Greenburgh”™s Town Board voted to accept a $1 million donation from a developer Tuesday, just hours before a contract kept secret from the public for nearly five years expired.
A prominent neighborhood civic group is now calling for a state investigation into possible illegal activities related to the donation, including what it calls “extortion” of the developer. The money must be used to buy 28.7 acres that will be designated parkland.
Robert Bernstein, an attorney and president of The Edgemont Community Council, sent a 26-page letter to state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, saying the town has previously attempted to strong-arm donations from a church and shopping center before issuing building permits.
“This request is not about open space, or about shopping centers or churches,” he said. “It is about respect for the rule of law and a belief that unless and until the state intervenes here, these abuses will continue and put the taxpayers at Greenburgh further at risk.”
The attorney general”™s office did not respond to an inquiry seeking comment.
A development partnership between AvalonBay Communities Inc. and Robert Martin Company LLC signed a deal with the president of another local civic group in late 2009, with assurances that the members of that group would not oppose or delay a 444-unit apartment project called Avalon Green II.
Danny Gold, president of the East Irvington Civic Association, signed the deal, which included a provision it must be kept secret. It remained secret until May this year, when Gold asked town officials to approve the deal. The first public mention of the donation was at a board meeting Aug. 26 ”“ by then officials had already met with Gold in a meeting closed to the public. Bernstein said that executive session violated state open meetings laws because it was not disclosed ahead of time and no reason was given for the need to retreat into the session.
Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, a Democrat, said he was only recently made aware of the donation and its Oct. 1 deadline but that he viewed it as a benefit to the community for adding to open space. “They should be commended,” he said of the association.
Feiner and Councilman Francis Sheehan, a Democrat, had each requested the town”™s Ethics Board issue a ruling on accepting the donation. The Ethics Board found no conflict of interest in voting to accept the donation because it said government officials approved Avalon Green II without being part of the negotiations over the donation.
The ethics ruling did not appease everyone, including Sheehan, who said the board members had ignored several questions he had posed to them. “They could have acknowledged them and say ”˜they”™re irrelevant,”™” he said at a Sept. 30 work session. “They chose to not even acknowledge them.”
A new question of ethics was brought up by Sheehan over Gold”™s status as “deputy supervisor” to the eventual Avalon Green II project. Deputy supervisor is an appointed position that formerly existed in the town, where a citizen was sworn in and functioned as a member of the administration ”“ including attending closed-door executive session meetings. Gold was sworn in as deputy supervisor to the development in 1997, so critics are now arguing he was acting as a government representative when he negotiated the donation in 2009.
The partnership originally wanted to build 794 units on a 91-acre site known as Nob Hill in the 1990s but faced more than a decade of opposition from the community before receiving final approvals in 2010. Feiner said Gold”™s time as deputy supervisor expired after two years, although town correspondence on the project referred to Gold as deputy supervisor at least as recently as 2004.
A land donation from a developer is not uncommon when large-scale development is taking place, but this donation is unusual in several respects in addition to elected officials saying they had no knowledge of it until the clock was ticking down to expiration.
The land to be acquired is in Tarrytown, an independent village that is part of Greenburgh. Tarrytown has agreed to pay to maintain the property, raising the question of why the donation was given to the town rather than the village. Gold told Town Board members he had been informed by Robert Martin that he would not ask his development partner AvalonBay to modify the donation agreement prior to the deadline. Part of the deal said the parkland must abut the existing Taxter Ridge Park.
The land to be acquired will come from the Unification Church, which documents show planned to donate most of the 28.7 acres to Tarrytown regardless of the developers”™ donation to Greenburgh. Roughly twenty-four acres of that property includes steep slopes and other land not developable. To sweeten the deal, two lots out of a planned 11-lot subdivision called Jardim Estates were included by the church, though critics noted that the remainder of the property could have been acquired with or without a deal with the development partnership.
Ultimately, the board approved the resolution unanimously, modifying its action to specify it would use the donation for the two developable parcels out of Jardim. Bernstein questioned that move.
“By making this change in its resolution, the town was effectively putting the developer on notice that, because the terms of the deal were not what it had originally agreed to in the secret agreement, it could back out of the agreement if it wished,” he said.
Company representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries on the donation.
