Greenburgh Housing Authority wants to demolish apartments, build new

The Greenburgh Housing Authority (GHA) has gone before the Greenburgh Town Board and Planning Board seeking feedback on its concept for tearing down GHA’s low-income garden apartment complex on Maple Street and replacing it with a group of multi-story apartment buildings. It’s known as the Maple Street State Site and is in the Fairview section of Greenburgh. The garden complex currently has 131 apartments. The new concept involves construction of five elevator-equipped buildings of up to four stories in order to create 190 apartments at the site.

The Maple Street site is bordered by Interstate 287 on the south and Old Tarrytown Road on the north. The garden apartment complex was built about 60 years ago and is described as dilapidated and in need of major repairs.

Bishop Wilbert Preston, chair of the GHA, said they were presenting “some drawings, some dreams and some ideas” to get feedback on the possibilities and to get some leading on how things can be done.

“We’d like to preserve and expand housing in the Town of Greenburgh, “Preston said. “As all of us know, housing is (at) a premium, and when it comes to affordable housing, low-income housing, those kinds of, those types of housing, it is a super-premium.”

GHA Executive Director Raju Abraham said, “This project was built using state funds in 1961 so it’s almost 63 years old and most of the stuff is outdated. The infrastructure underground is very old. The Housing Authority has been facing a lot of challenges to maintain the site.”

Abraham explained that between 2006 and 2008 New York state provided approximately $5.6 million for a small modernization program at the Maple Street development.

“In 2014 to 2016 $1.4 million was spent toward sewer backups and all those issues,” Abraham said. “We have a strategic vision to revitalize this project. We’re looking at expanding the housing opportunities and to preserve housing in the town of Greenburgh.”

Architect Ed Vogel, principal with the firm Warshauer Mellusi Warshauer based in Elmsford said that the existing garden-style complex has two- and three-story buildings. He said that the Housing Authority has a desire to replace the failing infrastructure and also to improve the living and quality of life conditions that the residents have. He said that in order to do that they had to change the type of apartment buildings that would be at the site.

“From garden apartments we’re now moving into apartment-style living with elevators,” Vogel said. “This affords us a better organization on the site and then access into the neighborhood. We have connectivity and extension of the existing road network from the neighborhood into our site and then there’s also access back out to Old Tarrytown Road. This does a couple of things: this improves public safety and this also improves emergency access into the site itself.”

Vogel said that the new layout addresses a need for additional parking and also respects the existing trees along Old Tarrytown Road and the streetscape that is there now.

He said that additional work is needed to detect existing site features that call for special attention in planning, such as existing steep slopes and a stream that feeds into the Bronx River.

Vogel said that the new development might intrude slightly into a buffer designed to protect the stream but there also is an opportunity to clean up the embankment that leads to the stream and possibly develop a passive recreation use. He said they are trying to maintain existing open space between buildings on the site and pointed out that the new parking layout and new trees that would be planted act as a buffer to the adjacent neighborhood.

Vogel said that all of the apartments would be affordable housing to serve a range of income levels from about 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) to 40% of AMI.

Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said, “I am very excited about this initiative. We need more low income and affordable housing in Greenburgh and in the entire county. I get a few calls a day from residents and would be residents who are in desperate need of a place to live.”

Feiner pointed out that an extensive environmental review would be required when full plans are submitted for consideration.

“Flooding has been an ongoing concern,” Feiner said. “The Town Board considered reconstruction an opportunity to address this by potentially raising the elevation, adjusting the embankments and setbacks. In addition to county, state, federal aid the GHA hopes to tap into for addressing the affordable housing crisis, there could also be funds available for the flood mitigation efforts and for focusing the project on green decarbonization measures.”

Feiner said that it could be a few years until construction begins and then there might be a few years of construction once the project gets underway.