Toll Northeast V Corp, which is located at the Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, offices of Toll Bros., Inc., has purchased a 5.04-acre parcel at 612 E. Grassy Sprain Road in Yonkers for a residential project. During the summer, the Yonkers Planning Board gave its approvals for the proposed 28-unit development of the site to proceed.
According to documents filed with the Westchester County Clerk’s Office, Toll paid $4,380,000 for the property. The seller was Avatar Yonkers Office LLC.
According to what Attorneys David J. Cooper and Jaclyn V. Cohen of the White Plains-based law firm Zarin & Steinmetz told the Yonkers Planning Board, since 1981 the property had been used for the then-owner’s shipping business headquarters under a use variance granted by the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals. The property was located within the S-100 zoning district, which primarily allows residential uses.
The attorneys noted that in February 2019, after about two years of attempting to sell the property, the owner submitted a rezoning petition to the Yonkers City Council that included a conceptual plan for a residential cluster subdivision. In 2021, the rezoning was approved. The owner contended that a residential cluster redevelopment of the property would be consistent with the pattern of development in the surrounding area and pointed to a development known as the Winchester located south and east of the property consisting of single-family townhouse-style units.
Cooper and Cohen told the Planning Board that the Winchester is similar in concept to what Toll plans to do at the 612 E. Grassy Sprain site.
“Toll’s plan involves subdividing the property into 28 fee simple single-family lots, along with a separate open space lot and access road, using a Planned Cluster Development (“PCD”) approach to preserve open space,” the attorneys said. “The cluster layout would be consistent with the conceptual development reviewed by the City Council in connection with the 2021 rezoning.”
The units that Toll is planning would range in size from 2,000 to 3,000 square feet. They would be clustered in groups of two.
In addition to the 28 building lots, there would be about a 1.07-acre open space lot with a stormwater management pond. The open space lot would be owned and maintained by the development’s Homeowners Association (HOA). Toll said that its cluster approach permits a series of zero-lot-line houses with access off a single center road.
“The proposed project, including the overall design of development, would be in harmony with the character of the predominantly residential neighborhood in the surrounding area. In addition, the proposed project minimizes potential environmental impact when compared with a conventional subdivision for this property,” the attorneys said.
In the sale of the land, both the seller and purchaser were represented by Garry Klein, regional manager of Houlihan Lawrence Commercial. Houlihan Lawrence said that Klein negotiated the transaction and had been consulting for the seller since 2019 to obtain the rezoning and then the site plan and municipal approvals.
“It was a long road to get this special and unique development site fully entitled and closed, but it is not unusual for these types of land deals to take multiple years,” Klein said.
