Robin Stout's Statement on Conifer Special Permit Vote

(Below is a copy of New Castle Councilman Robin Stout's statement)

Community Consensus

For more than a year and a half, I have listened very closely to many New Castle residents discuss the merits of Chappaqua Station, both inside and outside this hearing room. What I hear is a broad consensus about the nature of our community, and about some of our goals for the future, and it is those conversations that lead me to support the Conifer Special Permit application tonight.

Of course it is no surprise that we see ourselves as an opening and welcoming community, firmly rooted in family and education, for that’s really our essence. I am reminded of this every September, when new families move into the neighborhood, and new children appear at the bus stop. It’s a wonderful time. We treasure the collective sense of community we have, and we want to be able to share it with friends and neighbors. Everyone should come to Community Day on September 21, to see all that our Town has to offer.

More specifically, we are ready and willing to create a more diverse array of housing opportunity in our community, which will allow a broader array of people to enjoy the many benefits of living in New Castle. If there was any silver lining to this terrible recession, at least we got to “age in place” a bit, and hold on to more of our empty nesters, and enjoy the many benefits of more age diversity in our community.

But more specifically still, there is also a broad consensus in our community that New Castle will greatly benefit from creating a range of housing options available to a range of income levels. We are in favor of supporting small, family-size, lots, and we are in favor of smaller, more affordable, units that can house the dedicated local workforces that keep our Town, our schools, and our local businesses running. And there is very broad support for affordable housing, and a very broad and deep understanding and belief that increased diversity will enrich our community.

Achieving Suitable Housing

So how do we as a community, working together, keep moving toward these common goals? For many years this Town Board has been open to, and actively trying to encourage, development of affordable housing in our community. That’s a difficult task, given a relative scarcity of sites and the resulting increased cost of land. We have worked to identify potential suitable sites, and have sought to attract affordable housing to such sites. For those of you who think we haven’t done enough, or haven’t focused on the right site, I say to you: let’s continue the search together; we shouldn’t stop now; plenty of need remains.

But more than 18 months ago, in February of 2012, Conifer brought to us a proposal for affordable housing at Hunts Lane. Is it an ideal site? No; but ideal sites are rare in the real world. Is it a site which can accommodate a new, beautiful, and useful addition to our community? I believe it is. Smart, sustainable growth, which will slow sprawl and preserve open space, starts with building near transit and near commercial hubs. Chappaqua Station will be a short walk from the Chappaqua hamlet and the MetroNorth train station. Further, some have called this site the “gateway to our community”. I don’t agree, but I have lived in New Castle for 19 years and the only thing I remember on that site (other than the recent bridge staging) is an old dilapidated barn. New construction will definitely be an improvement over that, and over many of the immediately surrounding buildings. And let’s not forget that, very nearby, residential housing already exists.

So then, the question for me becomes: what is appropriate construction on this site? I perceived Conifer’s original proposal as a five-story, 36-unit, “box-like structure” with only 12 two-bedroom units, and I agreed with observations from the Planning Board and the Architectural Review Board and others that such design was not appropriate. However, since that time, in my opinion Conifer has listened closely to community comments and by my count has revised its proposal some seven times. Conifer has made a number of significant design changes directly responsive to comments from the Town Board, the Planning Board, the Architectural Review Board, and the citizens of New Castle. The current proposal has a pair of four-story peaks, but is largely a three-story townhouse design with varied, stepped, rooflines and architectural treatments that will visually beautify the building. Equally important, bulk and density have been reduced, in part by decreasing the number of units from 36 to 28, and the two-bedroom count has increased to 17, the better to accommodate New Castle families. The design and landscaping will match the hamlet and will blend in with the new Route 120 bridge, and in my opinion the day it opens the current design will be more attractive that some surrounding buildings.

Our New Neighbors

There can be no dispute that there is an urgent need for a diverse range of housing options, including affordable housing, all across our region. Therefore, there is no doubt in my mind that, when Chappaqua Station becomes ready for occupancy, there will be a very long line of applicants, not a single one of whom will feel the least bit stigmatized by moving into New Castle and into the Chappaqua Central School District, although some have argued to the contrary. What remains is how we, as a community, will embrace our new neighbors. And that leads me back to where I began: we are an open and welcoming community with many benefits we are willing to share. I have no doubt our hearts will be open. I live just down the street from the site, and I walk across the bridge on a regular basis, and it’s a pleasant sight to see parents walking their children to Bell School in the morning. It reminds me of what our community is, and will continue to be, all about.

Change is hard. I can just imagine what some of our forbearers thought when what is now Bell School was built on Horace Greeley’s formerly bucolic hillside. I remember clearly the voices who thought the Route 120 bridge would be a disaster. But I continue to assert that in order for communities to remain vibrant and attractive in the 21st Century, and to prosper and yes to maintain property values, we cannot remain stagnant. We must continue to evolve in healthy and sustainable ways. I believe that, together, we take one more step toward that goal tonight.

Thank you.

Robin Stout

September 10, 2013