BAR to Consider Plans for a Home on Non-Existent Lot

The building moratorium is over and new building code will go into effect in January 2025. In September, the Scarsdale land use boards have busy schedules to consider a host of applications.

Here’s what’s planned:

At their September 9 meeting, the Board of Architectural Review will consider plans for a new home at a non-existent address. Why? The developer at a wet property at 46 Lincoln Road and 101 Carthage Road, has been seeking to divide the two lots into three since January. He has met opposition from neighbors who are aware that the property includes a stream and outflows from that watercourse regularly flood the downstream neighbors.

While the Planning Board has not approved the subdivision, that has not stopped the developer from doing and end run around Village procedures and submitting house plans to the BAR to build a home at 103 Carthage Road, the third phantom lot.. Though officials at the Building Department say this is just a “preliminary review,” neighbors fear that if the BAR approves the plans it will give more steam to the developer’s case with the Planning Board. In addition, since more stringent setback rules go into effect in January 2024, the builder may be attempting to have this home approved under the old building code. Furthermore will this set a new precedent? This move appears to be just the kind of maneuver that the new procedural rules, put into place after the building moratorium, sought to avert. Instead, the BAR will review house plans for a lot that currently does not exist.

The Planning Board will hold both a special meeting on September 19 as well as their regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday September 25.

At the special meeting on September 19, the Planning Board will give their full attention to a highly controversial application to build 8 homes with pools in a wet area at 80 Garden Road. In order to raise the ground level above the high water table, the developer is proposing to truck in tons of land fill to raise the site by four feet and contain it with a retaining wall. As the Village’s water infrastructure is not sufficient to meet the needs of the eight homes, they each will have a private well that will be up to the homeowners to maintain.

The developer claims that the “Project will not adversely impact neighboring properties as the analysis concludes that ground water levels will either be reduced or remain the same.”

They also claim a “reduction in the rate of runoff from the project site for all storm events (1, 2, 10-, 25-, 50-and 100-yearstorm events).”

Neighbors in this flood prone area of made vociferous objections to the plan since it was first proposed in 2018. However the Planning Board continues to give them continuous opportunities to make their case for development.

We received a report of the fees that the Village has spent to date for consulting fees from Engineering Firm Mott McDonald. In addition to Village staff conferring with the firm, the applicants have met with the consultants to craft plans that they believe will pass muster with the Planning Board. According to the Village Manager, monies to pay for this work are put into escrow by the applicant. Records show that to date over $40,000 has been spent on engineers fees to review the project.

Then on September 25 the Planning Board will hold their regular meeting where they said they would re-consider the proposed 3 lot subdivision on Lincoln and Carthage Road. That agenda is not yet posted on the Village website. But neighbors are up in arms that the Planning Board has ignored their pleas and failed to recognize the existing flooding on their streets and in their homes. They fear that the subdivision will exacerbate the flooding by diverting the watercourse through this property.

Records show that the Village has already spent $13,668 reviewing this project with their engineering consultant. The applicant regularly meets with the same consulting engineers. Therefore, the same engineer that has been retained to represent the Village’s interest to protect neighbors, is also working with the developer to design plans to gain approval by the board. The question is, who is representing you?