FASNY: Their "MOST DANGEROUS PLAN" yet

Overview of FASNY Plan Problems. . .

Dear Mayor and Common Council:

In our prior Summary email we urged our elected officials to reject FASNY's latest submission as it is their "Most Dangerous Plan" so far. . .because it is a serious Traffic Safety threat to the health, safety and welfare of the current 5,000 WP School Children walking, biking and commuting to their 10 existing WP schools on the small country streets without sidewalks surrounding FASNY's property.

We also mentioned that this latest FASNY Site Plan is really a "fake news" submission because FASNY in its PR misinformation is taking credit for "reduced" Traffic, School Enrollment and Construction. . .only because FASNY has not included their Lower School and Nursery School student enrollments. . .or their building development plans for Parcels B, C & D. . .all of which were in prior FASNY submissions. Just as a point of reference FASNY is telling us now that there Upper School Enrollment will be 640. . .yet failed to disclose that this is a 34% increase over FASNY's prior Upper School Enrollment of 478. Is anyone surprised that FASNY Enrollment is actually going up? We are projecting a total FASNY enrollment of about 1,272. . .our analysis and calculations will follow in our Full Report and Notes.

With regard to FASNY Traffic even without the Lower School and Nursery school enrollments. . .FASNY's revised submission shows FASNY Vehicle Trips on Hathaway Lane increasing by more than 494% using FASNY's own assumptions and numbers. Can you imagine how much higher the FASNY Vehicle Trips would be after the Lower School and Nursery School enrollments are included? In their continuing PR misinformation to the WP community. . .FASNY is also using "fake news" in taking credit for reductions which aren't real mitigation reductions. For the past 6 years FASNY has been presenting us with "fake news" plans and PR before we knew what "fake news" was. . .however residents did understand that all the FASNY information was basically ill prepared and factually inaccurate,

Usually when you have to redo a plan or presentation you go back and put extra effort in trying to get everything correct. Not so with FASNY as they have submitted so many plan changes over the years with misstatements and factual inaccuracies that we are left now with FASNY's "Most Dangerous Plan"

Here in our 2nd email is our Overview of all the problems we see in FASNY's latest plan submission:

1. FASNY Unanswered Questions. . .FASNY has submitted another out-of-Character site plan compared with the WP Comprehensive Plan, SEQR regulations, with the Character of the surrounding residential community. . .and with Environmental restrictions which both FASNY and our City previously agreed to. . .leaving WP residents with more questions than answers.

2. FASNY Plan Sloppiness. . .Unfortunately after all of the multiple FASNY plan submissions we have reviewed, we have come to the opinion that the preparers of these FASNY plans only want to mislead and misinform the Citizens of WP. . .because the basic facts and the truth of FASNY's own massive development project are not something the FASNY preparers themselves are comfortable with sharing with the residents of our City.

3. Why This is FASNY's Most Dangerous Plan. . .Unfortunately FASNY's new plan appears to be more dangerous than their prior submissions as too many of FASNY's prior plan details for their 130 acre property have been left out. For example FASNY's new plan is only a partial and incomplete submission focused only on Parcel A. . .while ignoring Parcels B, C & D. And the new submission does not disclose FASNY's plans and student enrollment numbers for their Lower School and Nursery School programs, that were included in prior FASNY SEQR submissions. . .and which in all likelihood will require a North Street Entrance posing a substantial additional safety risk to WP School children, Seniors and their families. Shouldn't the safety of the current 5,000 WP School Children walking, biking and commuting to their 10 existing WP schools on the small country streets without sidewalks surrounding FASNY's property. . .be our elected officials "#1" priority?

