The French American School‘s lower school campus in Larchmont has occupied a section of St. Augustine’s Church for many years, the Upper School is in Mamaroneck and the Pre-School in Scarsdale. Now, with its planned consolodation move to the 129.69 acre site of the Ridgeway Country Club in White Plains, which it purchased a year ago, the new neighbors aren’t happy.
The school has promoted its plans, saying ” The site includes the existing clubhouse and the 18-hole golf course. Our vision for this 129.69 acre property is to create a low-density, park-like campus that will enable us to consolidate all of our school divisions over a period of several years.”
Development is opposed by the Gedney Association, which represents those who live in the adjacent Gedney Farms neighborhood. The Association has been vocal in opposition and White Plains Patch reports that over the weekend about 30 protest signs-“FAS-NO” were taken from residents’ lawns. Police say they don’t know who did it.
Stay tuned.
The issue is supposedly worry about congestion. I think it’s really concern about losing property values in this upscale neighborhood, which is nonsense. No one mentions the low impact of a similar school that very nearby. The German American School is at the end of my small residential street, in the adjacent Haviland Manor neighborhood of WP. The amount of traffic that comes from this school is minimal and has very little impact, and only for a few minutes twice a day. It’s lovely to have the grounds available to the public, which will be the case for FASNY as well. Meanwhile a large property was sold and became a townhouse development in our neighborhood, and it has somewhat changed the area in much more undesirable ways (THIS is the place where cars are rushing in and out!). I wish some of my neighbors would stop complaining and welcome another international school to our community. We’ve never been a NIMBY town — I am so perplexed by this!
I can’t figure out why the good folks of WP are complaining about this. They got the best possible outcome, given that a country club was no longer sustainable in that spot. Would they have preferred a full-fledged residential development? I understand that their first choice was to have the city buy the land and operate the entire package as “open space,” that was both unrealistic and, as it turned out, not what the city was willing to do. So stop complaining and count your blessings that FASNY has assured you that most of the land will remain both open and accessible for your enjoyment.
WHile i understand their desire for consolidation, I, for one would be really sorry to see the FAS leave Larchmont. I think that having FAS in larchmont brings a lot of good (tangible and somewhat intangible) to our community (among other things to the goods and services one can find here, the families that move here, etc.). For the sake of FAS I hope that White Plains can learn to embrace that–but it will still be sad for larchmont