And It Was Epic

Hi there all you bloggers and bloggerettes reading this here blog. The Faith Bible part actually only lasted about 2 hours and was left open to public comment. Thank goodness because I got off track and was distracted [note to self: don't bring 4 kids to a public hearing].  I promise you some choice video clips very soon. The takeaways from the meeting:

1.  Thank you Mohegan Lake. It's a lot to ask a neighbor to physically appear before the board from 730-11 at night, but you did it.
2. The Yorktown Planning board is very deliberative and doing good work.
3. We'll likely get some quality time with the Zoning Board in the near future. [editor's note: I love you guys.  xoxoxoxo.]
4.  If you haven't written an opposition letter or signed the petition, now is the time. Get in contact with me at YorktownCode@gmail.com. 
5. We need to have a community meeting to go everything--again. There's a lot of details to discuss. Hold 2-4pm on Saturday May 20th in your calendar. Likely at the MHPOA beach. 
6. Will Faith Bible sue their design team for misleading them into a proposal that may be un-approvable?  As a trained architect and building code and zoning consultant, I'd be all over that.  Church is a residential use yet it requires a "special use permit" in a residential zone. Mwwwahahahah.  Naked in Times Square.  I've been there.  Not pleasant. 

 Stay tuned, kids.

Reminder: Faith Bible Church Planning Board Hearing Tonight 5/6/2013 at 7:30pm at Town Hall

Don't forget about this public hearing tonight.  It's only THE most important facing Mohegan Lake today (now that we quashed that crazy Holland Club ball field proposal).  I guarantee it will be epic. Make sure you've been fed and have a snack; it will probably take a while.

Faith Bible Is Proposing A Church That Can Hold 730 People

But they are only designing parking for 252 people.  This is Yorktown, so it should sail through the approval process, right?

Please note that all images below--except the 1968 NYC Building Code--are taken from the signed and sealed architectural plans in the planning board file.  I've pored over the plans for 2 years now.  I can say that Larry Dalfino (the church's architect), who I see in the Manhattan DOB occasionally since he has an office on Park Ave South and seems to do most of his work there, needs a little refresher course on the pertinent codes for this project.

I think he forgot that he:

a) can't invoke the 1968 NYC building code to claim "non-simultaneous occupancy"; if Larry Dalfino can find any NY State code or Local Law in Yorktown that has any mention of "non-simultaneous occupancy," I will let him punch me in the mouth.  Parking is is regulated by zoning, not building code.  Come on Larry.

b) even if Mr. Dalfino was proposing this project in NYC, he couldn't claim non-simultaneous occupancy for the ENTIRE FLOOR.  I hate to publicly dope slap a licensed professional, but here it goes:

From the 1968 NYC Building Code (the only code in the nation that has any mention of this concept).

First Floor Plan of 378 people (the 6 classrooms of 19 each convert into an auditorium of 320 people).

Detail of the classrooms convertible to an auditorium of 325 people.  That's contradictory to the table, but no one really looks at these plans, they just listen to Al Capellini.

 2nd Floor occupancy of 344 (I'm not even going to include the AV mezzanine in the occupant load, since Mr. Dalfino doesn't either.

 It's amazing this application has made it this far, in this form.

Exciting News

The public hearing for the FBC application should be opened for comment in the beginning of the new year.  The town traffic consultant has been formally retained for the traffic study. This is the last step before a public hearing.  Interested parties will be receiving their certified mail notices shortly.

On another topic, I was at the Mohegan Lake Improvement District (MLID) meeting tonight.  There are a lot of interesting issues that we should all concern ourselves with such as the budget (it's bigger than you might think--about 100K), lake health (blue-green algae sucks--but we can suppress it with an alum treatment), a permit from the DEC to get an permit to treat the lake with alum (very difficult, but possible), Canada goose egg addling (ooooh, sign me up), beavers, the blocked up Culvert under Mohegan Avenue that the beavers are stuffing with felled trees and branches, etc...

We have a beautiful lake but you and I maintain this lake; it's maintained solely by volunteers.  If you live within the MLID special tax District (about 1,500 of us), then you pay taxes to MLID and can't change that; if you care about Mohegan Lake, may as well get involved, right?

