In Opposition to the 2016 Scarsdale Homestead Tax Option
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Below is a letter from Christie Place resident Richard Garwin:
I am Richard Garwin, living with my wife Lois Garwin at 1 Christie Place, Unit 402W since September 2010—5 years ago. We had lived for 55 years in a house at 16 Ridgecrest East which we sold in order to buy our condominium apartment at Christie Place. Our ages: 87 and 88. Our three children attended and graduated from the Scarsdale schools.
For Scarsdale to adopt Homestead would be a misuse of the law, the stated purpose of which is to "prevent any large shift to the residential class of properties" as a result of revaluation. Homestead would apply only to the 42 residential units on Christie Place and not to the cooperative apartments in Scarsdale that are of comparable size and market price. Contrary to the implication that the traditional valuation of residential condominium units is "special interest legislation" for Christie Place, it was the only valuation approach possible under NYS law. Although the NYS legislature passed Homestead legislation in 1981, Scarsdale could consider it only after the revaluation of 2014, when the Village Board unanimously rejected the Homestead option.
The Christie Place development is an award-winning public-private partnership which made possible the 42 residential suites that can be sold only for occupancy by a resident over 55, two restaurants and three commercial units, plus off-street parking for the residents, the short-term municipal garage on Christie Place, and underground commuter parking, for which the Condominium provided the mortgage—all on 1.73 acres of land. The Village controls, manages, and profits from 310 of the 370 parking spaces; on weekends and holidays the 234 underground commuter parking spaces are available to all for free.
According to the Village Assessor at the Joint Board meeting of 02/01/2016, the 42 condos are valued for tax purposes in 2016 at $31 million, and under Homestead they would be valued at a market sales price of $59 million, so that the tax bill would just about double if Homestead were adopted. As a matter of fact, without Homestead, my own tax bill doubled last year as a result of the 2014 revaluation and would apparently double again if Homestead is adopted.
The Town of Greenburgh will consider adopting Homestead as it completes its revaluation, but Greenburgh has 5,000 residential condominium units in contrast to the 42 in Scarsdale, If Scarsdale adopts Homestead it risks turning Christie Place from a triumph of public-private partnership into a travesty.
It was not in the distant past that the Village leadership saw the Christie Place development as a good package deal, including the traditional approach to real estate tax on the 42 residential condominium units. Less than two years ago, the Village Board confirmed that judgment. I ask it to do so again.
Here are remarks from Mayor Carolyn Stevens, made at a joint meeting of the Village Trustees and Board of Education on May 27 [2010]. "Earlier this week I attended the New York Conference of Mayors (NYCOM) Annual meeting in Saratoga, New York. One of the reasons I attended was that Scarsdale was awarded First Place in the area of Economic Development for the Christie Place development. NYCOM found the project to be an innovative and creative. The project, as many of you know, involved a public/private partnership that provided the Village with many benefits, including much needed parking, senior housing, and accessibility to transportation, while adding to the vitality of the Village center with retail on the first level and housing above. In addition, the development provides the Village with several streams of revenue. For all these reasons, the NYCOM board found the project to be a model of progressive and innovative problem solving."
Share Your Snow Photos Please!
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With a Village ban on driving, and more than a foot of snow on the ground, most of us hunkered down for a day indoors. The light powder left a beautiful tableau. Please take some snow photos and send them to scarsdalecomments@gmail.com to share with your neighbors.
Chase Away the Winter Blues at the Scarsdale Forum Winterfest
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The Scarsdale Forum hosts its eighth annual membership party, Winterfest 2016, this Saturday, February 6th at the Scarsdale Woman's Club, 37 Drake Road from 7 to 11 PM. The snow date is Sunday, February 7th from 4 to 7 PM.
Among the highlights of the evening will be the delicious buffet dinner prepared by Plates and the home brewed beers of Bruce Wells. Several pianists will set the mood throughout the evening in the beautifully appointed music room of the club. Vintage Via Carrie will offer vintage jewelry and college memorabilia for sale (15 % of the proceeds will be donated to the Forum). Home baked desserts will top off the evening for Forum members and their guests in the charming dining room near the library.
The Scarsdale Forum is a civic organization dedicated to improving life in Scarsdale. The Forum studies many issues affecting the Village and frequently provides input to governing bodies and elected officials on the local, county and state level via reports and statements prepared by its committees. Village of Scarsdale residents are encouraged to join the Forum and come to the best party in town! All profits from the event support the public programs offered by the Forum throughout the year.
Admission is $30 per person and limited to members and their guests. Due to the popularity of this event, advance reservations are encouraged.
Advanced reservations, membership renewal and joining the Forum for the first time can be done online at: www.scarsdaleforum.com or by mailing a check to Scarsdale Forum Inc., P.O. Box 86, Scarsdale, NY 10583. For additional information regarding the event, please contact the Forum office by phone at 914-723-2829 or by email at: office@scarsdaleforum.com.
The Scarsdale Salon: Thursday February 4 at Scarsdale Library
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"I have learned that to be with those I like is enough." (Walt Whitman)
The second Scarsdale Salon will celebrate family, love and commitment. You are invited to enjoy an evening of books, authors, music and wine at the Scott Room at the Scarsdale Library on Thursday February 4th, 2016 from 7.30 pm to 9.00 pm.
