By JEFF MORRIS
The planning board’s public hearing on a planned subdivision of the former Bailey Hall property in Katonah, which opened Oct. 28 and continued Nov. 12, was closed after a third such session at the board’s Dec. 9 meeting.
With the end of the hearing, board chairwoman, Deirdre Courtney-Batson, said written comments would be accepted for another 10 days. She said it would then be up to the applicant to say when there will be another meeting on the proposal, but they were hoping for March.
The application is for a 23-lot conservation subdivision, with a total of 22 new single-family residences and one lot retaining an existing residence. The new homes would be on a looped road surrounding a community septic system; the conservation development concept groups all the homes together in a single area, preserving the rest of the property.
Located at New Street and Harris Road, the 25.59-acre property was once home to the Bailey Hall School, a vocational school for boys. The school closed in 1987, and was destroyed by fire in 2000; none of its structures or buildings remain today.
Property owners are Cosimo Tripi and James Murphy, whose existing home is located at the entrance to the site on Harris Road. The 1.84-acre Murphy property was subdivided from the larger Bailey Hall property, which had been 26.5 acres in total.
Contentious public hearings were originally held by the planning board in 2011 regarding the applicant’s draft environmental impact statement. A final environmental impact statement, or FEIS, was first submitted to the planning board in 2012 and revised to include a modified stormwater pollution plan in 2016. It was still under review by the board in 2018 when the project stalled due to issues with NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection, which was requiring a variance for the project. However, a new project engineer was retained in 2023 and worked with DEP to address comments and concerns and move forward with site design. On March 27 of this year, DEP confirmed that a variance is no longer required for the project; on July 22 the proposal was reintroduced to the planning board, which had never approved the FEIS.
At the first public hearing on Oct. 28, concerns that had been raised 14 years earlier were again voiced, including impacts of possible blasting, adequacy of the community septic and stormwater management systems, and the number of schoolchildren who might be added to the Katonah-Lewisboro district. Residents also spoke about traffic and safety concerns, and were unhappy with the prospect of staged construction that could mean it would take up to 15 years to complete all the houses.
Additional issues were brought up, with multiple comments about a town plan to widen New Street, which some residents said would take 9 feet off their property. There were also numerous questions raised about plans to deal with stormwater runoff in the area, which many people said was already a big problem that was only getting worse and would be exacerbated by the project. And complaints were repeatedly lodged about the plan’s use of a single entrance off New Street, with an emergency-only access off Harris Road; residents wanted to know why the traffic burden could not be shared.
At the second hearing, in November, many of the issues raised were addressed by representatives of the applicant, including Pietro Catizone and Matthew DeCecco of Catizone Engineering, project attorney Diana Kolev, and Jon Dahlgren of Tim Miller Associates. Catizone said they would answer every question and comment that had been raised, in writing as part of the FEIS, but wanted to respond to some of those points that had been recurring. He initially focused on rock removal, which he said would take approximately two months during Phase I, and that it “can be scheduled where it minimizes the impacts to schools and neighbors.” He said it was not going to be five years of blasting for the duration of the project.
Catizone also said that improvements to New Street were requested by the town, “and appropriately so; we expect to do some type of improvement for a project of this size.” He said they were all on public property and there was no taking of private property proposed, and that all of the drainage improvements were for New Street water, capturing the water that is going from the west side to the east side.
But residents’ concerns were not assuaged by Catizone’s assurances, and some challenged them directly, as well as challenging aspects of the studies the developer had presented. Most of the questions and comments were met with polite applause.
Questions continued to arise over why the project cannot have sewers instead of septic; Courtney-Batson took time to explain that the town’s new sewer system is already maxed out of capacity, so there is no way to add any additional properties.
Though Courtney-Batson attempted to stem the tide of repeat comments by stating at the outset that speakers should not repeat anything that had already been said, those who spoke continued to raise some of the same issues, as did many of the written comments that were submitted. Kolev, the applicant’s attorney, contended that most of the comments being made were now repeating earlier points; she advocated for closing the public hearing so they could move on and be able to answer those points. Nonetheless, the board decided to adjourn the public hearing and have it resume at their next meeting.
On Dec. 9, Courtney-Batson repeated her admonition to not repeat previously asked questions. There were new concerns raised about noise pollution from construction and truck traffic, a request for detailed information about why the DEP variance requirement was lifted, and continued questions about a new planned sidewalk that it appeared would only go part way and force students to cross the street.
One resident raised information gleaned at the prior meeting that some of the property is covered by the Bedford Central district, not Katonah-Lewisboro, and wondered how they would handle additional buses and a greater concentration of traffic through New Street — advocating again for equal access through Harris Road.
Courtney-Batson had already stated Nov. 12 that she wanted to see two issues addressed in the FEIS: that the 23-unit subdivision meets all town codes, and that the idea of a Harris Road access be reevaluated.
Inevitably, there were some attendees who said this was the first time they were hearing about the project, and wanted to know how the information was being made available and how the process would play out — asking if there were more meetings to come. Courtney-Batson assured them that “the hearing will be closed tonight, but this is not the last meeting.”
Some of the most pointed comments then came from board members. Michael Tierney said he wanted details about turning radiuses, especially pertaining to fire trucks, and wants to be sure they comply with New York State Fire Code. He also said he would like to see a diagram of all the school bus stops in the area; hadn’t heard anything about snow plowing or snow storage locations on the inner loop road; and said the photometric plan for lighting off the site needs to be updated. He wanted to know why some of the lots on the plan were noted as being limited to a story and a half, and noted that the plan calls for whatever rock is removed to be used on-site for road base. He said that led to questions about what method would be used for that purpose, and if grinding was to be done on-site, what level of noise would that create? Tierney also questioned who would be responsible for maintaining the emergency access path.
Nilus Klingel said he shared concerns that had been raised about construction, and would like a clear description of the construction phasing and schedule.
Courtney-Batson summed up by saying there had been a lot of questions that seemed to cover the same topics, including drainage issues; reevaluating Harris Road as an emergency access and potential additional access — “we need to go back and look at the reasons we rejected it in the beginning;” issues about the sidewalk, and can the Harris Road widening be accomplished without eminent domain; a disconnect between the plans and perception; rock removal and rock grinding; and a second request for a thorough discussion of timing — will it be six days a week? Will it be limited during school? How long is it going to take?”
There was one final comment, from resident Dena Lampert, who wanted to know how a homeowners association was going to function to maintain the grounds. She said it was her understanding that the homes were going to be built as bought, not on spec. “If only a few are built,” she asked, “how is the HOA going to afford anything?”
The public hearing was closed. Courtney-Batson said the next time the project will be on the agenda will be when there is material available, probably in the early spring. She said once they have the FEIS, they will decide if there are issues that are solvable and if it is approvable, and there will be more meetings to discuss the FEIS, but she could not guarantee when that would be.
Resident Alex Pappas suggested that those wishing to stay informed could sign up at katonahpeople@gmail.com and at Bailey Hall Concerned Citizens on Facebook, while Planning Director Jesica Youngblood advised that residents can also subscribe to receive planning board agendas through the town website, bedfordny.gov.