“City Open Space Recreation District: Unnecessary, Unfair and Illegal”
The City of White Plains is considering a rezoning proposal that would essentially make it impossible to build a school, ball fields and natural open space at Ridgeway, while giving strong preference to private golf courses and country clubs. We are vigorously opposing this effort because it not only is a direct attack on FASNY’s plans for Ridgeway, it is also bad public policy and likely illegal.
This alternative rezoning, called the “Open Space Recreation District”, would specifically target Ridgeway and Westchester Hills. The rezoning would give extreme preference to private golf clubs while making it near impossible to create a school or ball fields. The rezoning would:
• Allow golf courses “as of right” but require special permits for schools, ball fields and even houses of worship.
• Allow golf courses next to homes but require 200-foot buffers for ball fields. To build a high school baseball diamond
with these restrictions would require 10 acres of property!
• Prohibit building coverage of more than 1.5% of the property. No private or public school in White Plains comes close
to meeting such restrictive building density.
Throughout White Plains, schools and ball fields are situated in residential neighborhoods, and they are highly valued by their neighbors. THIS REZONING PROPOSAL SUGGESTS THAT WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE REST OF WHITE PLAINS – SCHOOLS, BALL FIELDS AND OPEN SPACE – IS BAD FOR THE GEDNEY NEIGHBORHOOD. THIS SETS A DANGEROUS POLICY PREFERENCE FOR OTHER SCHOOLS AND PARKS THROUGHOUT THE CITY.
This proposal also ignores the reality that Ridgeway is not going to re-open as a golf course, and the City does not have the funds to purchase the property and maintain it as open space. Instead of spending time and money studying a bad proposal, we are urging the City to focus on FASNY’s plan to create a low density, sustainable school, ball fields available to the community on weekends and in the summer, and at least 60 acres of publicly accessible, privately maintained open space. This is the best, realistic plan for Ridgeway.
The chart below shows how no White Plains school can meet such restrictive zoning. FASNY’s school would actually come closest:
| Total Allowed Building Coverage on Property |
Total Allowed Lot Coverage (buildings, sidewalks, driveways, parking, artificial surfaces) |
Total Development Area (Lot Coverage + grass fields) |
Able to meet setback restrictions on ball fields |
|
City "Open Space District" Proposal |
1.25% |
5% |
Unclear |
-- |
FASNY Plan |
2.74% |
8.50% |
15% |
No |
Average Existing Public/Private School |
12.17% |
34.14% |
60.43% |
No |
Existing City Parks |
N/A |
22.16% |
60.87% |
No |
To view the full chart of Proposed Zoning Standards Applied to City Schools and Parks please click here.
To view the Application of Proposed Zoning to City Schools and Parks please click here.