At a recent meeting of the Port Chester Board of Trustees, two major issues confronting the village board collided: firefighters and the redevelopment of the former United Hospital site.
At a May 2 meeting, trustees voted to eliminate eight paid firefighter positions and transition to an all-volunteer force. The board said the move was necessary and will save the village $800,000. But it has sparked protests in the community both by the professional firefighter unions and residents.
At the same time, the board has been weighing a $300 million proposal by Starwood Capital Group to redevelop for mixed uses the former United Hospital site at the southern end of the village. The village held the first of a series of public hearings on a proposed zoning change and a preliminary final environmental impact statement submitted by the developer on May 24.
Those issues collided at a rally before the public hearing, as a group involved in the United Hospital redevelopment, the Sustainable Port Chester Alliance, took up the cause of the firefighters and held a rally outside the hearing. Protesters said the village should not extend tax breaks to Starwood if it does not have the money to pay its fire department.
The Sustainable Port Chester Alliance is a 20-member coalition of faith, housing, education, labor and Port Chester resident groups. The group is seeking a community benefits agreement with Starwood, which it says could provide assurances the developer would fund school costs, set aside affordable housing and provide jobs to residents. Alliance representative Joan Grangenois-Thomas said she saw a synergy to the protests of the professional firefighters and her group.
“If Port Chester claims they can”™t afford to keep on the eight paid firefighters, then it seems to us they should even more so be behind a community benefits agreement that would decrease the PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes agreement) extended to Starwood,” she said. “In other words, make sure that Port Chester is getting all that it can get from this agreement.”
The Greenwich-based group wants to convert the former hospital site at 406 Boston Post Road into a mixed-use development that would include a 135-room hotel, 217,000 square feet of medical office space, 90,000 square feet for retail and small restaurants, 500 residential units targeting young professionals, 230 age-restricted apartment units for people 55 and over and about an acre of open public space. Starwood is seeking a $60 million PILOT agreement over 20 years.
United Hospital closed in 2006. Starwood bought the property that same year for $28 million.
In a presentation at the meeting, representatives from Starwood and its development partners stressed that it was time to move forward with the project.
“This project brings great benefits to the village,” said Lucy Wildrick, a representative of Street-Works, a Port Chester design and planning company working with Starwood on the site. “The PILOT will bring millions more to the village than this site brings today.”
Wildrick also noted the village would receive a $1 million community benefits payment for the Starwood project”™s density beyond what would be allowed in the revised zoning. That payment could go to affordable housing, housing rehabilitation and job training. She said the project is expected to create 1,800 construction jobs and 972 jobs during its operation.
A report from AKRF, a consulting firm the village hired to review the Starwood proposal, found that a PILOT agreement would be necessary for the project to be economically viable.
The hearing was designed to consider both the environmental impact statement and whether the village should increase the allowed density of the zoning area for the development. Early comments from villagers focused mainly on traffic.
Rye Mayor Joe Sack spoke at the hearing, explaining that while the project is billed as the “southern gateway to Port Chester,” it is also the northern gateway to Rye.
Rye is also listed as an involved party to the developer”™s environmental review, and Sack said that the city could not release positive findings for the report until certain traffic issues are addressed. He said the project would require changes to the bridge over I-287, among other concerns.
“We all want development,” Sack said. “We just want development that is reasonable and adequately addresses adverse impacts.”
Similar concerns about increased traffic to the area and whether the environmental report adequately addresses them were raised by multiple residents who spoke.
Lou Larizza, a Port Chester resident and developer of affordable housing in Westchester, said at the meeting he wasn”™t as concerned with the project increasing traffic.
“I hear the problem is traffic, traffic, traffic,” he said. “I know [the Port Chester Board of Trustees] can work it out… Traffic is good, I know it”™s not good for residents, but it”™s good for the economy.”
The project will also require the demolition of a building at 999 High St. that includes 134 units of affordable workforce housing. How much of that workforce housing could be replaced or increased by the project was brought up at the hearing.
One suggestion was to require Starwood to include 20 percent of units as affordable housing as part of approving the zoning change.
“If we”™re looking for a diverse community, a community that attracts millennials, millennials don”™t all commute to the city,” said Rev. J. Bruce Baker of All Souls Church in Port Chester. “Millennials live in this community and would like to be able to stay in this community.”
One resident of the High Street housing spoke highly of her experience working with Starwood to find a new place to live. Audrey Moore said that while at first she saw the developer as the “big bad wolf,” she ultimately found Starwood to be helpful.
“It is about economic growth for Port Chester, but it”™s also about who you are dealing with,” Moore said. “And for the residents of 999 High St., I can say that they have truly supported us. If they support us, why would they not support Port Chester?”
Grangenois-Thomas has said her group is not against development of the site, but will continue to push Starwood to meet to discuss a possible community benefits agreement. In a statement to the Business Journal in April, Starwood said it is currently focused on the environmental review process and meeting with stakeholders, but “look(s) forward to more dialogue with members of the community.”
The Port Chester Board of Trustees held a second public hearing June 1 on the Starwood project after the Business Journal went to press.