Here are the authors who will share their work:
In the satirical Over the Tightrope, by Asif Ismael , a Muslim son, living in the US for decades, decides to revisit his Motherland and is confronted by a country ruled by Islamic extremists.
In The Last Dreamer by Barbara Solomon Josselsohn, fifteen years after she gave up a successful journalist career, Iliana Passing is ready to get back into the journalism game. When she discovers that Jeff Downs, the heartthrob star of an old TV show and her girlhood crush, now owns a nearby textile company, she thinks she's found her story!
No Border is Perennial by Ruth Handel is a rich repertoire 
of poems on love, life, relationships and family.
100 Days of Gentle Scarsdale Satire by Deborah Skolnik mirrors our town and its quirks, and what makes us all a Scarsdale Family.
One of the endeavors of The Scarsdale Salon is also to encourage young artists. This Salon will feature Axel Ahdritz, a sophomore at the Scarsdale High School, who will play some original and some well-known favorites on his guitar.
The Scarsdale Salon
Thursday February 4, 7:30 pm
Scott Room, Scarsdale Library
It's a Wrap: Crane Road Bridge Construction is Complete
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On January 5 Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino announced that construction of the Crane Road Bridge in Scarsdale is complete, on time and on budget. The Crane Road Bridge is the largest bridge construction project that Westchester County has ever undertaken at a total cost of $53 million. Astorino said, "We now have a modern and safe bridge in place that will make it easier to get around Westchester and hopefully take some of the stress out of the busy lives of the people who use the Bronx River Parkway."
Astorino thanked the residents and merchants of Scarsdale as well as Bronx River Parkway motorists for their patience, saying E.E. Cruz, the construction company, and the county worked to keep disruptions at a minimum.
The project is currently $500,000 under budget, expected to be enough to cover a few outstanding invoices. All four lanes of the parkway opened to motorists on September 4, 2015, with all work completed on December 20. Astorino added, "In a perfect world, we would have finished a little sooner, but despite some tough weather we saw during three years of construction, this project was completed in the shortest possible amount of time."
Joseph Malandro, president and COO of E.E. Cruz and Co. Inc., said the uniqueness of the bridge's "mushroom caps" structure motivated the company to bid on the project because "it was an engineering challenge to build it."
The Crane Road Bridge project accomplished the following:
- Expanded the four lanes from 9.5 feet in width to 11 feet
- Added a 4 foot right shoulder and a 2.5 foot left shoulder
- Added a 260-foot long deceleration lane for exiting traffic at Exit 12 northbound;
- Improved the curves to increase stopping sight distance and allow the advisory speed to increase from 20 mph to 30 mph
- Added a sidewalk to the south side of the bridge
- Installed a pedestrian ramp to access the southbound Metro-North Station platform and the Bronx River Parkway Reservation pathway
The Bronx River Parkway's Crane Road Bridge is made up of two bridges, one over the Bronx River, commonly referred to as the "mushroom bridge," and the other over the MTA Metro-North Railroad track north of the Scarsdale Station, commonly referred to as the "railroad bridge." These bridges share a common middle abutment. The original Crane Road Bridge was a major contributing element to the designation of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation on the National Register of Historic Places. Construction of the new bridge follows policies of the U.S. Department of the Interior for historic bridges.
Commenting on the project, Scarsdale Village Manager Steve Pappalardo shared the following:
"The Village worked closely with the County on the initial planning, coordination and timing of the project relative to the Popham Road Bridge project which immediately preceded the Crane Road Bridge construction. We sold the County certain Village properties located on the BRP they needed to complete the project and granted them a temporary construction easement for the north end of the Merchant Lot for the contractor to stage materials and work. The Village was paid in excess of $900,000 for the properties and easement. Relative to the scope of the project, we asked the County to install a sidewalk alongside the Crane Road northbound Exit 12 ramp that would lead to a new pedestrian ramp to and from the inbound (NYC- southbound) platform and the Bronx River Parkway Reservation pathway. We also asked that they improve the safety of this Exit 12 ramp and they did so by adding a 260-foot long deceleration lane for exiting traffic. They completed both of these requests and installed an accompanying crosswalk on East Parkway from the Chateaux to the Merchants Lot to access the sidewalk to the platform. Scarsdale residents living north of Crane Road have found this new access very convenient while walking to the station in the morning and we hope it reduces the number of vehicles
accessing the train station for the morning commute. We also asked the County to construct a new stairway from the outbound (north) platform to the Merchants Lot, however the NYSDOT, who along with the Federal Highway Administration funded the preponderance of the project costs, would not approve as they considered it unrelated to the bridge construction project.
The County also modified their Maintenance and Protection of Traffic Plan at the Village's request by maintaining the southbound Exit 12 Crane Road ramp for most of the project duration. This ramp was initially to be closed for 3 of the 4 project stages, however the County revised their construction plan to accommodate its continued use as the Scarsdale Chamber of Commerce and other Village merchants expressed concern about the potential loss of business from removing this access point.
Other than some occasional issues with local traffic or the construction staging areas in the Merchant's Lot and off Depot Place which Village staff handled with the County DPW, the Crane Road Bridge project went well and the Village Center continued to function. As with the Popham Road Bridge Project, the cooperation and understanding of the merchants, business owners and Village residents in general, during what amounted to five years of bridge construction in and around the Village Center, is greatly appreciated. The resulting infrastructure improvements will benefit transportation, vehicular and pedestrian traffic safety and hopefully local commerce for many years to come."
