Tuckahoe Village Departments

TUCKAHOE TALK
With Mayor John Fitzpatrick

Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt

March, 2011

You may have heard this title adage before, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Since everything around is always changing, if we don't, we are in trouble. In fact, if the leaders of any entity don't move, everyone they represent gets hurt. We have all seen short-sighted officials with night watchman mentalities sleeping us into deeper troubles.

As for myself and the Village Board of Tuckahoe, we have a plan. In fact, it is called the Master Plan. It is nothing like a “Dr. Evil” kind of master plan, but a ten-year plan for the village to be used as a guide to inevitable growth. I realize, the concept of a 10-year plan may sound preposterous when we are surrounded by entities that don't have a plan for the next five minutes. However, the plan is in place and it is sound. This Master Plan was drafted by a committee of residents together with consultants, and later adopted by the Board of Trustees. It didn't take place in a vacuum either; surveys were sent out, public meetings were held and after nearly two years of input, it was adopted in 2007.

This plan for the Village of Tuckahoe has as one of its overall goals - controlled growth. That may sound like something fake, but it isn't. A plan of this nature has many facets, including Main Street, and should be viewed in its entirety. Along Main Street three distinct areas of growth are anticipated: commercial sites, business/residential mixed sites and exclusively residential. Our plan includes controlling all three types of growth within a strict set of zoning codes. Any proposed site for development must receive an approval that is contingent on many considerations, including: garbage, sewage, police activity, aesthetics, safety, sufficient recreational sites, traffic, school impact, impact to the environment, and quality of life of existing residents.

For the purposes of this column I'll attempt to focus on the one issue that has sparked the latest conversation of planning – schools; even while sensibility dictates it is impossible to explain a comprehensive plan and only focus on one issue.

We'll start with the only development that has occurred within the Tuckahoe School District of the village in the last five years - all-commercial sites. That's right - only – which clearly illustrates any current increase of children to the district cannot be attributed to the rehabilitation of our main corridor. 30 Elm Street, formerly a service station, then an empty lot with oil contamination, is now the Pyramid Squash Club. 115 Main Street, a former gas station/paint store which required remediation, is now a medical building. Finally, there is 25 Main Street, an abandoned and you guessed it, a contaminated Metro-North building which housed a dynamo. 40 Midland Avenue was an empty lot and is now a Fish Warehouse. All these recently developed parcels are now better tax generators with no children.

Some may say at this point: wow, that's great, let's have only that type of growth. However, that would not be a real plan. The traffic, parking, and quality of life around village residents' homes become affected by all-commercial development, since this is a high impact use. Any plan requires balance. Now, I recognize those who use the school district and don't live in the village may not care about these residents, but I assure you as their mayor I do and so does the Master Plan. The Village Board is committed to promoting all-commercial development as is evidenced by the above mentioned projects which occurred in the last five years, and also the 2010 rezoned Marbledale Road from Lincoln Avenue to Main Street. This eliminated the former industrial zoning, which can negatively impact the environment of a suburb and instead seeks only commercial while excluding any residential.

Business/residential or mixed use combines residence with retail at the street level. Certainly more impacting from a student standpoint, but controlled generally by the size of the units. The last developed mixed use parcel is at 110 Main Street. It is an entire block long, home to the Quarry restaurant and 4 other businesses, and 14 residential units (8-one bedroom 6-two bedrooms).

All-residential is also part of any plan. For Main Street that comes in two forms, townhouses and apartment structures. When we plan for this, the school is of great consideration. Take the two entire blocks of townhouses developed.

Town houses have the potential for the greatest school impact, since they mirror single family homes, while apartment buildings tend to offset the burden of students from other properties. How do I know that? The answer is from planning data and historical performance of our own community. That performance is easily exhibited when viewing the existing all-residential apartment examples from within the school district.

There are some who are against adding one child to the school district. They are unrealistic, since it is documented that turnover of single family homes have the greatest impact on schools. In fact, Senior Star exemptions (in Tuckahoe School District) dropped from 232 in 2005 to 196 in 2010. Any model would have some seniors leaving and new ones coming of age to take their place. Our senior home owner numbers are dropping and who do you think bought those 36 properties? Some may wish they could control the amount of children their neighbors have; the more sensible realize there has to be a method to offset the cost most homeowners place on the system. If we use that $14,000 number as the cost of education, that would mean that a homeowner with 2 children in the school should be paying 28,000 in school tax. That's obviously not happening, so other properties must pick up the slack. The $1.3 million school tax generated from the above three residential buildings with 31 children equates to $43,800 a student. Tuckahoe's comprehensive plan, combining all types of growth can certainly be shown to fund the school district, even if these additional monies are simply sucked into a black hole that is a school budget.

The latest proposal calls for three buildings combining 129 units and 2,500 sq feet of retail space. The estimated $30 million cost will dictate the owner's investments make this a high end addition to the vision of Main Street. The developer first estimated 28 children impact and now is saying 17. An independent planning expert hired by the village believes the number to be planned for is 20. The reality, as previously illustrated, will be something significantly less. The amount of units these three buildings contain is less important than the types of units. Controlling bedrooms and making sure the building supplies high end amenities which command higher rent ensures it will help the tax base. Decreasing units merely decreases taxes.

Whether it is school, village, town or county boards; they are not going to be able to cut or tax residents out of the current economic crisis. We must plan our way through. Last year's layoff of 8 teachers by the Tuckahoe School Board, which increased student-classroom averages while the taxes still went up, is not a plan. It is a reaction. Blindly traveling along an unsustainable financial path with this crew and those who don't understand responsible development is done at all our peril. Imagine what increases would have looked like without Village Government planning providing entities to share that burden. If you have to ask who is looking out for the School Districts, you really haven't been paying attention. The planning and future of Tuckahoe is in the hands of the government and not a school district for good reason. Completing Main Street will raise revenue and the value of every property in the area.