We are rolling out a few social media platforms that will allow us to maximize community participation.  You can actually already start following this facebook page that will feature all things MLID.  A formal website for the MLID will be live by the new year as well.

In summary, Mohegan Lake needs you, so please get involved with the MLID.  There are monthly meetings and a few, extremely dedicated people that do it all.  I don't claim to be one of them, but I have been attending a few meetings and have helped out with Lake Day activities and try to pitch in whenever I can.  They need your help.

Hope to see you soon.

-Evan

A Quick Recap

The public hearing regarding the enormous church that will demolish 2 single family homes, create an occupancy on the 2nd floor of 344 people, 6 school classrooms for 19 kids each, convertable into an auditorium for over 300 people while reducing the number of cars they park their to day is becoming a reality.  If you add the occupancy of both floors, you have almost 700 people as a potential occupancy.  Oh, but don't worry, they "promise" not to occupy--never, ever, ever--over 344 people.  Sure, they currently exceed the legal occupancy by 152 people and park over 70 cars than are allowed (23 max).


Cut to the chase:

Today they are allowed 100 people in the church 3 days a year, 3 hours at a time.  They illegally converted two single family homes that the Yorktown building department and the tax assessor still classify as a single family residences to a church. A church requires a special use permit in this (R1-10) zoning district.  I should note it is the smallest residential zone in the whole town, as far as lot area requirments; that is in keeping with the small, summer cottage nature of the area; that's literally what this specific neighborhood was established as and still has the flavor of--but this will destroy a prominent corner of it.

Now they occupy up to "252" people, against the law.  The town is spineless and refuses to enforce valid laws, even though the building inspector noted it was a violation to convert the homes to church without approval or permits.  Hire a prominent attorney and threaten to sue the town.  That is the takeaway from this story.

But we can and will fight to make this development a more reasonable size and in keeping with the character, while preserving the quality of life of all residents of Yorktown.  The church isn't bad and the congregation is full of beautiful families.  This is a town planning issue though and the proposal is wholly inappropriate.  There's a reason he hired Al Capellini. 

If I haven't been at your door with a good old fashioned paper petition regarding the planning board application for Faith Bible Church, then drop me a line, or email me (YorktownCode@gmail.com).  I have a couple community organizers gathering signatures, but am always looking additional help.

:(

I lost my lawsuit.  Details to come soon.  I'll scan and post the decision.

It reminds me of the first time I lost a wrestling match.  No one to blame but myself.  I got tossed on a technicality.  Lesson learned.

Gotta stay positive.  We have an exciting challenge coming up next month with the planning board.

A Good Sense of Humor

The Yorktown Planning Board conducted a great meeting tonight.  Not to be overly dramatic, but planning and zoning issues can be quite emotional.  I truly respect the care and consideration the board takes in their decisions.

The IBM Helipad issue, for example, shows the thin line these gracious volunteers have to navigate: concerned citizens who live literally a stone's throw from a proposed helipad v. keeping good relations with IBM who is a very decent corporate citizen.  

Planning board members have a tough job and offer up their expertise (and take classes, and things) to ensure we have a decent town.  From what I saw tonight, we're in good hands.  This video shows an--obviously joking--planning board member commenting that what we really need on the proposed FBC development site is an Amish church (no car traffic, get it? horse and buggies).  Obviously we love all churches, mosques, temples, etc..., and do not discriminate.  It's still funny though, because traffic and parking are of serious, serious concern.  It's funny cause it's true.  

The End Times Are Upon Us: September 10, 2012

Mark your calendars. Tonight there was a meeting at the Yorktown Planning Board regarding Faith Bible Church.  There will be a public hearing to approve over "344" people (on the 2nd floor) and "63" or "86 [note: they already park 90+ there already!] parking spaces, not to mention the school for troubled youths (114 classroom seats on the first floor, with the 344 aforementioned occupants on the second floor).

We are certainly not opposed to the church, nor their plans to build a new church.  A school for troubled youths, not so much.  Scale it down, considering they park more cars on site than is proposed under the new development (which eliminates two single family homes).

