Moratorium had nothing to do with Ossining losing $10M grant

Why the idea of a Moratorium had nothing to do with Ossining losing a 10 million Dollar Grant

Dear Editor,

I Read with great interest Mayor Victoria Gearity’s recent opinion piece about the Village of Ossining’s recent failure to win the coveted 10 Million-dollar mid-Hudson grant. I certainly applaud New Rochelle for their hard work which was rewarded. However, the Mayor lost me when she suggested that the idea of a discussion about a moratorium is to blame for not winning the award. Does the Mayor have some inside information about why we lost? In the spirit of transparency as a sitting village trustee I would like to know. I can think of numerous reasons that we didn’t win the award. The truth is, we are not ready as a village to handle such a grant. Here are a number of reasons why.

Let’s begin with Kevin Dwarka study. This was humbling and stark picture of fractured policie around affordable housing, lack of safe housing enforcement and a failure to develop commercial property which has the lowest stress on municipal services. The good news is that Village board members have been universal in supporting legislation over past 2 years that is changing that picture. We are making progress but we still have more work to do.

The Village has been without a Village Planner for some years now, but we now have filled that role in the last few months with a true expert in New York and Westchester Planning. How would any Economic Development Authority give away $10 million dollars to a municipality that did not have fully tenured full-time planner to manage such an effort?

And course there was that little round about issue in the middle of our business district. This was a true sign of a lack of consensus in our community about economic development. Any external party viewing that public issue could see that Ossining just isn’t ready because we haven’t found the vision yet.

I agree with many of the Mayor’s point’s about moving ahead with a new comprehensive plan update and/or revision. I do not believe that our current land use laws provide the right guidance for relevant and attainable real estate and economic development. There will be other grants to apply for in the future and if we can show stability and continuity in approach and vision, I am sure we will do better.

To say that the discussion of a moratorium is reason for our not getting a 10-million-dollar grant is nothing more than political grandstanding in an election year. The Mayor is taking the easy way out by blaming her opponent rather than owning the fact that she is “the current political climate”. You are the Mayor, right?

John Codman III