Elected officials in White Plains last week stood their ground on a downtown traffic island over which a prominent Westchester developer and the city”™s Common Council have squabbled for the past year. The clash of public and private interests has involved both symbol and substance ”“ and the latter is granite.
In a 5-2 vote, the Common Council rejected a proposal pushed by Mayor Joseph M. Delfino that would have granted a 10-year lease of the traffic island on Renaissance Square to developer Louis R. Cappelli”™s LC Main L.L.C., owner of the year-old Ritz-Carlton hotel and attached condominium towers. Cappelli, who built the one-block city street at the entrance to the 221 Main St. development, would have paid $3,000 annual rent for the 300-square-foot island, where early last year he erected a granite slab on which the Ritz-Carlton name and lion”™s head logo are engraved.
The stone sign”™s placement had not been approved in advance by the Common Council. “It”™s basically putting something on city property without an authorization at all,” Councilman Dennis J. Power said last week. City officials, including the public works commissioner, expressed concerns about traffic safety there and the city”™s liability if a motorist collided with the 4 ½-feet by 5 ½-feet by 1-foot slab.
“When you hit a monument in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, you know you”™ve hit it,” Power said, comparing the impact of a close encounter with the gravestone-size hotel sign.
Angered by the public rebuff in a city in which Cappelli Enterprises Inc. has had a major part in its downtown business district”™s transformation, Cappelli reportedly said he”™d have a film crew record the sign”™s removal by city workers and distribute it as a warning to others in the industry about the city”™s hostile attitude toward development. An attorney for the developer reportedly said Cappelli took the city”™s request to have the sign removed as a personal insult.
The Common Council”™s six-member Democratic majority in April rejected the Republican mayor”™s proposal to sell the island to the developer for $18,000. Cappelli had agreed to assume liability for the property.
“The point is, we”™re going to be told that we now have to sell public land to a private entity? No, I don”™t think so,” Power said last week.
“We thought there could be some kind of amicable resolution ”“ it would be taken away and then we could start again” at reaching an agreement with the developer.
But the council”™s vote to reject the sale prompted Cappelli in April to take his case to state Supreme Court in White Plains, seeking a judge”™s ruling that the council decision was arbitrary and capricious. Supreme Court Justice Susan Cacace in June denied the city attorney”™s motion for dismissal. The case is pending.
Considering the lease proposal last week with that litigation looming, council members again raised concerns about public safety while the stone marker remains in place and doubted whether the city would be immune from lawsuits as the property owner even if Cappelli”™s company assumed liability for the median.
“It”™s also precedent-setting,” Councilwoman Rita Z. Malmud said. “Do you want to have all these different signs advertising different places in the middle of roadways? Once you do it for one entity, you have to do it for others.”
“It”™s eye clutter,” said Malmud. “It”™s not visually attractive. It”™s also a liability.”
“It hasn”™t been the council at all that has created the fanfare about this,” Power said. “We basically said, let”™s move on. We think there are far more important things for the press and us and the public” to address.
Power said the Common Council has partnered with Cappelli and other private developers in the rebuilding of White Plains. “I hope there”™s going to be a lot more in the future. We”™ve got to focus on the important things.”
A spokesman for Cappelli last week said the developer declined to comment on the council”™s latest rejection because the matter is in litigation.
