Mt. Pleasant Challengers Blast Incumbents for Rampant Development
Mount Pleasant’s Democratic ticket went on the offensive last weekend, charging that the current Town Board has allowed rampant overdevelopment that has worsened flooding and traffic and threatens the town’s natural resources.
Supervisor candidate Frank Hrotko and running mates Joe Bonanno and Charlie Caspari gathered with about 15 to 20 supporters for a rally in the rain last Saturday morning overlooking Pocantico Lake, not far from where a controversial 31-home cluster subdivision is proposed on Old Sleepy Hollow Road.
“Once these resources are gone, we have no recourse,” Bonanno said. “At that point, you know what, we’re looking at a real degradation of our quality of life. We’re looking at flooding, alright, we’re looking at congestion. We’re talking about noise and all of this really comes down to democracy. This is a result of uni-party government in Mount Pleasant for the last 30 years.”
The Pocantico Lake project, called the Meadows at Briarcliff, is currently being reviewed by the Planning Board.
In addition to that plan, which is proposed on about 36 acres adjacent to what had been designated a Critical Environmental Area by the state in the early 1990s, other development decisions were criticized by the candidates. Among them were the 153,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse project under construction on Route 9A in Hawthorne that was approved without an Environmental Impact Statement and the proposed three million-square-foot biomedical, retail and residential North 80 proposal on the Grasslands campus near Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla.
Hrotko said if their slate is victorious, they would appoint Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals members when vacancies arise who will take a more critical view of large projects rather than seemingly approving everything that comes up for review.
“I’m going to put somebody in that’s thinking just like us, preserve the natural beauty of our town and lake, no subdivisions and that’s where we’re going to stop it right there,” Hrotko said.
At one point during the rally, Bonanno said one of the few well-done projects in the last 30 years was the opening of the current town pool at the community center in Valhalla in 1995. He pointed out how one of their opponents, council candidate Mark Saracino, recently completed a beautiful montage video of the facility and pointed out Saracino in the gathering, which turned into a brief impromptu but cordial mini-debate.
Saracino, who is running on the Republican line with Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi and Councilwoman Danielle Zaino, said local officials constantly have to balance wanting to protect the environment and quality of life with having to find fresh sources of revenue to keep the town affordable.
“I’m not saying I’m pro-overdevelopment. I’m not,” Saracino responded. “But bear in mind as a government and a municipality, costs increase, whether it’s through inflation, whether it’s through increased energy costs, salaries and employees’ benefits. Economies grow. How do you make up that shortfall? You either a) raise taxes to make up for it or b) find the most responsible way to bring in new tax resources to the town.”
Caspari and Bonanno spoke of how the Mount Pleasant Republicans received the majority of their campaign contributions from development interests and have been apparently influenced by that money. The town has gone out of its way to provide tax breaks to multiple developers while in the case of the Pocantico Lake proposal amended zoning to allow, Caspari said.
“The Amazon (project), without even knowing who the tenant would be, the town gave away that lot with another $3 million tax break from the IDA, which Carl Fulgenzi chairs, and got nothing in return but a stoplight,” Caspari said. “Let’s not let the town make that mistake again.”
Hawthorne resident Don Maldonado said his neighborhood is caught between the Amazon warehouse on 9A and the North 80 proposal near the medical center, which he called “an 80-acre city.” He criticized the town’s secrecy and its failure to bring these critical proposals to the attention of residents. The warehouse was approved in July 2020, but its occupant wasn’t made public ntil the following year.
“This proposal before the current administration and Planning Board didn’t even have Amazon’s name on it,” Maldonado said. “The current administration’s Planning Board declined an environmental impact study that could have included traffic and noise, not even to talk about the wildlife displacement.”
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
