A formal application filed by WBP Development LLC to build an affordable housing project on a former trash site used by the Ossining Department of Public Works is under review by the village”™s Board of Architectural Review and Planning Board.
As reported last November by the Business Journal, William Balter of Wilder Balter Partners had been leading an effort seeking community input while refining a housing proposal.
The formal application came about two years after the village of Ossining first began seeking a developer to handle redevelopment of the 3.4-acre DPW site. The village selected Wilder Balter as the preferred developer.
The project site is bounded by Water Street, Central Avenue, Main Street and Secor Road. The Kill Brook, also known as Sing Sing Kill, runs through the center of the property.
Plans call for an eight-story, mixed-use building with 109 units of affordable housing. The building would contain 3,558 square feet of retail space and 3,740 square feet of community use space that could be used by the village.
The project would require 155 parking spaces and the residential building would have 24 spaces for residents. There would be a separate four-level parking garage with an additional 131 spaces for the project plus 45 spaces on its top level that would be used by the village for municipal parking. The property’s two existing driveways along Water Street would remain and three driveways would be added along Central Avenue.
A plaza and park space would be created along the Sing Sing Kill and would be open to the public. The Sing Sing Gateway trail is proposed to be extended through the plaza to complete a pedestrian route between the village and the Metro-North Railroad station.
The Ossining Manufactured Gas Plant was on the site from the 1850s to the 1940s and at one time had been owned by Con Edison. Contamination on the site needs to be dealt with and WPB Development and Con Edison have an agreement under which the utility agreed to pay its fair share of contamination cleanup costs.
A brownfield remediation plan timeline indicates that WBP will ask the state Department of Environmental Conservation to accept the site into the Brownfield Clean-up Program and, after remediation and soil cleanup is complete, approve the site for residential use. The timeline indicates that approval would be expected in the fourth quarter of next year.
There would be 40 one-bedroom units, 60 two-bedroom units and nine three-bedroom units in the building. The apartments would be priced to be affordable to people earning from 30% to 80% of the Westchester County Average Median Income (AMI).
While the numbers can be expected to change based on newer AMIs, rents would begin at $677 a month for people earning 30% of the county”™s median average income and rise to $2,503 a month for the most expensive three-bedroom unit. The pricing would make units available to families with incomes ranging from $27,000 a year to $100,000 a year.
