Merchants are telling the New Castle Town Board that the planned overhaul of Chappaqua's lower King Street will be disruptive.

The board heard from three business owners last night at its work session, while getting written comment or indirect feedback from others.

Marmalade owner Cindy Lupica stated that she is opposed to doing it this year, given the impact of disruption from the recent Route 120 bridge construction and its contractor taking up parking in a nearby lot. She stated that more disruption will discourage people from shopping in the area, and that she her business has been hurt by those who are not coming.

“It will severely, severely hurt," she said.

Lupica called for the board members to postpone the proposal to give merchants time to get traction back with their customers.

“It’s hard, but we’re working like crazy trying to get these people to come back. she said.

Lupica brought a letter from Chappaqua Village Market's Vinny Milazzo about the proposal and stated that he has similar feelings about it.

The project, which is part of the town's broader hamlet revitalization plan for downtown Chappaqua, involves major work in several aspects. They include digging up lower King to replace water and sewer lines, replacement of sidewalks and pavement, shifting parking spots to align next to the southward side of the street, and creation of a pocket park at the intersection with Allen Place. According to Town Administrator Penny Paderewski, the current estimated cost for the plan is $645,000. She also gave a July to September construction time table, with a total of 6-9 months when including the planning and bidding phases.

Aurora owner Dawn Greenberg, while not happy about the disruptive impact of the work, wants to get it over with.

“I feel like I’d rather just bite the bullet and get this done," she said to the town board.

Susan Maher, owner of Breeze, wants to see that merchants are informed about the proposal.

“I think what I’d like out of all of this is just where are we in the planning process and being involved, and what is beautification mean,” she said. Maher also said that she would like to see better lighting near her store.

Supervisor Susan Carpenter cautioned that the sewer and water infrastructure work is an important matter, and said that having those pipes break down could hurt businesses.

Lupica felt that the impact of ongoing disruption from the road work could be more economically harmful than the infrastructure problems.

“It’s an unknown versus a known," she said about the different scenarios.

In addition, Lupica touched on the town board's previous decision to look at overhauling lower King Street this year instead of the original proposal for similar work on South Greeley Avenue, which is also a hamlet plan phase. This choice was made in order to give that road's merchants a respite after being impacted by Route 120 bridge work and a renovation of their back parking lot.

Giving a comparison to the South Greeley situation, Lupica noted that lower King merchants have also been hurt by the bridge work, including a loss of roughly half of the Allen Place parking lot spaces to Conti, the project's contractor.

“It has been 3 years of just our parking lot of being constantly disrupted," she said.

Water and sewer line replacements for South Greeley Avenue are now set for 2013. The town will need to replace the aging pipes then because of their condition, according to Paderewski. It is not known what year replacement of the water and sewer lines on lower King will reach the same level of immediacy as those on South Greeley.

Board members plan to meet with more merchants and are asking for their feedback on the proposal, which will shape what their plans are moving forward.