4. Massive FASNY Traffic with No Solutions. . .Once again FASNY has no solutions to the massive Traffic they are bringing into our residential neighborhood. If a Ridgeway Entrance was already rejected in past FASNY plans because Ridgeway was a "Collector" Street. . .this new plan is actually worse. . .because putting the entrance on Hathaway, a smaller country road than Ridgeway, will still require the same number of incremental FASNY cars and buses to travel on Ridgeway in order to get to Hathaway Lane. FASNY's new revised plan will increase Vehicle Trips on Hathaway Lane by more than 494% based on FASNY's own assumptions and numbers. . .in other words FASNY will be bringing in "5 times" the amount of existing Traffic on Hathaway Lane according to FASNY's own counts of current Traffic volume. In effect closing Hathaway Lane, a Public street, and limiting Ridgeway to bumper-to-bumper Traffic during peak AM commutes. . .while also increasing Emergency Response Times to nearby existing WP schools and private residences. Also keep in mind right now most of Ridgeway and all of Hathaway Lane are "streets without sidewalks" so walking and biking to nearby WP schools today is also challenging. And since FASNY's latest plan doesn't include the "Planned Student Population" for FASNY's their Lower School and Nursery School programs FASNY's adverse Vehicle Trip numbers will be worse than disclosed. FASNY's real Traffic issue is that the size of FASNY's "Planned Student Population" is just too big and out-of-Character with the residential location in WP that FASNY itself chose. . .posing a major Traffic Safety concern particularly for WP School Children and Seniors.

5. FASNY's Unsolved Flooding Issues are a Major Environmental Concern. . . FASNY in its effort to get around the City's super-majority vote requirement for a WP Environmentally Sensitive Site. . .tried to have the City remove the Environmentally Sensitive designation for Parcel A. . .in spite of the fact that FASNY and the Common Council back in 2011 both deemed the entire site as Environmentally Sensitive and confirmed this again in December 19, 2013 SEQR Findings report. And on March 15, 2017 the Common Council determined once again that Parcel A is an Environmentally Sensitive Site. . .after independent environmental firms hired by the City (Evans) and the Gedney Association (Danzer) confirmed the Environmentally Sensitive designation. . .while overruling the opinions provided by FASNY's own consultant. In addition FASNY itself still has not undertaken the required wetland testing and analytical studies on Parcel A. . .to determine the Environmental impact their Construction activities will have on potential Flooding and Water problems with the surrounding community. While FASNY did include in the DEIS an old 1899 map of the streams and brooks on the old golf course property. . .FASNY still has not produced any up-to-date maps which detail where the current underground intermittent streams which flow into the Mamaroneck River are located today. The bottom line is that FASNY still does have all the information they need to know about Parcel A with regard to wetlands, watercourses and underground streams in order to determines where it is appropriate to safely build.

6. FASNY is Destroying Community Character and Zoning. . .FASNY's project is out of Character with the surrounding residential neighborhood. . .inconsistent with our Comprehensive Plan. . .and not in compliance with the current R1-30 zoning, particularly by exceeding its 35 ft height limits. So FASNY has resorted to trying to change R1-30 Zoning and the WP Comprehensive Plan. While most citizens are in favor of Open Space. . .residents are not interested in a Conservancy if it involves the tradeoff of agreeing to a massive development project which would make Parcel A looks like a over-built Downtown section of the City. The old golf course property is comprised of 4 Parcels of land each separated by Public streets. . .and each Parcel is zoned R1-30, a low density designation established to preserve Open Space and conform to the surrounding residential community. Somehow over the years either this City Administration went out of their way to help FASNY or were out-negotiated by the FASNY lawyers. . .to allow over-building on Parcel A's in violation of Parcel A's own zoning. . .in return for agreeing to a Conservancy on some of FASNY's other Parcels of land. While the Conservancy has been left out of FASNY's new plan submission. . .it is unsettling to us that the Common Council members backing FASNY are so interested in destroying the old golf course's R1-30 low density residential zoning that was put in place to protect Open Space and the surrounding community.

7. FASNY's School Doesn't Fit On The Property FASNY Themselves Purchased. . . If a thorough due diligence on the issues of Traffic, Buildings, Construction, Flooding, Environmental features as well as Laws and Regulations was done 6 years ago by the FASNY Representatives. . .the FASNY School, the City of White Plains and WP residents would have saved a lot of time, effort and money. And the shame is that the FASNY Representatives could have and should have known the details of all these still outstanding and unresolved due diligence issues back 6 years ago when they purchased the old golf course property.

