Sustainable Playland Inc., the nonprofit chosen to reinvent Playland, has until Thursday to let county lawmakers know whether it will cooperate with the legislative review of its management plan.
The nonprofit had removed itself from a county Board of Legislators review process amid legal uncertainties, including a question of whether Westchester or the city of Rye had jurisdiction over any construction proposal. Playland is owned by the county but is within the city”™s borders, on the Long Island Sound coastline.
Geoff Thompson, a spokesman for SPI, said in a Tuesday email to the Business Journal that there were no updates as to how the group would respond to the deadline. In a previous interview, Thompson said SPI wasn”™t removing itself from the process, just waiting for the county and city to settle their dispute.
“We don”™t have any say what level of government has approval powers or what their role will be,” he said.
Board of Legislators Chairman Michael Kaplowitz, a Democrat, set a deadline for the group to return and blamed its members ”“ not the municipalities ”“ for delaying a legislative vote on the management plan.
SPI”™s plan had drawn scrutiny for several issues, including a proposed 82,500-square-foot field house that some members of the community and elected officials said they thought was an eyesore and would negatively affect traffic in the area.
Ned McCormack, a spokesman for Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, said the county was looking to end the stalemate but not willing to withdraw its claim to zoning authority over the park. He also said Westchester continuing to manage the park wasn”™t a feasible alternative since the park runs in the red by a margin of as much as $5 million a year.
“The status quo is not an option,” he said.
There are also two lawsuits filed by Legislator Ken Jenkins, a Yonkers Democrat. Jenkins filed a suit last year that said the management deal, which was approved by the county”™s Board of Acquisitions & Contracts, was actually a lease. By law, a lease would need a full vote of the legislature. Â Jenkins lost that suit but is pursuing an appeal, while he also filed a civil lawsuit looking to invalidate the deal altogether.
Rye resident Charmian Neary was one of the opponents of the SPI plan and said it, particularly the field house, equated to a land grab from a business-minded group. “It”™s taking it away from the public and giving it to an already privileged group of people,” she said.
