Letter to the Editor: New Castle Using Unreliable Data

To the Editor:

Here is an open letter to the New Castle Town Board.

We are Asian immigrant families and their friends in New Castle and/or Chappaqua School District. This letter is nonpartisan. Our group includes Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and others. We are a community with some shared core concerns, and we have this respectful demand that these shared community concerns be heard. To be heard does not mean the Town Board has to agree with us. To be heard only means our concerns are carefully reviewed, and responded to in good faith.

In our Open Letter to the Town Board (10/18/2020), we expressed our shared community concerns: a) material information in DGEIS is not credible based on the evidence we provided, and b) public hearings should not continue when the public is misinformed of the material information in DGEIS. We have included the evidence again at the end of this letter. At this stage and as a group, we are neither against nor for Form Based Code (FBC): some are for it, some are against it, and more are undecided. But we all feel strongly that reliable data are needed for an honest discussion among the citizenry about their future. We plead to the Town Board to respond to our concerns publicly, and the public will be the judge whether the response is specific and in good faith. We, as a group, have no political visibility and no public voice in New Castle. The only possible safeguard we have is public judgment. That is all we have.

The Town Board has a vision of a vibrant New Castle with strong local businesses, and many in our community are looking forward to it. This letter takes no position on FBC. We are only asking for reliable data for an honest discussion. We did not set the bar for "reliable data" so high that the Town Board will never be able to meet. Actually, we offered a smelling test.

We believe anyone who takes a few minutes to read our evidence will conclude the student enrollment numbers in DGEIS are not credible. These are material information in DGEIS, without which New Castle residents are unable to reasonably evaluate the balance between current residents' sacrifices and their aspirations. Any public hearing has no credibility, if the public has been misinformed about material information. The process to find a viable solution for New Castle is more than a checklist. It has to be a good-faith process to find a common ground for all current residents.

We still hope to have faith that the Town Board under the leadership of Supervisor Ivy Pool will heed to our urgent plea. It is not too late. Different policy preferences will not scar the New Castle community permanently. However, the perception of a dishonest process will. We sincerely hope that the Town Board will work with the Board of Education to bring the New Castle community together. This is what our town wants and frankly deserves.

For the past week, regarding a simple issue of fact, we cannot get our concerns heard. We have been repeatedly and painfully reminded that we do not have political visibility or public voice. For our fellow Americans in this group, we may speak halting English when we get nervous, but we know the extra hardship we overcome to get here. We are as proud as anyone. For our future fellow Americans in this group, we may be afraid to question our government, but the every cent we pay for property tax is worth as much as the cent paid for by anyone else. The government is ours as much as it is for anyone else's. Thus, we also respectfully request that the Town Board create an apolitical volunteer position of community liaison for immigrant families. The community liaison will help residents to navigate the local government and help residents to get good-faith responses from the same. The liaison will help the Town Board to reach some difficult-to-reach communities. This basic public visibility and voice will provide support for a significant group in New Castle and bring more cohesion to the New Castle community by deterring acts based on prejudices.

Finally, the evidence that we presented to the Town Board in our Open Letter was related to the enrollment projection due to FBC. The DGEIS disclaims "[i]t is important to note that this source is over 10 years old, not specific to New Castle or Westchester County, and provides very conservative estimates" even before presenting the estimated additional school enrollment of 96 for the estimated additional housing units of 988. DGEIS (9/25/2020) 3-146; see Id. at 3-143.

(1) The 10-year-old source that DGEIS uses is the residential demographic multipliers produced by the Center for Urban Policy Research of Rutgers University. Id. at 3-146. The distressing fact is that DGEIS did not follow the quick guide provided by Rutgers University on how to correctly use their residential demographic multipliers. (Listokin, David, et al. "A QUICK GUIDE TO NEW JERSEY RESIDENTIAL DEMOGRAPHIC MULTIPLIERS." (2006).) The quick guide provides Princeton Township as an example of areas where the residential demographic multipliers should not be simplistically relied upon, because Princeton is known for the “quality of the local school district.” Id. at viii. New Castle's school district is comparable to Princeton's. Both school districts are among the best and are better known than most places regarded as known for "the quality of the local school district."

