2018_01_12 B_ Jaffee CommentsFrom: Ben Jaffe <bjammin26@gmail.com>
Date: January 12, 2018 at 6:04:17 PM EST
To: cbradbury@ryebrook.org, mayor@ryebrook.org, trusteesusanepstein@outlook.com, d345788@a
ol.com, klein.jason4@gmail.com, j.rednick@verizon.net
Subject: 900 King Street - Points for Inclusion in Environmental Impact Study
Dear Honorable Members of the Board,
I am writing in regards to the proposed 900 King Street Project, and specifically to provide a list of
items that I would like to request be included and addressed as part of the environmental impact
analysis set to be undertaken.
As I have stated to the Board in person at several of the more recent Board meetings that have
addressed this Project, I have significant concerns and reservations about the nature and magnitude of
what is currently being proposed and feel strongly that unless the Project is significantly cut back to a
more reasonable scale, that it will have a significant negative impact on the quality of life, safety, and
property values of all Village of Rye Brook and neighboring town residents.
Below is my list of items that I have concerns about and that I would like included in the study:
1. Schools: As has been raised by others, I would like to see an analysis of how this proposed Project
will impact both the school system and the safety of the school children, including:
(i) the unnecessary 55+ age restriction (of which many 55 year old's have school age children) versus
a more reasonable age restriction of 65+;
(ii) the fact that the number of bedrooms and overall square footage of many of units being proposed
are designed to provide for room/space for a child, which seems unnecessary in light of the intended
demographics of the targeted residents;
(iii) the fact that the long-term nature of the construction and the demographic makeup of the
population will likely cause (and at the very least significantly increase the risk of) accidents, and
endanger many school children, as there are significant number of students who use Arbor Drive to
walk to and from school;
(iv) how the construction and incidental blockage of Arbor drive will impact the busing of school
children, including the alteration of bus routes, and the pickup/dropoff times, as well as how it will
impact parents and other guardians individually driving students to and from school;
(v) the health impacts of school children related to the chemicals and other particles they will be
exposed to from demolition of the project site and construction of project due to the close proximity of
the site to the school grounds; and
(vi) most importantly the fact that the owners of this new property (who will have substantial tax
dollar/voting power) will have no incentive to maintain or increase tax dollars allocated towards the
school district, which over time will likely cause them to vote against actions that will help or maintain
the high pedigree of the school system and cause it to erode over time
(vii) the fact that young school children often walk along arbor drive unaccompanied by other adults
when you will now have random construction workers and other people present and what kinds of
additional dangers this poses on the kids
(viii) how the construction noise will impact learning and classwork in the schools
2. Water/Sewage: Elderly residents, and particularly those who require living assistance will inevitably
use more water and create more sewage and other waste than a similar development, such as the
Arbors, which consists of a more "ordinary" and unrestricted demographic resident
makeup. Therefore, I would like the following specifically studied and addressed:
(i) proposed project residents will likely be spending much more time in their units than the residents of
an average development, which means these residents will be using the bathroom many more times
throughout the day. In addition, as elderly residents and those residents requiring living assistance are
likely on medications that require them to use the bathroom more often than an ordinary person. How
does this impact and factor into the waste study? How does this affect existing waste/sewage lines?
(ii) many residents requiring assisted living may have trouble properly using the restrooms, thus
requiring them to use diapers or other machines and products (such as bed pans) to go to the
bathroom. This inevitably causes more waste because these diapers need to be disposed of, and the
bed pans, etc. need to be cleaned. How does this impact and factor into the waste and water usage
study? How does this affect existing waste/sewage lines?
(iii) the project will require a substantial number of staff members to be on-site at all times, including
security guards, chefs, nurses, doctors, recreational facility employees, etc., all of whom will need to
use the restrooms (and in some cases, such as nurses who live with residents full-time, the shower)
while on site. How does this impact and factor into waste study?
(iv) elderly residents and residents requiring living assistance take much longer to shower than an
ordinary person, how does this impact and factor into the water usage study?
(v) the project contemplates a full kitchen and dining facility, and meal-plan style dining offering, which
means that there will be food delivery, cooking, etc. on site in addition to such activities taking place in
the individual units. Preparing food in a meal-plan style offering will require a significant amount of
water, which is used in cooking, and will result in much more food and other waste than an ordinary
meal prepared by an individual in their unit as mass/catering style cooking inevitably results in more
food being prepared and put out than is actually eaten etc., and food portion control is often
overlooked or offered so that it is greater than what an individual cooking for him/herself would
prepare. How does this factor into the water usage and waste management studies?
(vi) what is the plan to bring water/sewage lines to the community? Will new lines need to be created
and connected to a main flow center, or will this simply be connected to an existing neighboring
residential line, such as whatever is used to manage waste for the Arbors? If the latter, how do each
of the above mentioned factors impact the analysis of whether or not connecting this to the arbors is
feasible? What kinds of additional problems arise when taking the above factors and combining them
with existing waste management needs of the arbors as a standalone development? What kinds of
construction impacts will there be on arbors property to make this happen and what will be the
implications of these construction projects?
