New Castle Voters Revisit the New Direction on Election Day

The New Castle Town Board adopted a "New Direction" for the Form Based Code (FBC) back in February of 2021. As part of the upcoming election, the Dems4NC slate initially committed to support the FBC back in May and has reiterated their support for the process throughout the campaign.

“We, like many residents, had concerns and questions about the implementation of the code to the original 72-acre study area. We are reassured by the Town Board’s new direction”:

• Limiting the FBC solely to the six-acre North Greeley corridor (a more than 90 percent reduction);

Status: Town Board declined to put in any barriers for expanding the FBC to the rest of the hamlet leaving only the minimum requirements required by NY State law (single public hearing for most of it). The Chappaqua Central School District requested a pause once a certain number of units, students or a percentage of the area was developed. Those requests were declined. How the town planned to move forward was left as a cliffhanger for residents, developers and all interested parties.

• Restoration of oversight by the Planning Board and Architectural Review Board;

Status: The Planning Board will not have any input into any project in the 72 acre study area built within existing lot lines. The Planning Board only gets involved for projects greater than 0.5 acre “AND” involving a change in lot lines. The second condition castrates the first one. At a minimum, it would seem that the Planning Board should be involved in projects over a certain size. The Architectural Review Board will simply building styles are ones included in the code. This is where the public would often get involved, but it won’t be the case for the Chappaqua hamlet.

• No five-story buildings;

Status: The Town Board did take 5 story buildings around the train station out of the proposal, but is signing off on the environmental impact of 4 story buildings in the rest of the hamlet except for a few blocks near the traffic light at the intersection of King and Greeley. Even the east side of North Greeley will have an environmental approval for 4 stories. Any request for a 4 story variance will not require an environmental review which includes issues like viewshed, stormwater, sewers, traffic, parking and others.

The Dems4NC slate has made several promises about how they would move forward, but whichever slate wins the election or whatever combination of 4 candidates emerges with the most votes (Lisa Katz and the Unite New Castle slate oppose the FBC), the right thing to do is to provide additional details in any environmental review that gets completed (referred to as a Findings Statement) so the subject isn’t wide open to interpretation by a future Town Board.

Residents throughout the town will judge for themselves if the Dems4NC reasons for supporting the FBC materialized as advertised. Due to the vacancy of the position by former Town Supervisor Ivy Pool, New Castle will name her replacement as soon as the results of the election are declared on or after Election Day.

New Castle is a town of about 18,000 residents where Democrats enjoy a large registration advantage over other political parties and where about 30% of registered voters are unaffiliated. All 8 candidates up for election are Democrats so the turnout by non-Democrats and who they prefer will ultimately have a big influence on the outcome. How Democrat voters decide to express their desire to be one of the smaller towns governed by a Form Based Code will also have a big impact on the composition of the next Town Board. Three out of the last four contests for Town Supervisor were won by a candidate running on an independent line.