In northern Westchester County, a three-way clash looms over federally owned property that could turn a profit for developers but whose prospective redevelopment has turned some military veterans against the federal agency that claims to have their best interests at the forefront of long-term planning there.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials want competing proposals from private developers or public and private partners to redevelop prime riverfront acreage under a 75-year lease at the agency”™s 184-acre Hudson Valley Health Care System campus in Montrose. But Westchester County officials want to sidestep that process and move ahead with one or more private developers on their vision of a “VeteransVillage” that would add a mix of housing for veterans and their families and retail shops to the medical services and residential programs already provided veterans there.
Standing their ground against the redevelopment plan and the VA”™s proposed relocation of some of its medical services and facilities from Montrose to its Castle Point campus are town of Cortlandt officials and a veterans group. They want to keep the campus out of developers”™ portfolios and keep intact the VA operations there.
VA officials and consultants from Jones Lang LaSalle, the private contractor administering the VA”™s national extended-use lease program for its underutilized capital assets, last week briefed about a dozen developers on the Montrose project at the Westchester Marriott in Greenburgh. The industry forum had been moved from the VA campus in Montrose, where that same day about 150 veterans and Cortlandt officials staged a protest rally against the project.
The VA expects to issue a final Request for Proposals before the end of the year for a two-phase redevelopment project on the site, which opened as a veterans hospital in 1950. The first phase, for which officials hope to execute a 75-year ground lease by mid-2009, includes 108 acres. The second phase, involving 64 acres, likely would not begin until about 2020, after new VA facilities are built at Castle Point. The redevelopment site includes nearly 1 million square feet of space in 52 existing buildings.
After completion of the second phase, the VA would keep 12 acres for its health care operations. The agency plans to keep its residential programs for homeless veterans and those recovering from substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder on the Montrose grounds and expand outpatient medical services there while moving nursing-home and psychiatric units to Castle Point.                  Â
For housing that would be built on the leased campus, “It”™s our intent that it would be filled by veterans,” said Jay Halpern, of the VA Office of Asset Management Enterprise. “That”™s what ”˜veterans preference”™ means.” But federal funding programs prevent the VA from making housing available exclusively to veterans, he said.
“We”™re very interested in affordable housing for veterans,” said Halpern. “We know there”™s a shortage in this area. That”™s one of our key goals.” But that affordable-housing provision will not preclude developers from realizing a profit on the redevelopment, said Marc Waddill, a vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle”™s Washington, D.C. office.
Affordable housing for veterans is a key goal too of county officials with their Veterans Village proposal. Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano traveled to Washington, D.C., prior to the forum here to lobby for the county”™s veteran-centered proposal with VA Secretary James B. Peake.      Â
Ronald Tocci, the former state assemblyman who heads Spano”™s Veterans Village advisory committee, told VA officials at the forum that veterans groups were worried about more delays to a veterans-serving development in Montrose and suggested the VA contract with the county to administer the project and work with developers. “Hopefully, you can make it move a lot faster than it is,” he said.
The VA eight years ago selected Montrose Elders, a development team that at the time included Ginsburg Development Companies in Valhalla, to develop a master plan for the site. The VA ended that project in 2002 to focus on strategic long-term planning for its campuses, Halpern said. Headed by John Dodson, a decorated Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Military Academy professor and owner of Thayer Gate Energy, a nonprofit renewable-energy developer in Highland Falls, Montrose Elders has joined the county in its Veterans Village project.
But VA officials indicated the county won”™t be handed the project over private developers. “We are committed to a full and open competition,” Halpern said. “We want developers to work with the county, to work with the community.”
Dodson and county officials thought they had a local ally in town of Cortlandt Supervisor Linda D. Puglisi. But Puglisi last week said she was opposed to a large-scale housing development there, which “will impact schools, roads, infrastructure.” The town, she noted, has rezoned that area to require four-acre sites for house construction. Puglisi organized last week”™s protest rally and joined veterans outside the VA campus gate.
“This is basically going to be a developer”™s gold mine,” she said. “It”™s right on the Hudson River and no railroad tracks go though there.” She called “outrageous” the VA”™s proposal to keep only 12 acres for veterans services and lease the rest to a private developer. “If anything, it should be reversed,” Puglisi said.     Â