3. Gas/Oil, Electricity: I would like the following items related to the implementation of adequate
gas/oil lines and electric wires, as well as the gas/oil and electricity consumption to be considered and
addressed:
(i) there are significant existing electric problems related to the electric lines in the area that cause
frequent power outages. How will this new project impact the existing lines and affect the homes in the
surrounding area? During construction, how often will there need to be planned power outages to add
to existing lines, etc.and what kind of impact will this have on neighboring residential buildings?
(ii) do the electric lines and/or gas and oil lines need to be hooked up to any lines that run through the
school? If so, how will this be done? Will this impact any parts of the school buildings or the ability for
the school to run/function as normal?
(iii) once built, if similar electric problems remain and continue to take place, how will this new influx of
residents without power impact Con-Ed's and the towns ability to respond and fix the issue? What
kind of timing delays will there be in getting power back up and running? What happens in there is a
major outage during a cold winter day/evening where you now have elderly residents without
heat? The kind of environmental impact this has and the impacts and other issues that these
questions and scenarios needs to be studied in depth.
(iv) elderly residents are generally more sensitive to heat and cold than an ordinary person, which
means that when in their unit, they will likely use up more gas/oil and electricity to heat and cool their
apartment than an ordinary person. Additionally, since these residents are likely to be staying in their
units throughout the day more than an average person, the amount of gas/oil, and electricity used will
be greater than an ordinary development. What environmental impact does this have and what impact
does this have on the number, type and design of the oil/gas/electric lines?
(v) a facility with a dining hall and communal kitchen will require a fairly complex heating/cooling
system and will require a significant amount more resources to run and maintain than an ordinary
development (such as the arbors) that does not have this (e.g., heating/cooling and keeping lights on
in a massive dining hall facility). Additionally, a dining hall will likely require large-scale refrigerators
and freezers, and will be utilizing large-scale ovens and stoves that use up significant energy to run
compared to those used in an individual units. There will also be kitchens in the individual units as well
where residents will perform additional cooking on their own. What environmental impact does this
have and what impact does this have on the number, type and design of the oil/gas/electric lines?
(vi) for certain residents requiring living assistance, what kind of medical devices will be commonly
required? There may be various machines that need to run 24-7 and be hooked up to certain
residents. These machines all use up electricity. Additionally, what about back-up generators and
other projections that may be required to be installed so as to prevent a shut-down of these devices in
the event of a power-outage? What environmental impact does this have and what impact does this
have on the number, type and design of the oil/gas/electric lines?
3. Traffic:
(i) If the construction of the project requires arbors residents to have to use the emergency access
road to enter/exit the development, rather than arbor drive, how will this increase/impact traffic
throughout the community? particularly during rush-hour, how will this change traffic patterns?
(ii) Currently there is an existing problem with the traffic/busing within the arbors related to the pickup
and drop-off locations. If arbor drive is closed-off, the increased traffic within the arbors will be
unavoidable as the emergency access road is not built to handle all traffic to and from the community
on a daily basis. When you have kids waiting for the school bus in clustered locations, combined with
people struggling to get and out of the community, this becomes a recipe for disaster and substantially
endangers school children and parents as they are waiting for the bus and/or walking to and from
school. Additionally, this likely will make the students late to school as it will take much longer to get
the busing through the community. How does the town propose to address this?
(iii) the demographic of residents contemplated by this project seems to assume that many will be
retired. Therefore, if residents are not away throughout the day at work, they will likely be coming to
and from the development site more frequently throughout the day than an ordinary person (whether it
be to run errands, to visit a friend, to play a round of golf, to go to a movie, etc.). Thus, you will have
an influx of people creating traffic at times of the day that may not otherwise happen with an ordinary
development. How does this impact the traffic flow of the community?
(iv) this proposed project has an assisted living component and also appears to be offering many
additional "community based" features such as a dining facility, a gym, a studio for art and other types
of classes, a recreational facility, etc. This means that there will be nurses, caretakers, doctors, cooks,
waiters, food delivery trucks, cleaning staff, instructors, teachers, security personnel, potentially
outside people attending classes offered, etc. all throughout the day and at all times (not just peak
traffic times). This is likely to significantly increase traffic in the village, particularly due to the close
proximity of the project to the school, the nature of the intersection going in/out of arbor drive, the fact
that king street and arbor drive is a single lane road in both directions, etc. How will all of these factors
impact traffic?
(v) unlike with the current commercial structure, where during peak hours you have people coming and
going to and from the site in the opposite direction of traffic as the arbors residents going to and from
work, this new residential development will likely see an influx of people coming and going to and from
the site in the same direction, which will significantly impact and alter the traffic patterns currently
established. How does the town plan to address this, and how will this impact the traffic in the
community as a whole?
