Developers see progress and obstacles in Westchester market
- Developer Joseph Cotter speaks at the Game Changers event in Rye. Photo by John Rizzo
Real estate developers are finding it easier to get projects done in Westchester County, but muncipalities still place unnecessary obstacles in their way, panelists at a recent event hosted by the Business Journal said.
Four professionals from Westchester County government and the county’s real estate industry aired their views  at “Game Changers,” a discussion presented Sept. 17 at the Wainwright House  in Rye.
“I think the economy has improved a little bit, which helps our profit,” said Martin Ginsburg of Ginsburg Development Cos., a mixed-use developer based in Valhalla. “We”™re finally starting several new projects in Westchester County with a significant focus on the Hudson River, with developments on the riverfront in Ossining and Yonkers.”
The Ginsburg company last spring began construction of Harbor Square, an approximately $40 million, 188-unit luxury apartment complex and 5,000-square-foot restaurant development on a former riverfront industrial site in  Ossining.
Co-moderated by Paul Senecal of United Services Co. and  Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson, partner at Thompson and Bender, the panel also included Westchester County Industrial Development Agency executive director Jim Coleman; Joseph Cotter, founder and president of Natural Resources Inc. in Greenwich, Conn.; and Rella Fogliano, founding president of MacQuesten Development in Mount Vernon.
Coleman said county government is actively trying to remove obstacles to development and push tax breaks and other incentives to move projects along by lowering costs.
“In the last 10 years, the IDA was very focused on helping the developers’ tenants reduce costs for renovation build-out,” Coleman said. “We need to help our developers help get their buildings market-ready by reducing costs and encouraging developers to make that investment.”
Asked what she thought the biggest advancement in her business had been in the last year, Fogliano replied, “The second phase of Heritage Homes,” a $20 million public housing redevelopment project underway in New Rochelle.  “We were able to craft financing that was totally out of the box, and phase two in New Rochelle meant the demolition of two of the existing obsolete buildings. It”™s very exciting for us, and I can see the impact it”™s made in the community of New Rochelle.”
Fogliano”™s business has focused on the building of affordable housing, but she thinks the citizens of Westchester need to re-think what “affordable housing” means.
“What we need to do is educate people in Westchester,” she said. “Here in Westchester County people automatically think Section 8, and that”™s not the same as affordable housing. The type of affordable housing we build in Westchester County is really for people with middle incomes.”
“Section 8” is a term for rental housing for low-income families subsidized by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“The ”˜nimby-ism”™ is as high as anywhere in the U.S., except maybe Northern California,” said Joseph Cotter, regarding the obstacles to developing an affordable housing stock. He was referring to residents’ not-in-my-backyard opposition to development projects.
Down the road, Cotter said, the lack of supply of affordable housing would be a problem for Westchester. “There”™s no place for young people to come back to here because there”™s no affordable housing,” he said.
Cotter said he wished the county government had more control over zoning, noting “I think we have a very broken process.”
Ginsburg said he would like to see more cooperation between municipalities down the road.
“Parochialism and the lack of connectivity between neighboring towns is a major obstacle,” he said, noting that elsewhere in the country, counties have amalgamated to provide better public services to citizens. “One town doesn”™t talk to the other. Westchester County lacks communication and connectivity and it makes it difficult to get visionary projects done.”
This article has been updated to reflect corrections to an earlier online version and the version appearing in the Sept. 22 edition of the Business Journal.