Neighborhood groups to White Plains: End FASNY consideration

Eight neighborhood groups have called on White Plains officials to end discussion of the plan to build a campus for the French-American School of New York in the city.

A letter was provided to the Business Journal by the Gedney Association, a neighborhood group that has led opposition the FASNY plan, listing reasons that Mayor Thomas Roach and the White Plains Common Council should deny FASNY”™s application for a special permit to develop the campus on the site of the former Ridgeway Country Club. The letter was also signed by the North Street Area Civic Association, the Haviland Manor Neighborhood Association, the Rosedale Residential Association, Club Pointe Association, Glenbrooke Association, Wyndham Close Association and the Maplemoor Lake Association.

An artist”™s rendering of the proposed French-American School of New York campus, which would be built on the grounds of the former Ridgeway Country Club in White Plains.

“It is now time for the FASNY discussion to end,” the letter says. “The city”™s zoning and master plan provide the requisite criteria to consider other alternatives for the property that will maximize preservation of the property”™s open space while being compatible with the neighborhood in which it is located.”

FASNY spokesman Geoff Thompson said the school will continue to seek a special permit to build the proposed campus.

“It”™s just a relisting of these various items,” Thompson said. “The neighborhood opponents are continuing to pressure the Common Council to vote against the permit.”

Chief among the reasons to deny the permit cited in the letter was the recent opposition of the White Plains Board of Education to the project due to traffic and safety concerns if the campus entrance were on Bryant Avenue or North Street. The groups argue that the school board”™s determination, combined with the Common Council”™s earlier finding that Ridgeway was an unsuitable location for an entrance, means there is no feasible access point to the site.

“We feel we”™ve done a tremendous job of amending and revising the plan to include the many points made by residents and the city,” Thompson said. “The plan has been more thoroughly vetted than any plan ever brought before the city of White Plains. The project has been adjusted with fewer students and a very workable traffic plan.”

The letter also points to the adverse impact on property values in the area the groups claim has already occurred, the opposition of White Plains residents and taxpayers and potential hydrology issues related to a portion of the Mamaroneck River that is thought to rise on the property.

City planning officials sent a letter in August to the mayor and Common Council noting concerns about traffic and circulation should Hathaway Lane be closed between Ridgeway and Gedney Esplanade, as planned in the proposal.

The roughly $60 million to 70 million project would consolidate the French-American School”™s three campuses in Scarsdale, Mamaroneck and Larchmont into a single site for 950 students. Under the FASNY proposal, the portion of the Ridgeway Country Club site not used for the school campus would be turned into a nature conservancy.

“This will be the largest conservation easement in Westchester County south of Interstate 287,” Thompson said. “Open space advocates ought to be leaping at this.”