With all six seats on the Port Chester Board of Trustees up for grabs in elections last Tuesday, candidates, residents and labor and advocacy groups are focused on one issue in the village: a proposed $300 million development on the former United Hospital site.
Following Tuesday’s voting, the board is now split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans Francis Ferrara, Gene Ceccarelli and Bart Didden join Democrats Gregory Adams, Daniel Brakewood and Luis Marino.
They beat out independent candidates Alex Chavarria and Alejandro Payan.
None of the incumbents who ran for reelection were voted out. Ferrara and Didden, the winning challengers, take the places of trustees Joseph Kenner, who did not seek reelection, and Saverio Terenzi, who died unexpectedly in January.
Leading up to election day, much of the debate among candidates focused on the United Hospital project. Proposed by Greenwich-based Starwood Capital Group, it calls for a 135-room hotel, 217,000 square feet of medical office space, 90,000 square feet for retail or small restaurants, 500 residential units targeting young professionals, 230 55-and-over age-restricted residential housing units and about an acre of open public space on the property at 406 Boston Post Road. The hospital that formerly occupied the property closed in 2006. Starwood Capital Group purchased the property that same year for $28 million.
A forum hosted last Thursday by the Sustainable Port Chester Alliance–a 20-member coalition of faith, housing, education, labor and Port Chester resident groups–pushed the five candidates in attendance on issues related to the project.
Before that, labor group Build Up NYC held a voter registration drive in the village aimed at “educating the public on the importance” public officials have on development projects and whether they steer them toward community benefit, according to Mike Halpin, communications director for the group.
Neither group claims to be against the project as a whole. Both groups have expressed concerns with the project contributing to the overcrowding of Port Chester”™s schools and its potential to drive additional traffic to the area. The alliance also says that the project could mean the loss of 134 units of affordable housing at 999 High St. on the United Hospital property.
The Sustainable Port Chester Alliance wants Starwood Capital Group to agree to a community benefits agreement before the project is approved by the village. The agreement, as proposed by the alliance, would ensure the project provides “good, safe” jobs to Port Chester residents, require at least 20 percent of the project”™s housing be affordable and ask Starwood to help fund expansion of Port Chester”™s schools to “ensure this project does not exacerbate current overcrowding.”
Five of the eight candidates for the six open seats on the Port Chester Board of Trustees showed up for the event.
Of them, only Ferrara questioned the necessity for a community benefits agreement. He said he came to the forum hoping to explain the value he thinks the project will have for the town.
“We need to ask ourselves if the extent of our asks could very well make a project completely uncompetitive and not worth doing,” said Ferrara, who is also chairman of the village”™s industrial development agency. “Are we willing to miss this economic cycle to put something on that United Hospital site that makes sense?”
Ferrara said the site currently pays the town $650,000 in taxes annually. “Any intelligent project will pay many times that in year one,” he said.
Starwood Capital Group is seeking a $60 million PILOT agreement over 20 years. The project is expected to create 2,800 jobs and bring in roughly $2 million to the village school district annually.
The other candidates in attendance, Adams, Brakewood, Marino and Chavarria, expressed support for the idea of a community benefits agreement.
Brakewood, also a member of the Port Chester IDA, said these types of agreements should be incorporated further into the village”™s structure.
“We should have a committee that supports and advances these things, and we need to tone that muscle not just for Starwood but for other developments,” he said.
Ceccarelli, Didden and Payan did not attend the forum.
Joan Grangenois-Thomas of Sustainable Port Chester Alliance says Starwood Capital Group has so far been unwilling to meet with the alliance to discuss a community benefits agreement.
Tom Corsillo, a spokesperson for the project, said Starwood Capital Group “continues to move the proposal forward” through both the environmental review process and meeting with stakeholders to finalize the plan.
“As the plan moves through the public review process, we look forward to more dialogue with members of the community,” Corsillo said.
The project is still in the final environmental impact statement and zoning approval process, according to Andrea Sherman, assistant planner for Port Chester. She said the FEIS could be adopted by summer, at which point the village board would start the site plan approval process.
Terms on the village”™s Board of Trustees run for three years and pay $5,200 annually. Port Chester has used a cumulative voting system since a federal court order in 2010 aimed at making the process more inclusive to the village”™s Hispanic population. Residents can vote up to six times and can cast multiple votes for one or more candidates.
