Legionaries Redeveloper Anxious to Start Review

The developer who is seeking to overhaul the Legionaries of Christ site in eastern New Castle wants to the town board to get the environmental review process started soon.

Appearing before the town board at a Tuesday work session, Stephen Oder of Soder Real Estate Equities, LLC gave an overview of the latest iteration of his plan, which is called The Spa at New Castle. It includes 50 condominiums, 34 hotel rooms, a spa and restaurant. The development will be concentrated in and around a 1920s-area mansion, whose 1950s-era wings would be demolished and replaced with wings to house the condos. Thirty of the hotel rooms would be built in a new, 30,000-square-foot building to the south and connected to the main structure, while four hotel rooms will be in the mansion.

According to a petition filed with the town, the project would have about 200 parking spaces, the majority of which would be covered, along with basketball and tennis court space, a 75-seat theatre and a juice bar. Other amenities would include a restaurant, a 2-level spa, an outdoor pool facing north. The condos will each have two bedrooms and be roughly 2,500 square feet, while the hotel rooms will range from 650 to 750 square feet.

David Steinmetz, Oder's attorney, urged the town board to begin the process as soon as possible and to decide on whether it or the planning board should serve as lead agency for it.

“We have a formal application filed, there's no reason it shouldn't be processed,” he said. “We feel we have waited somewhat patiently and are anxious to spend the energy, the time working with your board, with the planning board, with your staff, to move forward.”

The formal petition for the plan was filed with the town in March. Since the currently zoning for the site is R-2A (2-acre, single-family residential), it will require creating a new floating zone to allow for a “Resort Lifestyle Complex,” which would apply to properties of at least 75 acres and have at least 300 feet of frontage along state or county roads. The site for the plan, which will be intended for empty-nester types, is nearly 97 acres and is located at 773 Armonk Road (Route 128). The property is also located in the Bedford Central School District.

Before the petition was filed, Oder considered several versions of the plan. In September, when he first approached the town board, the proposal included 66 condos and 30 hotel rooms, a spa and four new side buildings. In October, he considered an all-residential version that had 80 units and eight, 3-story side buildings. A third version was presented to the board in January and had 54 condos and 30 hotel rooms.

Soder does not own the site, Steinmetz noted, but is merely a contract vendee. This means that it would buy the property from the Legionaries of Christ if it gets town approval for the plan. He also noted that the nature of Soder's deal with the religious order was a reason for needing to move the process along, saying that they have “some real serious constraints from the church to advance the ball.”

In terms of procedure, either the town board or planning board could serve as lead agency, Steinmetz stated, because under state law they are considered to be involved agencies in the process. Involved agencies are those who will be able to make decisions on projects, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. In this case, the town board would vote on whether to rezone the site and the planning board, if the zoning is given, would decide on whether to give site plan approval.

Supervisor Susan Carpenter noted that the proposal would also need a change to the town's master plan, which last received a major update in 1989 and is currently undergoing another one. The town board would have to approve any master plan change to enable the new zone.

Councilman Jason Chapin thought that the existing workload could be considered in which board should be the lead agency. Currently, the town board is serving as it for two major land use projects: a retail rezoning plan at Chappaqua Crossing for 120,000 square feet of space, and Conifer Reality's 28-unit Chappaqua Station affordable housing plan for Hunts Place.

Steinmetz, who gave a preference for the town board to take on the role, requested a decision within weeks, and argued that state environmental regulation says that a determination of who should be lead agency must be made at “the earliest possible date.”

Expressing a decreasing patience on his client's behalf and noting how many months the project has been discussed, Steinmetz said that to ask Oder to “sit on the sidelines” is “just not fair any longer.”

It appears, based on dialogue between Steinmetz and board members, that the board will consider legal advice from Town Attorney Clinton Smith for how it should proceed next. Even though the big step has yet to be made, board members were also asking questions about the plan.

Carpenter asked whether a septic analysis submitted with the petition took into account the restaurant and spa. Oder, who said there could be as many as 150 seats in the restaurant, replied that they are included.

Chapin wondered whether traffic would fluctuate by season given the older demographic intended for the housing, and said that empty nesters tend to travel. Oder replied that there would be some seasonal differences, while Steinmetz remarked that a worst-case traffic scenario would have to be studied for the plan.

When discussion came up about the financial landscape for the project, Oder noted that the condos would "support" the other infrastructure on the site.

One neighbor of the site, Sharon Greene, gave her concern at the meeting about the possible impact of the plan. A resident of nearby Tripp Street, Greene felt that proposal could have more impact than what could otherwise be on the site. In response, Carpenter noted that there were a lot of environmental impacts for the site were analyzed as part of a previous proposal from the Legionaries of Christ, which was meant to be a seminary, and felt that the information could be looked at again.