County restores funds for Mount Vernon project

Westchester County Legislator Lyndon D. Williams led a push to restore county financing for affordable housing at this Gramatan Avenue site in Mount Vernon.

What the Westchester County executive”™s office took away last year, the county”™s Board of Legislators has given back to a developer of affordable housing at the gateway to downtown Mount Vernon.

A bipartisan majority of county legislators recently approved $3.71 million in New Homes Land Acquisition bonds to finance the affordable-housing portion of Atlantic Development Group”™s $58.49-million apartment and retail development at 203 Gramatan Ave. in Mount Vernon. Legislators also approved $784,000 in county Housing Implementation Fund bonds to cover construction costs for infrastructure improvements that will be done by the city of Mount Vernon.

The 14-story tower is the first of three residential buildings planned by the New York City-based developer in a $120-million project near Mount Vernon”™s Hartley Park. It will include 20,000 square feet of retail space and 158 apartments reserved for tenants with household incomes of no more than 60 percent of Westchester County”™s area median income.

Atlantic Development spokeswoman Julie Halpin said construction should begin this summer. Though the developer cleared the Gramatan Avenue site last year, construction has been delayed by lack of a financing package that was expected to include the county”™s housing bonds contribution. That commitment had been made by the administration of former County Executive Andrew J. Spano.

Construction should begin this summer at this Mount Vernon housing project site, shown here after demolition work last fall.

However, Spano”™s successor in office, Robert P. Astorino, last summer told the developer and Mount Vernon Mayor Clinton I. Young Jr. that the project was not cost-efficient, based on an assessment of its per-unit cost, and would not be funded by the county. Astorino”™s chief of staff and former county legislator, George Oros, told the Business Journal the county”™s first priority in allocating housing funds was to comply with the 2009 federal housing settlement that requires the county to develop 750 units of fair and affordable housing among 31 Westchester communities with small minority populations. Mount Vernon, where much of the county”™s low-income and affordable housing historically has been located, is not among them.

Astorino in December vetoed the Mount Vernon appropriation and other capital-projects spending added to the county budget by legislators. Legislators soon after overrode his veto.

Lawmakers recently voting in support of county financing for the project agreed that going back on the county”™s prior commitment would send “a horrible message to the business community,” said County Legislator Lyndon D. Williams, a Mount Vernon attorney who led the effort to restore the funding.

For the county, “This investment gives the biggest return on our money,” Williams said. He said when the three-year project is fully built, the county will recoup its investment through retail sales and property taxes in less than six years.

The three-phase project is expected to create 305 construction jobs and an estimated 76 permanent jobs.