Pleasantville Master Plan Update Takes Shape, Height Limits, Parking Key

After months of work and input from village officials and residents alike, an updated comprehensive master plan is taking shape.

Representatives from the planning firm hired to help write the update, BFJ Planning of New York, presented village officials with a working draft of the updated plan at its Aug. 7 meeting.

BFJ Principals Frank Fish and Susan Favate provided the board and village administrator Patricia Dwyer with a preview of some of their findings and recommendations aimed at making the village more business-friendly in a changing economic environment.

The recommendations offered by Favate included changing the three-story limit in the village downtown business district, the A1 zone, to four stories.

“The feeling is that a four-story building is a little bit more conducive for redevelopment, and it provides a little bit more of an incentive to redevelop those one-story vacant sites,” Favate said.

Favate said the firm recommended keeping current height limits in parts of the downtown that abut single-family zoned areas by less than 150 feet or, unless they were separated by a road or railroad.

“There are really only two areas that single family zones do abut – along Washington Avenue and along Hobby and Cooley streets at the back of Marble Avenue,” she said. “Other than the east side of Washington Avenue and west side of Marble Avenue south of Bedford, everywhere else in A1 could potentially be four stories.”

They also mentioned that Pleasantville’s minimum requirement for land area per dwelling unit, which ranges from 1,000 to 2,000 square feet per unit, was extremely unusual compared to other similar municipalities and created another obstacle to development.

“That’s pretty tough for some of these downtown parcels,” Fish said. “They just don’t have that much land area.”

He recommended dropping the minimums down to 800 to 1,000 square feet.

Mayor Peter Scherer agreed with the presenters that zoning code as written creates too many obstacles to potential developers or business owners.

“Part of this is that as it’s written right now, there are many tripwires that were clearly written in a defensive manner,” Scherer said.

Favate also recommended allowing assisted living downtown in close proximity to restaurants and stores in the downtown with a special use permit, along with possible additional regulations.

But Board member Mindy Berard said she worried an assisted living facility could take up a large amount of space, and that most assisted living developments looked for more suburban areas.

“You’d be taking up a tremendous amount of square footage in a high density area,” she said. “I just don’t see that in a thriving downtown, to have an assisted living [facility] as part of your business (district).”

Another detriment to development Favate pointed out to board members was parking, a longtime issue in the village downtown.

The consultants also pointed out that residential housing in the A1 district required 1.5 parking spaces per one bedroom unit, and recommended lowering the requirement down to 1.25. They also suggested parking for studio apartments be dropped down to one space.

Fish said vehicle ownership in areas near a train station they had studied, such as Yonkers and White Plains, was one vehicle per unit. In those areas, many young people are moving into high-end rentals and rely on public transportation, he added.

“The banks will also not finance a condo unit without one space dedicated,” Fish said.

The final issue brought up by Fish and Favate centered on a footnote in the master plan that allowed the planning commission to reduce some or all off-street parking requirements if they determine it unnecessary. That provision gave the commission a significant carte blanche to do what they pleased, they argued.

Favate suggested keeping the waiver option for smaller business lots of 5,000 square feet or less, but for larger lots to only allow the planning commission to waive half the parking spaces.

“The thinking is that if they are seeking additional waivers beyond 50 percent, they be subject to [in lieu of] payment per space, so you can start to get some revenue to provide downtown parking to serve all the downtown businesses.”

Scherer said he was concerned some developers would see that option as a way to simply buy their way out of providing a required amount of parking spaces by paying a fee. He wondered if it made sense to eliminate the option altogether and simply deferring to the zoning board of appeals. However Fish said he was simply trying to provide more options for the village to create much-needed parking.

The village board will host a full public presentation of the master plan at a soon-to-be-scheduled meeting in September.