Plans to add residences to a financially ailing golf course outside of Armonk have morphed in response to community concerns as the North Castle Town Board holds meetings that could clear the way for the project.
Brynwood Partners LLC, the group that bought the 156-acre property in 2009 and named it Brynwood Golf & Country Club, hopes that by creating a golf community of residential club members on the premises it will have a more sustainable model to reinvest in the club from the housing revenues.
A special meeting was held June 3 to resume the public hearing from the week before, on May 27, as the town board heard public feedback on amendments to the zoning code that would add a Golf Course Community Floating Overlay District. The new zoning language, which was approved at a town meeting June 10, defines this as a neighborhood where “the central focus of the community is an affiliated membership club having an 18 hole golf course and other recreational facilities adjoining the golf course.”
After the most recent changes, Brynwood”™s proposal calls for 73 market-rate homes, down from plans that included as many as 243 housing units.
The town board on June 10 also amended the comprehensive plan about the rules for preserving open space. The change states that the golf course part of the property “shall be used solely as a golf course or as open space,” preventing it from being developed later.
Brynwood also wants the units to be taxed as fee-simple, single-family homes rather than as condos because the latter could yield less revenue.
Many who attended the meetings, including Supervisor Michael J. Schiliro, said they were happy with the way Brynwood had updated its plans and addressed concerns from the board and community.
But not everyone was completely satisfied.
“I commend the board for making what was a bad deal a more palatable deal. And I think you”™re getting there, I don”™t think you”™re there yet,” Michael Posternak of Armonk said at the meeting in the first week of June. Posternak outlined two issues he said had not been addressed.
“The first is the traffic problem on Route 22, which between 7 o”™clock and 9 o”™clock consists of parents going to work and kids going to school. I see more parents going to work and more kids going to school after this development and a worsening situation,” he said.
Schiliro responded by saying the final environmental impact statement acknowledged “that the traffic on 22 is not good now and certainly this won”™t improve it,” but added that one cannot assume every unit will have a vehicle.
Posternak also suggested that Brynwood adopt an age restriction on residents, which would “match their deed with their words,” he said, because the club owners have said they plan to market to empty nesters looking to downsize, as opposed to families.
Schiliro, who said he also had similar concerns about whether Brynwood would stick to the target age, said he received “very credible feedback” from the school board that there has been declining enrollment in the area for about 10 years.
Other comments from the public had to do with tightening the language in the plans being amended.
The board on June 10 approved the final environmental impact statement required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. Another public hearing and vote will be held June 24 to apply and map the zoning text amendments to the Brynwood property. From there the planning board would review the site plan.
