Augustus Development, which plans to construct an apartment building in Eastchester, is asking the town’s Planning Board to approve modifications to the approved plans. The project would be built at 5 Ray Place. John Saraceno is president of Augustus Development and also heads Trinity Associates LLC based in Pleasantville. Trinity is a real estate development firm that has projects in communities including Peekskill, Yonkers, White Plains, Ossining, Mount Vernon, Pleasantville and St. Albans in Queens.
The project involves constructing a five-story 18-unit apartment building. Variances had been received from Eastchester’s Zoning Board of Appeals in January of 2021 and the Planning Board approved the application in July of 2021. The proposal had attracted opposition from local residents, including more than 200 who signed a petition in 2020 claiming that the project would negatively impact the northern part of Eastchester.
Jaime Martinez, director of development for Trinity Associates, told the Eastchester Planning Board, “It is an 18 apartment project that has nine one-bedroom units and nine-two bedroom units. There are 31 parking spaces. It’s an all-electric building, so no gas. Con Ed has a moratorium but it makes for a much greener project. The original building when we came to this Planning Board had 21 units. We’ve taken three units out because we felt some of those apartments were a little too small.”
Martinez said that one of the benefits of taking out the three apartments is that the number of required parking spaces has been reduced. The developer received a variance to provide 31 spaces instead of the required 33 spaces. Under the requested change, 31.5 parking spaces would be required without the variance.
Other proposed changes include using slate shingles instead of metal shingles on the roof, elimination of all railings at the windows, eliminating stair bulkheads from the roof, decreasing the size of the elevator bulkhead by nine feet so it’s reduced to 5-1/2 feet in height, adding garage exhaust vents, removing a retailing wall, adding an emergency generator and adding two new utility poles to bring in power lines to service the building.
The developer said Con Edison would allow it to put the needed electric transformer for the building on the building’s property rather than having it hang on a utility pole. The electric transmission wires would be placed underground as they got close to the building..
“Understandably, people are afraid of change,” Martinez said. “But this building’s quite lovely and it looks better than a parking lot.”
Margaret Uhle, director of planning for Eastchester, said that while the requested changes would involve switching some of the materials and finishes used in construction, it would not necessarily “cheapen” the project.
“You’ve already approved of the building,” she told the Planning Board. Uhle said the most significant issue involves the installation of the two new utility poles and suggested the board members might want to do a site visit to look at pole placement and whether it might affect the immediate neighborhood.
“The other issues with regard to construction impacts or stormwater management or the height of the building, that has been decided,” Uhle said.
“If you go down by Ray Place and Brook Avenue you’ll note that there are a lot of utility poles connecting directly to homes at the corner of Brook and Ray,” Martinez said. “We’re asking for similar treatment. We’re going to do it much better because we’re going to put the transformer on our project (site) and it’s going to be underground (wires) when it gets there.”
The Planning Board may vote on the requested changes as soon as its April 27 meeting.
