Susan Habel, who served as commissioner of planning for the City of White Plains from 2002 to 2012 and from 1985 to 2001 was the city’s deputy planning commissioner, has died at age 76, it was learned over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Habel and her husband Bill had been long-time residents of the city’s Prospect Park neighborhood, moving in recent years to Valhalla.
At the time of her retirement from the city in 2012, Habel expressed a strong desire to spend more time with her family after having routinely spent long hours on various city projects ranging from updating the city’s Comprehensive Plan to jump-starting the renaissance of the city’s downtown through the mixed-use City Center project built by developer Louis Cappelli.
“It was a privilege and an honor for me to have worked closely with Sue Habel during my early development career,” Cappelli told Westfair’s Westchester County Business Journal. “Sue had everything to do with my falling in love with developing in downtown White Plains. The Ritz Carlton Hotel and Residences were just one of the great developments we did together and I do mean together!”
Habel brought to White Plains the concept of applying unused air rights of one development to a developer’s other nearby properties, something routinely done in New York City to enable buildings to have extra stories and which helped win acceptance of Cappelli’s proposal for two Ritz Carlton towers close to the City Center.
“Sue got involved and put forth her ideas of how it should be done,” Cappelli said. “I so very much welcomed that collaboration. Sue was the one who had the idea of connecting Main Street and Hamilton Avenue with a street above our four-story underground parking garage to be called Renaissance Square. Sue was brilliant. Her vision as well as her determination to never be afraid to build innovative projects was a gift that I had the great fortune to witness and be a part of. She was one of a kind and will be sorely missed by myself and I’m sure many others.”
Habel developed a reputation for being concerned with the effect of developments on the city’s residential neighborhoods. In addition to continuously reaching out to neighborhood associations she saw to it that developers proposing projects met with neighborhoods and gave great weight to neighborhood concerns.
When the final draft of the revised Comprehensive Plan that the Common Council would adopt in 1997 was being prepared, Habel brought in two representatives of the city’s Council of Neighborhood Associations to work with her and the city’s consultants in editing the document.
Habel served as an adviser to the White Plains Beautification Foundation and was a director-at-large for the Westchester Municipal Planning Federation. Her reputation was widespread in the planning community and when the Village of Great Neck Plaza in Nassau County was working on a plan to revitalize its downtown, Habel was interviewed for a report that explored various options for that village. Habel also served White Plains as executive director of the city’s Urban Renewal Agency.
Habel had an interest in the theater and was a supporter of the White Plains-based nonprofit theater company Westco Productions. She advocated creating a White Plains Performing Arts Center (WPPAC) and became a driving force in making it a reality at Cappelli’s City Center.
“I was voted chairman of that organization in late 2006 which was a period of great difficulty for the WPPAC,” said John Ioris, president of Westchester Custom Golf Inc. “ We spent countless hours discussing the best ways to right that ship and right it we did. Without Sue, the WPPAC would not be the thriving arts organization that it has evolved into. It was so fitting that the WPPAC honored Sue at our 20th Anniversary Gala. We wouldn’t be here with her.”
Ioris also spent a lot of time working with Habel when he served on the city’s Planning Board, especially when he was named the board’s chairman.
“When I was appointed to the Planning Board in the mid-2000s, I spent countless hours with Sue learning the technical skills necessary to properly evaluate the numerous projects that were coming before our board,” Ioris said. “What was remarkable is that she never needed to look anything up. She knew the answers, and they were always on the tip of her tongue. Sue possessed one of the single greatest minds I have ever dealt with in my 45-year business career. Two of her passions in life were urban planning and theater, and I had the pleasure of dealing with her in both regards.”
John Callahan, White Plains’ chief of staff and corporation counsel, told Westfair’s Westchester County Business Journal, “I had the privilege of working with Sue for a number of years. She was brilliant and incredibly hard working. She was dedicated to this city. She could work through issues and come up with solutions unlike few people I have ever seen. She gets much of the credit for the development in the city.”
A memorial service for Sue Habel was due to be held at a future date.