(v) because the target demographic is elderly residents and because many will require living
assistance, there will likely be a significant increase in the number of emergency services vehicles
called to the development site than currently exists. I would like to see a study done not only to
address the increase in traffic that this will have on the community as a whole, but to also look into
whether or not the town can handle the increase in the number of emergency services resources that
this development will likely require, the ability for such emergency services to timely and properly
service people who need such assistance, and how the increased use of such emergency services will
impact the other village residents currently living here?
(vi) this is a massive development that will take years to complete if approved. How will the
construction of such a massive project be handled? How will it impact traffic? How does the town
propose to balance the timing of the construction so as to not disrupt the flow of traffic, not disrupt the
students at the school, and not disrupt the day-to-day living experiences of the residents living
nearby?
(vii) how will the required change in busing routes impact traffic? As currently proposed the
development is very likely to have school-aged children.
4. Emergency Exits:
(i) as I raised at the last Board meeting, I have a particular concern with the proposed emergency
access road, that would run through the back of the town hall parking lot and feed onto King
Street. King Street is a one-lane road in each direction and turning left out of the town-hall parking lot
can take a long time depending on the traffic conditions. Turning right can also be a major problem,
although less of an issue. A detailed analysis should be done of how residents plan to timely and
safely get out of the development through this proposed emergency access way if the emergency
occurs during a peak traffic time. Also, what if there is an emergency that requires people to turn left
instead of right? If people can't timely turn onto king street, then there will be massive backup of cars
and people trying to leave, which will likely run all the way back to the development.
(ii) additionally, and most importantly, if police or fire trucks need to come in and out of the parking lot,
how will they be able to do this if the lot if full of cars and traffic? How can police and fireman be
expected to properly and safely do their jobs and address people in need during an emergency if you
have an entire community of elderly residents trying to leave the development through the exact same
road that the police and firetrucks use?
(iii) how will all of the above impact the ability for other residents living in different parts of the
community to escape an emergency situation, or for police/fireman to address the needs of people
living in different parts of the community?
(iv) if based on the above it is determined that this kind of emergency access road is no longer a viable
option, what alternatives are there that would even work? If there can't be a proper emergency access
road, how can the development be expected to go forward?
5. Comparison of Project to Similar Existing Sites: As raised in the last Board meeting, the developers
to date have used numerous other similar communities in the area as a precedential baseline for
determining and evaluating certain environmental impacts that the proposed project may have on our
village. One example of this is the site in Harrison. However, there seem to be substantial differences
in the nature and makeup of these sites and their surrounding locations that make them unfit for
comparison. Therefore, as part of the environmental analysis, a comparative study of factors such as
the immediately surrounding residential population density, commercial nature of the immediately
surrounding district, proximity to schools, type of roadways and access ways lead to/from and
surrounding the comparative sites (e.g., number of lanes of the raods, number of roads, alternate
traffic routes, etc.), and similar characteristics should be done in order to determine which existing
developments are in fact similar enough that they can be used as precedents to help project certain
environmental impacts that this proposed project may have, and which existing developments are too
different from the proposed project in particular areas so as to make them ineligible for precedential
comparison.
6. Home Values:
(i) as currently planned, the proposed project would result in a massive, years-long construction
process. Unfortunately, due to the unique nature of the site location, there is no way to go about
construction in a manner that would not have a significant interruption to those living in the
community. I am particularly concerned how this may negatively impact people's desire to move to the
community due to the fact that they won't want to have to deal with this on a daily basis. If this
happens, it will have a negative impact on home values across the board. I would like to have a study
done on how these projects have impacted home sales in the past and what kind of impact the
construction process is to have on home sales in this case.
(ii) what happens if the project as currently proposed fails to live up to expectations and there are
numerous un-rented units? Does the developer have the ability to just convert these to units for sale,
rather than rent? If this is the case, how will that impact the home values of the neighboring
communities?
(iii) if this project is approved and other similar commercial land owners seek to turn that property into
a residential development, how will the village be able to handle this? How will the precedent set by
approval of this project impact future proposals and developments? How will these new developments
impacting existing homes and their values?
(iv) as mentioned by others, quality schools are what drive home values in westchester. I am
concerned not only that the new owners of this development will not have any incentive to vote for tax
related measures aimed at maintaining and improving the schools, but that as this development and
other similar developments targeting elderly demographics have been approved, that the overall make-
up of the village will begin to shift, causing other elderly residents to flock to the community. If these
residents don't have children, they will also not have any incentive or desire to vote on allocating
money towards the schools, and if the school system declines, it could negatively impact home values
in a significant manner.
7. Aesthetics:
(i) the current proposal has peak roof heights well above 50ft (significantly higher than existing
structure) and has an overall area density that is massive compared to existing office building. Why
can't this be scaled back further to make it less cumbersome?
(ii) the current proposal is clearly visible from the Hutch, King Street and the arbors and would create a
substantial negative aesthetic for the community, particularly given the high-traffic location of the
site. This will have a substantial impact on people's quality of life and day to day enjoyment of the
neighborhood and an evaluation of the visible impact of the current proposal should be undertaken
and suggestions for how to drastically scale this back proposed.
Sincerely,
Ben Jaffe