Owners of the flood-prone Hampshire Country Club have sued the Village of Mamaroneck Planning Board over the alleged sluggish pace of its project proposal review.
See our extensive previous coverage.
Hampshire Recreation LLC wants to build a 105 unit development that would include both “carriage homes” and stand alone houses alongside a 9-hole hole golf course. An attorney for the company complains the Planning Board has dragged its feet for the required reviews.
“A process that would normally take 18 months has gone on for four years,” said attorney David Cooper. “The law requires that the board complete the reviews in an efficient manner, ” he said.
The current owners bought the financially distressed Country Club in 2010 and had first proposed a large condominium building on 2-acres of the site under a request for rezoning. The idea was rejected. The new plan conforms to existing single-family zoning, according to the developer, but would require building homes on the often soggy golf course.
Mamaroneck Mayor Tom Murphy calls the lawsuit “more of a public relations gimmick than a serious legal gambit.” He points out the Hampshire proposal is the largest application that Village has ever received and that the Planning Board’s questions to the developer have only prompted incomplete or vague answers. “I have every confidence that the Planning Board has done their due diligence,” he told The Loop.
The next meeting with the Planning Board is scheduled for December 3rd, but the Mayor says Hampshire is “tens of thousands of dollars in arrears,” on the required retainers for planning review. Cooper confirms a demand for the fees was received by Hampshire LLC after the lawsuit was filed but disputes the accuracy of the assessment.
Legal arguments pertaining to the developer’s lawsuit are due by December 20th.
The developer bought the property for a pittance because he promised NOT to develop, but to concentrate on running the golf course.
No houses or condos should be built on the property.
Trust me: YOUR taxes will not go down if any housing will go up on the golf course.
But you will have even more traffic, even longer waits at the local supermarkets, and even larger class sizes at the school. On top of this it will create even bigger problems with water run off. Don’t we have enough problems with floods as is?
I commend the village for carefully looking at the developer’s proposal. We know the developer is in it for the money, thankfully the village does not have to be.
I support this project, the village can use the jobs and tax money
Jay , the project website states that even with school kids, the village will net $1.5 million. Had the Orienta residents not rallied to defeat the condo proposal on the site 5 years ago, the village would have netted over $4 million a year after the kids, since there would have been even less kids. It also isnt the job of the developer to build schools. It is the job of the village to make sure that the schools are large enough to support the number of people a community can hold. This project is as of right, so they have a right to build it.
Why do these developers feel so entitled to a rezoning? The villages owe them nothing. Build within the existing code so there’s no need for variances, and stay away from the wetlands. Period.
The developers of The Residence at Hampshire are proposing a development that is “as of right,” to be built within the existing Village code. I think you are referring to the original condo plan, which would have been built atop the existing clubhouse thereby preserving 98 percent of the property. This plan would have required a rezoning, but that plan was rejected by the board in 2014. As for the wetlands concern, each and every issue raised by the comment letters relating to substantive planning and environmental topics have been identified and answered. The draft FEIS data has been vetted and accepted by the Village’s own engineers.
kinnan, this is fake news. This project is not a rezoning, it is properly zoned. The developer can build 100 homes or so and close 9 homes, or build around 200 and close all 18. They have chosen to keep golf there.
With so many units proposed, does the developer plan on building new schools to support this? Something tells me the developer will say it will have minimal impact on the already overburdened school system.