Please, expand your church, but please acknowledge that you've already done so without approval of the Yorktown Planning Board, nor the permit of the Building Department.  That has to be a part of the equation.

Please make sure you listen to this video of the pastor explaining about the "Youth Center" he plans to build here.  When a group of us met with him last April, he explained the program of the school to us as primarily music oriented for youths to get them away from drug and gang violence.  An honorable idea, but not right for this residential area of Mohegan Lake.  

Slackin' On My Bloggin'

The Westchester Supreme court is honorable and just.  They also have a huge back-log of cases, I imagine, with budget cuts [or do we call them austerity measures?] and the like.  I was hoping to have a decision 60 days or so after April 24th date the judge set for final submissions (there is never an in-person hearing with article 78 petitions, it is completely a written argument).

In the meantime, I've been slackin' on my bloggin'.  I aim to change that.

I think it would be wise for us to gear up for the public hearings for Faith Bible Church's development plans at various boards that will likely start back up again this fall.  To date, they have not authorized a contract with the town's traffic consultant to do the requisite traffic study.  Oh, hey, speaking of traffic studies, it just so happens that my neighbor just happened to sit on the town traffic board for a few years and actually has an historic traffic study of the intersection of Sagamore Trail and Mohegan Avenue. That's certainly a happy coincidence; I think I'll hold that card to my chest until we see the new traffic study.  Can't wait to share and compare though.

For today's discussion, please note the following:

1) Faith Bible Church illegally converted [editor's note: very un-churchly] two legal single family homes.  The tax assessor (see the Yorktown tax assessment records, below) and building department records support that assertion. 

Legal single family house occupied as such up until 5 years ago.

Legal single family house that a single family lived in until about 5 years ago after FBC took title.

Legal house of worship for 100 people 3 times a year, for 3 hours a day supported by 23 cars.  That's what the last Yorktown approval for FBC allows.  It's insane that Yorktown is so spineless they won't enforce this egregious infraction of the law after having it brought to their attention multiple times.

2)  Faith Bible Church is a great congregation of people.  All of the ones that park without permission on Shrub Oak Lake Estates' beach and walk by my house are beautiful people.  I always say hi and chat if they seem inclined. 


That is all for today.  I promise to quit slackin' on my bloggin'.  I leave you with this classic video from Jay-Z (featuring Jumain Dupri) which was the inspiration for the title of this post..."turn it up."

Interesting Development

There's an article in this morning's Yorktown Examiner regarding the 100 acre development mentioned in the previous post for "State Land Corp." which is a private development and has nothing to do with the state.

Here's a choice quote from the Yorktown police chief:

In an April 26 letter to an environmental company assisting State Land Corp. in its efforts to rezone about half of the 100-acre parcel from four-acre residential (R-160 ) to commercial (C-3), Police Chief Daniel McMahon said, "The proposed State Land Corp. project will have a negative impact on the policing of the entire Town of Yorktown."

  

Let's hope the town board leaves this zoning district as it exists.  The developer can build several nice homes on the site and turn a handsome profit without detrimentally altering the character of the area.  The last thing the Yorktown Town Board should do is give another developer a handout at the detriment of the rest of Yorktown.

SaveYorktown.com?

Boy, I tell ya, northern Westchester is chocked full o' nuts crazy development and legislative proposals.  It's really, truly, very hard to keep up.  It's no wonder there's such a fatalistic mentality within the residential population of Yorktown when it comes to planning issues.  "You can't fight town hall" is a ubiquitous refrain with people who resign themselves to having to "live with it."

While this site was definitively set up to fight one particular issue, we may have to expand the scope of our discussion.  For example: there is a proposal to transfer approval authority to the town board, from the planning board.  I was heartened to see a lively group of people show up, en masse, to highlight the drawbacks of such a move.  The law was changed in 1994 based on sound reasoning.  There's not much of an argument to change it back other than "it used to be like that."  Imagine if we started changing laws back to how they used to be just because "it used to be like that."

