A developer”™s offer to donate $1 million for the town of Greenburgh to buy parkland was secured by members of a town civic group who agreed not to oppose or delay a 444-unit apartment project, a letter from the company”™s attorney shows.
A letter from attorney Peter J. Wise was posted online Sept. 5, five years after it was signed by all relevant parties, but only two weeks after the donation was first discussed publicly by the Greenburgh Town Board. Lawmakers must accept the donation by Oct. 1, the date on which the offer expires.
A stipulation of the donation listed in the letter is that representatives of the East Irvington Civic Association “may not oppose and/or frustrate the grant of the approvals and/or cause the grant of approvals to be delayed, in any manner and by any means.” Wise, an attorney with White Plains firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr L.L.P., was referencing the 444-unit Avalon Green II, which has since been built in the East Irvington neighborhood.
AvalonBay Communities Inc. and Robert Martin Company L.L.C. reached an agreement with the president of the association in 2009, while the development partnership was looking to build Avalon Green II. The donation must be used to buy a 28-acre swath of land in the village of Tarrytown to expand the 190-acre Taxter Ridge Park.
Although agreements for parkland are often part of a concession package from a developer to a municipality, this donation is unique in several regards. Firstly, the donation must be approved by Greenburgh even though the land is in Tarrytown, a municipality contained within Greenburgh but that has its own government. East Irvington is part of Greenburgh, not Tarrytown.
Secondly, the deal was struck not with the town but with Danny Gold, the civic association”™s president. Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said the town had not been party to negotiations five years ago and that he had not heard about the potential donation until this summer.
Feiner said he was in favor of accepting the donation because it would add to open space in the area. “If the neighborhood association is embracing affordable housing and welcoming it ”” and they”™re able to get something for it ”” I think that”™s a positive,” he said. The town Ethics Board is reviewing the donation after Feiner wrote a letter asking for an opinion from the board.
Feiner told the Business Journal that permits and approvals for Avalon Green II were given before elected officials knew of the civic association”™s agreement with the developer. AvalonBay, though, is looking to build another 68 apartments to add to the development and that application is yet to be approved.
The agreement included a confidentiality clause and the letter was only recently shared with the town, Feiner said. A separate civic organization, The Edgemont Community Council, posted a copy of the letter on its Facebook page after obtaining it from the town under a Freedom of Information Law request.
Edgemont Community Council President Robert Bernstein criticized the agreement, which he said favors the individuals named in the agreement as representatives of the East Irvington civic group. Two of the members, Bernstein said, live in Tarrytown and not East Irvington ”” with all three standing to gain property value of their homes from a parkland “buffer” that would be enhanced by the donation. He also is pushing for a written agreement from Tarrytown officials saying they would pay to maintain the new parkland, which under law would be Greenburgh”™s financial responsibility without the village”™s assuming of maintenance costs.
The Edgemont Community Council met Sept. 8 at its first meeting of the 2014-15 year, with Bernstein saying the group”™s directors “expressed skepticism that this was the type of matter that should be decided by the town”™s Board of Ethics, noting that there are a number of open issues that call into question whether the agreement is of any benefit to the town at all.”