8. FASNY Violating SEQR Regulations. . . FASNY is violating SEQR regulations particularly with regard to "segmentation". Both the failure to disclose plans for Parcels B, C & D. . .as well as ignoring their Student Enrollment and Construction Plans for the Lower School and Nursery School. . .both of which were disclosed in their prior SEQR submissions. Both of these failures to disclose in FASNY's latest site plan appear to be violations of SEQR requirement # 617.2 relating to "Segmentation". More on "Segmentation" in our Report Notes in our next missive. In addition SEQR requires all mitigation reductions to be permanent "in perpetuity". . .which to date FASNY has demonstrated that they do not understand "in perpetuity" or are unwilling to acknowledge permanent reductions in their own plans.

9. Why has this City Administration allowed the developer FASNY to circumvent WP laws and regulations that ordinary citizens are required to follow?. . At the SEQR Findings meeting back on December 19, 2013 Mayor Roach proclaimed that the City is "bound by the law" in reviewing the FASNY project. If so why does it seem that after 6 years of FASNY plan submissions that were too long, too sloppy, changed too often and had too many factual inaccuracies. . .and where residents were often left with more questions than answers. . .that this City Administration has allowed FASNY to ignore and circumvent a long list of laws and regulations, including SEQR (617.2), the WP Comprehensive Plan (11-1-44 & 11-1-45), Zoning (1.5, 2.4, 4.4.35 & 5.2), Special Permit (6.5.1 & 6.5.3), Municipal Code (3-5-1, 3-5.2 & 3.5.3) and the Complete Streets Policy. More details to follow in Section 9 of our Report Notes missive. And while all these laws were being broken. . .someone in the City Administration also advised this Common Council to stay silent and not ask any questions of FASNY in Public for over 3+ years. Shouldn't Public meetings be used by our elected official to search for the truth?

10. Is it true that the unofficial rule for all elected officials is. . .not to make living conditions worse for the citizens who elected them to office?

We say Yes. FASNY's revised plan is about a massive Construction project in a WP residential community on current Open Space zoned at the low density R1-30 on land designated as Environmentally Sensitive where the Traffic volume from FASNY's "School Population Size" is both dangerous and unmanageable. It certainly looks to us that FASNY's latest site plan will make living conditions worse for a lot of WP Citizens.

For us too many strange and unusual things have happened over the past 6 years in the review of this FASNY project. . .from the City allowing so many inaccurate FASNY plans to be submitted. . .to the Common Council staying silent and not asking questions in Public of the developer FASNY for over 3+ years. . .to some on the City Staff helping FASNY in secret behind-the-scenes. . .to rumors of a "Secret Deal" between the City and FASNY. . .to this City Administration withholding recent secretly commissioned environmental reports from the Public. . .to FOIL requests to the City not being responded to in a timely manner. . . to this City Administration agreeing to temporarily suspending legal action, which appeared to be progressing successfully. . .so FASNY can submit its "Most Dangerous Plan". We can understand FASNY's motivations for being untruthful. . .however who in this City Administration is responsible for all this ineptitude and apparent dishonesty?

When you take a big picture look at the past 6 years. . .unfortunately FASNY picked the wrong location, one in a residential neighborhood, for their massive school and unmanageable Traffic. . .and followed up with inadequate due diligence and factually inaccurate plan submissions. The FASNY lawyers and consultants have no one to blame but themselves.

We would like to personally thank Common Council Members Lecuona, Hunt-Robinson and Krolian for being concerned with Environmental Issues, defending Zoning in residential neighborhoods and for protecting WP School Children and their families from FASNY's massive Traffic. . .while at the same time uncovering facts and issues that the FASNY Representatives have tried to avoid talking about in Public and in their submissions. We know it was not easy for each of these Common Council Members to endure the political pressures urging them to tow the party line and push inaccurate and incomplete FASNY plans through without asking any questions.

We need all our elected officials concerned and committed to the Traffic Safety of WP School Children and Seniors. . .FASNY trying to bring in "5 times" the current Traffic. . .is just not the right thing to do.

Our full report with our Report Notes and Analyses to follow.

Thanks for your consideration.

Your Truth Police. . .Team Rhodes

Marie and Ron Rhodes