2019.06.13 M. Cooper Comments1
Alex Marshall
Subject:FW: 900 King Street Project
From: Mitchell Hart Cooper [mailto:mitch.cooper18@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2019 1:48 PM
To: Michal Nowak <MNowak@ryebrook.org>
Subject: 900 King Street Project
Dear Mr. Nowak & Planning Board -
I am writing to respectfully implore you and the Planning Board to reject the demolition request for 900 King
Street, as well as the pending Zoning Amendment that is being requested by the developer for the same piece of
land.
Those of us who live in The Arbors bought our homes with the expectation that we’d be able to live in quiet,
peacefully. Live without the intrusion and nuisance of years of demolition and construction essentially in our
backyard. And live in a town and community where allowing its residents to live happily is the paramount
objective, superseding business interests that would incredibly obviously have a significantly detrimental effect.
All of this as you and your fellow Board members surely did as well when you purchased your homes.
However, the proposed demolition and new construction would have an immensely negative effect on that.
This demolition will impede on hundreds of families’, including their many young children’s, ability to simply
continue to live in peace and quiet. The noise, construction equipment dominating the road leading into our
community, vibrations to the ground from the work, not to mention any of a variety of presently unknown
contaminants that could be in the building that would hit the air we and our children breathe every day all come
together to create a terrible living circumstance. Not to mention that how if there were to be a significant
accident how it could even further have a damaging yield on The Arbors' hundreds of families.
Whether it’s playing outside with our kids peacefully, babies and toddlers being allowed to take their daily naps
in their homes without being woken up by loud construction, not having the foundations of our homes
potentially damaged, or simply entering and existing our community with proper and normal ease, this project
will have a multitude of unjustified negative effects, having a massive negative impact on our quality of life
every day. All this in demolition now, to continue as well for a new building project that is poorly planned, and
it is my understanding that it is currently scoped at close to three times the permitted size for the size of the land
it’s proposed to go on.
I ask that you not think as "Board Members" on these matters, but as parents, grandparents and fellow Rye
Brook residents. What would you be saying and doing if it was your home about to be subject to a demolition
essentially in your backyard, very possibly with 3 more years of construction of a new property to still come? If
it was your home and life that would be effected in these ways, would you want it to be approved? If it was your
children’s home and lives that would be effected would you want it to be approved? If your grandchildren
would feel these effects at their home every day, would you want this to be approved? How would you want the
Planning Board to rule?
I dare say, ask the developer how they would feel if this was being proposed to occur next to their home. How
would they feel about hearing construction noise on a Saturday while they're trying to swim with their children,
or play with them on the playground? How would they feel if they were regularly blocked from getting through
2
the main road to their home by construction equipment after a 13 hour work day? How would they feel if their
toddler could be woken up from their nap any given day by noise from constant construction? Surely they
would not be as willing to allow it as they wish the residents of The Arbors would be on the matter. And they
surely would not want the ruling of the Planning Board to be the ruling they are asking the Board for on these
matters.
I know the developer will say that at the end of the day, it's their property and they have a right to do what they
will with it so long as they abide by the town's ordinances and laws. However, I believe that I live in a town
where that is not the paramount criteria. I believe that Rye Brook is a town where what is truly best for its
citizens, not one company, and doing what is best to protect those citizens from unnecessary detriment is the
overarching methodology by which our town government makes its decisions.
Surely as my fellow Arbors neighbors do as well, I ask that your determinations on these matters not be
motivated by a financially-driven developer’s ill-planned requests, but rather by doing what is best for and
maintaining the peace, quiet and quality of life for the Rye Brook citizens whom you represent.
With that, I respectfully request in the strongest possible terms that you and the Planning Committee reject both
the pending demolition and Zoning Amendment requests.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
--
Best,
Mitchell Hart Cooper
Cell: 516-761-5828
E-mail: mitch.cooper18@gmail.com
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