Moving on, here's an issue that deserves some attention.  At the end of the day, to make a new commercial development a stone's throw from the Costco project site to move forward, there is a 100 acre site that needs to be rezoned to make that viable.  Under the agenda item titled "Forest Management Plan" , there is a substanative discussion that directly affects the viability of both of those projects; it's imperative that the public insert itself into this disclosure early and often [note: the preceding link is to Town Board summaries lovingly prepared by former supervisor Susan Siegel who maintains a LISTSERV here; I encourage you to sign up for mailings].

I leave you with the following moments of nature recently captured on the northern tip of Mohegan Lake:

Sidebar

There's some healthy public discourse going on with the Yorktown town board.  It involves transferring approval authority from the planning board to the town board (scroll to the end of this link, to read the meeting summary regarding the transfer of approval authority).  The town board will vote on the matter, soon.  I'm still gathering facts, but am leaning towards it's a terrible idea to approve such a change.

While I gather facts, please enjoy this photo from the meeting.  Those in the know may find some humor in that sign referencing the Yonkers town council/board member who was convicted of corruption and is serving jail time for yadda, yadda...

Glad to know that Yorktown has retained it's sense of humor.

An Interesting Article

The Yonkers Tribune has an interesting article about my neighbor's proposed development.  You can read it here.

A Little Backround On The Issue At Hand

Today I [technically not "I"] served an article 78 petition in New York State Supreme Court against the Yorktown Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA); I am the petitioner.  I'm doing it "pro se (pro-say)," meaning without an attorney.  I'm going to document it for you, gentle reader, so that if--in the future--you find yourself in similar situation, you can save yourself a bit of time researching what recourse you may have if you disagree with a decision the ZBA makes.  This assumes you can't afford a preeminent attorney to represent you in the matter and have to do the leg work yourself.  Harrumph.  

The whole process is a bit opaque, but I'll do my best to make it clear.  What is clear is that the odds are decidedly stacked against me.  However, I'd like to note that I was born and raised in south central Colorado; Colorado state law mandates all children born in the state become devout Broncos fans (that is an NFL team, for those not in-the-know).  Our current quarterback--Tim Tebow--has proven that even when people say you can't--when they say things like "Tim Tebow couldn't beat an egg with that arm," or  "you're screwed, you're not an attorney; you'll get thrown out of court on some dumb technicality before a judge ever hears it"--I say there might be hope.

I Read The Wall Street Journal, So You Don't Have To

Published today, 11/16/11, this Wall Street Journal article[click on the orange words for a link to the article] is pertinent to our discussion. 

The Supreme Court has twice cast skepticism on the idea that religions could be eligible for extra consideration when faced with a local law they didn't like. In a 1990 ruling, the high court held that while the First Amendment protects an individual's "free exercise" of religion, it does not "excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law."

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA)is something we should all be versed in.

"Under Penalty of Perjury"

"[P]ast supervisor and high-profile Yorktown attorney Al Cappellini" responded to our written submissions with some antiquated language.  He wrote that "Albert A. Cappellini, under penalty of perjury affirms as follows:"... Click on the image below to examine the first page of Mr Cappellini's affirmation.  It's kind of funny, because--in the "following" he goes on to perjure himself several times [editors note: I'm laughing out loud, or as the kids these days would write "lol"].

Please click on the image below to see one such instance.  

Albert A. Cappellini writes that "[t]he Code requires that a house of worship have one parking space for four pews" when--in fact--the Code requires one parking space per 4 pew seats.  

At this point, it is important to note that Mr. Cappellini neglects to note that the engineer employed by the developer has gone on the record that the absolute best ratio of parking spaces per pew seat they can provide is 2.7(the lower the ratio, the more crowded the parking).  But that's another an issue. That's an issue that will be addressed in the special permit process. 

I hereby do declare, under penalty of one bazillion tickles--so many tickles that I cannot breath and collapse in a pool of laughter so deep I never recover--Albert A. Cappellini perjured himself in paragraph immediatlely following his affirmation that his statements would be accurate.

May the enforcement body of Yorktown overlook this obvious instance of perjury for such a well respected fixture of our community. 

