our portion of one of the world’s great rivers. We’ve begun the development of Riverwalk, a linear park next to the Hudson shore from Scarborough Park to the Ossining Station through Crawbuckie Park and, because of our conservation easement agreement with the Dominican Sisters, around Mariandale. I am chairing the committee to build the Historic Sing Sing Prison Museum on the Riverfront.

• Housing

  Ossining has always had housing for residents of all economic abilities. We must maintain it. In order to expand the tax base, while minimizing future tax increases, and to encourage the construction of workforce and affordable housing, we must encourage high-end housing to be built on privately-owned and some Village-owned properties. To that effect, we have already passed the Village’s first policy on affordable housing, requiring all developments of over six units to include ten percent affordable units on-site, on another location, or to contribute significantly to a fund to build them elsewhere. We can also achieve our housing goals through the Planning Board and site review process. In the Comprehensive Plan, we can modify the percentage to best address the needs of our community’s future, if necessary.

• Housing our Employees

  The Village should make every effort to provide those of its employees who are required to live in its boundaries and whose incomes are below 80% of Westchester County median, and especially our police officers, with first options on affordable units.

• Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA)

  The Village should also take a lead from our neighboring municipalities, among which are Croton, Rye Brook, Greenburgh, Sleepy Hollow, and Pleasantville, and sign the ETPA on a limited basis to keep landlords of multi-family dwellings from exorbitantly increasing rents. But we must honestly and candidly acknowledge that we still could not legally stop the owners of Mitchell Lama Housing that was built and inhabited after December 31, 1973, from paying off their mortgages and increasing the rents on their properties to market value. In our Village, we must set aside inflammatory rhetoric and work together to elect a governor and legislators state-wide who are sympathetic to the needs of our residents and who will work with us on legislative remedies, such as removing the 1974 exception. We must also work with Westchester County to offer landlords incentives to remain in rent-subsidized programs as we did this year at Snowden House.

• Other Housing Protections

  We can and should do more. We can adapt to our Village’s needs and adopt the NYC Tenant Empowerment Act of 2005, giving tenants the right of first refusal to buy their buildings either on their own, or by working with a qualified not-for-profit, when owners decide to leave affordable housing programs

  It also guarantees the landlord a fair return on investment. We can also adopt many of the initiatives recommended by the Village of Ossining Affordable Housing Policy Analysis of 2001-2002, including measures to encourage the rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of existing housing and underutilized commercial and industrial building stock; and allowing accessory apartments to be created in single-family homes. We continue to increase the enforcement of building codes throughout the Village to ensure the safety of all residents. I am liaison to the newly-reactivated Landlord-Tenant Board, which looks into and tries to solve issues other than rent in multi-family dwellings.

Senior Concerns

We must work together with the senior community to define their needs and either extend the Community Center to meet those needs or look into constructing a separate facility. We also need housing for seniors at all economic levels. I encourage developers to propose the construction of market rate and affordable senior housing in conjunction with a senior center. As a bonus, the availability of safe, attractive, well designed and maintained senior housing would free up larger older homes for younger families.

Environment and Open Space

The Village has an obligation to maintain our infrastructure, our historic nature, and our environment. While encouraging development, we must protect our fragile multi-faceted environment. Ossining is endowed with riverfront, forested parks, developed parks, and reservoirs — all of which must be considered when addressing the development needs of the future. We are encumbered with an aging infrastructure. I believe we are on track for its continuing rehabilitation. We require any new construction to pass rigorous tests to prove that impact on the environment and Village services will be negligible. We must be vigilant that all such tests be met. We must investigate the establishment of conservation easements and natural reservations in our most fragile ecological areas. Much of what makes the Village of Ossining unique is the juxtaposition of our spectacular waterfront with our densely constructed downtown and sub-urban and rural neighborhoods. In developing for the future, we must guarantee sufficient open space to preserve the quality of our air, our water, our lives, to share and enjoy together On Park Day, September 30, 2006, the Village Board will dedicate three parks so that they may never be put on the market for development: Crawbuckie Park, Richard G. Wishnie Reservoir Park, and Arthur Jones Park. The Comprehensive Plan will define others.

Historical Preservation

The Village has only two designated Historic Districts: Downtown and Sparta. We are graced with many other historic building, as well. We must continue a program of historical preservation throughout the Village. But we must not use historical preservation as an excuse to deny reasonable development or contemporary designs of architectural significance.