FASNY Details Plan for White Plains Campus

In their most detailed public presentation to date, representatives of the French-American School of New York (FASNY) sought to allay fears, and frame their plans for the former Ridgeway Country Club as good for White Plains.

FASNY, which bought the Ridgeway property in January, hopes to unite its three current campuses—located in Larchmont, Mamaroneck, and Scarsdale—on the 129-acre site where it will educate 1,200 students.

Michael Zarin, an attorney with Zarin & Steinmetz; Mischa Zabotin, chairman of the FASNY Board of Trustees; Diego Villareale, a project manager with John Meyer Consulting; Graham Trelstad, a senior vice president at AKRF; and Mike Messinger, an associate with James G. Rogers Architects, all took part in a nearly two-hour presentation to the White Plains Common Council, who will approve or deny the school’s permit to run a nursery school though twelvfth grade on the campus.

About 25 residents attended Monday’s special meeting, though they were not allowed to comment.

Villareale detailed the plan’s layout, which can be seen by clicking on the photo. FASNY has pledged to create about 60 acres of open space, to preserve the site’s natural features. The Gedney Preserve, he said, which FASNY has pledged to make available to the public at no cost to the city, would provide “passive recreation” including walking trails.

“The design [of The Gedney Preserve] has not been finalized in any way,” said Villareale.

Any final design would be a collaboration between FASNY, the City, and perhaps the Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Frances Jones—a board member of White Plains Concerned Citizens for Open Space, co-president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations, and president of the Rocky Dell/Reynal Park Association—said after the presentation that she isn’t sold on the idea of the Gedney Preserve if it will come at the expense of increased air pollution and traffic.

“I want to know a lot more about it,” Jones said. “Having the school there is going to add to air pollution. It’s going to add to traffic. There are no two ways about it.”

Trelstad said that the traffic from the school would increase from 27 percent of "design capcity" to 40 percent on Ridgeway. For Mamaroneck Avenue and North Street, he said, the increases would be much smaller: 71 percent to 74 percent, and 61 percent to 63 percent respectively.

According to Trelstad, cars would have to enter the campus from one of two entrances on Ridgeway: one that currently exists, and the other which would be a newly constructed lengthy roadway that would lead to the rest of the campus, including the main parking area, the parent parking area, and the lower school drop-off/pickup area.

Those who enter from the existing Hathway Lane entrance would only be able to exit from the way they came toward Ridgeway, as signage and enforcement (from the school) would prevent them traveling onto Gedney Esplanade.

FASNY officials said the lengthy drive will allow for the stacking of cars and buses on the campus, and would prevent traffic from backing up onto Ridgeway. Cars and buses coming from the lengthy driveway would either go back the way they came or onto Hathaway, with signs and enforcement preventing traffic from traveling onto Gedney Esplanade. See the PDF map for reference.

Presenters also detailed green-building principles they would follow, and addressed water-management concerns. The site’s existing lot coverage would increase by 3 percentage points, from 5.64 percent to 8.69 percent, according to Villareale. New stormwater retention ponds will be placed on site, including along Ridgeway where flooding currently occurs.

According to FASNY’s calculations, White Plains would gain $14.3 million in annual economic benefits from FASNY students, parents, and employees patronizing local businesses. FASNY estimates that 200 FASNY families will move to the city, and pay school taxes of $2.75 million without sending their children to the White Plains Public Schools. Click on the PDFs to read FASNY's financial analysis.

Zarin presented a tentative timeline that would have a final decision on the project sometime in Winter 2012, but that is likely optimistic; as a town planner , timeframes under the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) process are often extended.

The SEQR process, as Zarin noted on Monday, will begin with a scoping document that identifies areas of concern, with draft and final environmental reviews to follow.

A public hearing on the City’s on land-use approvals, which includes special permits, will be held as part of the next regular common council meeting on Oct. 3. The proposed seven-month extension would extend the moratorium to May 2012.

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