DEC App. #3-5554-00298/00001

Mohegan Lake:

I hope this post finds you well.  Though the Yorktown Zoning Board of Appeals correctly took the time to thoughtfully deliberate the 5 zoning variances (3 of which we object to) for FBC until at least December 8th, 2011, we need to gear up and get ready for the next phases of the approval process.  The state Department of Environmental Conservation must approve the application.  There has been no action on the DEC application since 3/14/2011.

FBC's application is incomplete and will not be approved in its current form for various deficiencies For example, the "pervious pavers" proposed for the wetland lot are considered "impervious" by the State and the retention tank below does not constitute a buffer zone between the parking lot and the Class 1 wetlands; the "most desirable and sensitive" of all the designated wetlands.

Additionally, as the DEC engineer conveyed to me, the proposed retention tank under the "pervious" pavers does NOT constitute a buffer from the wetland.  Thankfully the DEC will not approve the wholesale elimination of the required wetland buffer as the applicant has proposed; there is no precedent for such action.

However,  we must be prepared.  There will be a very short, 15 day public comment period.  The church and the state will not let you know when it begins, but I will make sure you are fully aware when the 15 day window is opened.  Please start drafting your letter outlining the numerous environmental concerns for the proposed new development of a church and school for troubled youths. 

You can monitor FBC's progress with the DEC by clicking on this link to the State's website and entering application #3-5554-00298/00001 (don't enter the # sign).  The image below illustrates what you should see/enter.



If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to the DEC engineer assigned to the project, Rebecca Crist.  She is much more versed in these applications than I am.  Her information is as follows:

Rebecca S Crist
21 South Putt Corners Rd, New Paltz, NY 12561
Tel:(845)256-3054
email: rscrist@gw.dec.state.ny.us

About Last Night's ZBA Hearing

There was no vote last night. The Board has a "substantial file" to review and 3 weeks from the date the file closed was not enough time to arrive at a conclusion.   Considering the application was "approved" 7 months ago, it is encouraging to see the Board taking the necessary time to deliberate the issue; it's an important one for our residential community of Mohegan Lake. The Board will reconvene on December 8th.

Planning Concerns: Clearing and Grading of a Woodland Lot, Up To Lakeside Drive

Below you will find Site Design Consultants' "tree inventory plan" of the proposed combination of five (5) separate lots.

I have an architecture degree and have been employed as a building code and zoning consultant for over 10 years. This is one of the most confusing plans I've ever read. I made it extra big so you can see what I'm talking about; you should be able to enlarge it by clicking on the image and then zoom in by clicking on it again. One might argue it's an intentionally busy drawing to mask the detrimental impact the proposal will have on the neighborhood.


Below: The developer shows a the property line of the undeveloped woodland lot ( 1 of 5 lots to be combined) with a 20 foot buffer between the undeveloped property line and Lakeside Drive. County records clearly indicate the property line abuts Lakeside Drive. Considering the developer proposes to clear and grade that entire lot, the residents of Lakeside drive are keen to know: is there a 20 foot buffer between the clearing and grading of the steep woodland lot, or will it run all the way up to Lakeside Drive?


It's interesting to note that the developer's engineer, Joseph Riina, chose to cut off the two single family homes immediately adjacent to the site in this plan; none of the other homes, driveways, etc...immediately around the proposed development site are shown either. I went ahead and filled in the footprint of the house they are demolishing and the house the parking lot will come within 10 feet of.

Considering the dramatic, adverse impact this proposal will have on the neighborhood, I guess it's advantageous for them to obscure the character of this small, residential community as much as possible.

An Historical Map: "Mohegan Lake Club Estates"

Below is an undated map that a member of the Mohegan Highland Property Owners Association, who has deep roots in the community, provided.

There's actually a few streets that appear here that were never built. "Rockledge Terrace" and "Rockledge Lane" were never built because they were on a very steep slope composed of an enormous rock ledge.

If you click on the image below, and then click on it again, it should zoom in--a bit. My best guess is circa 1927 or 1928, as MHPOA was being developed. I hope someone can correct me in the comments.