Trump Gets 6-Month Extension for Megamansions

Despite marquee names on the agenda, the planning board bent to nitty-gritty tasks of public hearings and conferences in tackling a routine Monday night at Bedford town hall.

Working through a planning board punch list of alteration and modification, the architects behind Donald Trump’s ambitious Seven Springs project are asking for more time to make things happen or determine whether they’re still necessary.

In a six-page letter to the board, outlining progress on 29 of the board’s requirements, Trump lawyer Charles V. Martabano of Katonah also asked for six more months to complete the work. An extension granted in February expired Aug. 12 and, as Martabano noted, “it is clear that a few conditions cannot be fully addressed . . . . with the result that a further extension will be required.”

The onetime estate of Washington Post publishers Eugene and Agnes Meyer, Seven Springs sprawls across 213 wooded acres astride the Bedford/North Castle town lines. While local opposition has stalled Trump’s progress in North Castle, the real estate mogul’s plans for seven megamansions on 103 acres in Bedford have advanced, if slowly, through the regulatory process.

While Martabano’s request for a time extension was seen as largely pro forma, he accompanied it with an offer to review progress on—or continued need for—each of 29 specific items laid out as requirements for obtaining site-plan approval.

Board Chairman Donald J. Coe took him up on it, saying, “Because of the [relatively early] hour, I suggest we go through the record.”

Condition 13, for example, calls for establishing a homegrown snow-removal operation. But the scrapping of an envisioned equestrian operation, which would have provided the on-site personnel to man snow plows in an emergency, quashed those plans. Trump will contract out that winter work instead.

The planning board, already down a member with the absence of Felix Cacciato, heard the Trump petition down a second member. John Sullivan, an architect with a White Plains practice, is working on revised plans for the onetime equestrian building, requiring him to recuse himself. The board, 3-0, approved a six-month extension for conditional subdivision plat approval. 

Preschool gets early drop-off OK

The board renewed a special-use permit for Lissie’s Katonah Playschool’s afternoon program and, in a separate action, voted to allow parents to drop off up to 42 youngsters for an early 7:30 a.m. start at the First Presbyterian Church of Katonah.

The preschool, at the corner of Bedford and Valley roads, has been operating on a 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule. But an earlier drop-off time would give parents better flexibility in organizing their day, Anne Harris, the school’s owner and director, told the planning board. Some members also saw the 7:30 start as a way to reduce the 9 o’clock traffic.

While the preschool, for children 2 through 5, operates at the church, it is a private and non-sectarian enterprise.

In addition to approving the early drop-off, the board extended the school’s permission to run an afternoon program, 3:30 to 6, for as many as 18 children.

Chase CEO adds (fractionally) to Sarles spread

As if proving the right relationship is everything, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, has increased his Sarles Street homestead by almost an acre in a private land deal with the folks next door. Their lot-line change was sanctioned Monday by the planning board.

Under a joint agreement, Dimon will pick up 0.899 of an acre from his neighbors, the Keesee family. While the land will be grafted onto 28.65 acres of Bedford Corners that Dimon already owns, the move was precipitated by a wish to put existing security fencing in the hands of one owner.

What matters most, Keesee lawyer Frank Veith told the planners, is placing all of the fencing on land legally belonging to one owner, Dimon. Under an informal arrangement, the fencing and entranceway have been used and maintained by both property owners. It was unclear how much, if anything, Dimon paid for the added real estate.