The quick guide is clear and specific on how to analyze places like New Castle. "The residential demographic multipliers contained in this document provide important statewide average benchmark data that can only go so far in accurately predicting the actual demographic impact of housing development in a specific community. For instance, a given community may attract 'more' or 'fewer' public school children per housing unit because of such differences as geography (e.g., housing in New Jersey’s 'gold coast' along the Hudson River may attract 'Manhattan-oriented' households with few children) and the 'quality of the local school district' (e.g., households with more children may disproportionately self-select to live in communities with high-quality school systems)." Id. at viii. "For best results, the state-level data presented here should be supplemented by local analysis, such as conducting case studies of the actual population, and especially public school children generation, of occupied housing developments comparable in character (i.e., type, size, price, and tenure) and location to the subject development(s) being considered by the analyst. For example, in quantifying the likely public school children generation from 3-bedroom townhouses priced at $300,000 per unit proposed for Princeton Township, an analyst should first consider the 'Quick Guide' statewide data for the average number of public school children (0.24) in housing of this type (single-family attached),size (3-bedrooms), and price level (above median value).The analyst should then identify comparable townhouses (e.g., 3-bedroom units priced $250,000 to $350,000) that are occupied in Princeton and nearby communities and should then ascertain these developments’ actual public school children generation from public school data (e.g., busing and other information). The combination of this document’s multipliers and local analysis provides a comprehensive framework for answering 'who lives in New Jersey housing.'" Id.

(2) According to DGEIS, 64% of the housing units are expected to be one bedroom apartments. This is unlikely. New Castle is similar to Princeton Town, and "households with more children may disproportionately self-select to live in communities with high-quality school systems."& The market force is not expected to drive to produce 64% one bedroom apartments, and the Town Board will have no significant control over the type of apartments to be built once FBC is passed.

This letter is supported by 158 Residents of New Castle and/or Chappaqua School District:

Liu, Zhengxi; Huang, Tony; Xue, Yonggang; Huo, Shuang; Swen, Litian; Wang, Hao; Dong, Xin; Han, Shu; Wan, Yi; Liu, Angela; Sun, Jinsong; Sun, Andrew; Song, Xinjie; Zhao, Meng; Pang, Bo; Li, Bing; Xuan, Yan; Wang, Feng; Yang, Ying; Cheng, Wei; Zhang, Song; Chen, Ya Ping; Zhang, Liye; Lu, Ning; Jiang, Huijing; Xue, Chongjie; Zhang, Xiaolan; Ji, Yun; Li, Jing; Yu, Miao; Fan, Quan; Zheng, Deyou; Zhang, Lin; Li, Yingjie; Fu, Weiguo; Chang, Judith; Sykes, Scott; Jaggi, Neeraj; Chen, George G.; Chen, Sara; Huang, Sharon; Pan, Hao; Gu, Yiping; Zhang, Qintao; Wang, Wendy; Zhao, Jun; Feng, Yuqi; Zhang, Dongli; Hao, Ke; Pan, Qi; Liu, Yang; You, Daoqi; Zhou, Qun; Zhang, Liangjie; Wang, Helena; Xiang, Yunxiao; Liang, Guiwen; Zhang, Rui; Chang, Jianlin; Xie, Jeffrey; Peng, Emma; Gu, Chao; Xu, Yingxin; Hong, Stephen; Zhang, Xin; Huang, Jing; Li, Yanbo; Wang, Xin; Zhang, Jin; Ni, Yilong; Xia, Xiaoming; Chen, Yuxi; Zhang, Wenwen; Sun, Ying; Ye, Fred; Wu, Linfang; Huang, Jianping; Chi, Cheng; Chen, Dawn; Yang, Yi; Wang, Annie; Zhang, Kevin; Gong, Xiuqun; Dong, Sijia; Liang, Bin; Chen, Qianwen; Xu, Jinle; Zhang, Lei; Xiao, Sandy; Sun, Jing; Liang, Lingzi; Zhang, Yue; Kong, Wei; Wang, Grace; Guo, Tingwei; Liu, Nina; Xiu, Kai; Zhang, Aming; Lu, Yan; Yin, David; Liu, Rui; Bian, Junjun; Wu, Jingyi;

Zhu, Chaolun; Chen, Hang; Qian, Haifeng; Wan, Hui; Song, Liyang; Gao, Song; Xu, Zhijing; Lang, Billy; Jan, Katie; Jan, Bobby; Liu, Yuan; Wang, Fred; Niu, Melissa; Zhang, Mei; Yao,Shaoning; Cheng, Lijie; Pan, Wen; Hong, Sanxiang; Chen, Jialan; Huang, Kailiang; Wei, Zhenqiang; Wei, Jasmine; Zhu, Yu Qing; Zhao, Xu; Xu, Chang; Tong, Guanshan; Huang, Jing; Yang, Qingbo; Zheng, Xian; Cui, Xiaodong; Li, Siqi; Cheng, Yi; Giamelli, Joseph; Straus, Dora; Kassal, Tara McAdam; Bresner, Greg; Chazin, Suzanne; Grapel, Sue Mesh; Clearwaters, Jason; Clearwaters, Annette; Lambert, Lynne; Falkson, Yoni; Falkson, Cyd; Gorelik, Dana; Gorelik, Mark; Visser, Karen; Napoli, Monica; Le Vine, Scott; Le Vine, Nataliya; Vallois, Becca; Vallois, Alex; Shapiro, Sarah; Shapiro, Brian; Zheng, Chun; Xu, Danqing; Sanserverino, Andrea; and DiPreta, Galan.