Two by two the came, New Rochelle City Council Members were brought into secret meetings last Friday with Forest City Ratner executives to hear private pitches on a revised Echo Bay Development plan – a plan that was promised for delivery last Aguust.
Mayor Bramson on his WVOX radio show today, when asked about the Echo Bay “closed meeting” of the City Council, said the executive session was to discuss a real estate matter, done on the advice of legal counsel because it involved real estate transactions. News of the secret meetings was first reported on WVOX’s Talk of the Sound Radio last Friday (click the link to the article about the radio show, then click the word “PODCAST” within the article to listen).
The Echo Bay Memorandum of Understanding with Forest City Residential expired on January 15, 2011 and could be renewed at any time by the Council. So why are they meeting secretly with Forest City’s representatives? Why is the City going to such great lengths to help this developer? What is going on here?
The Journal News reported on the “flexible” Echo Bay deadline earlier today.
The Jan. 15 deadline by which Forest City was to meet the City Council’s terms appears to be flexible. Mayor Noam Bramson on Friday said Forest City, the developer behind the proposed Echo Bay project, would present its plans to the council and the public at a meeting in February….Bramson said he expected the developers to “outline and describe aspects of the project” at their February presentation. He said the council would likely decide that month whether to extend, revise or reject its memorandum of understanding with the developers. City Council members discussed the Echo Bay development in a closed-door meeting Jan. 11.
The two by two by two meetings are a transparent attempt by the City government to skirt the New York State Open Meetings Law. One Council Member admitted as much. Speaking off the record, the Council Member stated that the purpose of the “private” meetings was to allow the developer to build support for the plan without public scrutiny.
Because the Council met in groups of two and not as a whole there was no quorum. This action is reminiscent of the use of three by three meetings that were intended to avoid the open meetings law by a previous administration. That practice was stopped after New Rochelle residents complained to the New York State Committee on Open Government in Albany.
Meanwhile, in a related transaction, Monroe College signed a contract to use New Roc City for a basketball arena without any prior public notice or comment. The midnight deal killed a potential deal to convert the New Rochelle Armory into a home for the Monroe College athletic program. There has been speculation that Mayor Bramson and City Manager Chuck Strome put pressure on Marc Jerome, Executive Vice President of Monroe College and BID Board President, to squelch any partnership between the college and the United Veterans and Patriotic Association of New Rochelle.
If and when Mayor Bramson decides that the public should be allowed to know how he intends to carve up their coastline, residents may wish to judge the plan based on what the Mayor promised just three years ago.
In my judgment, the proposal is among the most exciting and significant in New Rochelle’s history. A vibrant mixed-use development of parkland, housing, and shops would replace a contaminated and under-utilized site that currently blocks public access to the Sound shore.
Among the key benefits of the plan are: three public parks and more than five acres of green space; total clean-up and remediation of environmentally contaminated land; views from surrounding neighborhoods to the Long Island Sound; a continuous waterfront promenade with public access to the bay and adjoining parks; navigable channels for boats, kayaks and canoes; new retail to provide goods and services and strengthen the local economy; and a significant number of affordable housing units, planned at 20% of the total, double the City’s 10% requirement.
The structures in the plan would house 600 apartments, 100,000 square feet of small shop/boutique retail, 62 town-homes, and 42 condominiums. All buildings would be limited to five stories or less.
In addition, a new 15,000 square foot community center would replace the abandoned armory that now sits on East Main Street. Several of the armory’s distinctive architectural and artistic features would be preserved and incorporated into this new facility, to be sited on Echo Avenue. The center would provide meeting space, services, and programming for veterans and other community organizations.
Download a power point presentation of the Echo Bay Plan.
Forest City Ratner was awarded the MOU to develop Echo Bay in a competitive process based on the promises outlined in their plan and the benefits propounded by the Mayor. The MOU has now legally expired. So, why are the original bidders not being afforded an opportunity to make new presentations for revised plans just as Forest City Ratner is doing?
Will there still be three public parks? Will there still be more than five acres of green space? Will there be a total clean-up and remediation of environmentally contaminated land? Will there be a continuous waterfront promenade with public access to the bay and adjoining parks? Will Echo Bay be dredged to create navigable channels for boats? Will 20% of the housing be affordable housing units?
If the basis on which the MOU was awarded to Forest City Ratner were these and other benefits and the City is no longer getting these benefits and the MOU is now expired then why is the Mayor operating on the basis that the City should continue to deal exclusively with Forest City Ratner which has not invested dime one in New Rochelle in the past three years and is on record starting that they have no plans to do any work at all in New Rochelle for the foreseeable future?
As usual under the Idoni-Bramson regime, New Rochelle residents are the last to know about deals involving public property or the use of public funds to benefit developers or individuals with inside connections within City Hall. One question New Rochelle residents should be asking is why certain City officials are so insistent in pushing for deals for developers like Forest City Ratner, a company already under investigation by the U.S. Attorney for a bribery scheme involving a member of the Yonkers City Council.
As always, the answer is “follow the money”.
Or maybe you thought that career politicians like Mayor Bramson shill for real estate developers out of a sense of altruism or community spirit?
Here is a clue for interested readers — one property owner within the proposed Echo Bay development area is holding out for a very high, above market price. Will that parcel be included in the revised plan? Would this plan have any support among Democrats if that parcel is not included? If not why not? Inquiring minds want to know.
Stay tuned for more on the Echo Bay Money Trail in future articles.
Anyone know what the devleper wants?
Based on what I’m reading, sounds like they’re planning another city over there and do we really need that? The developers paint a beautiful picture but what’s in it for the rest of us? I’m sure the tax abatements will put the entire project off the tax rolls for years to come. Then we’ll need to expand our police and fire departments, with what money I have no idea.
Think of the traffic and all the services these new residents will want. Will we have to build another elementary school? I don’t think any New Rochelle residents would like what’s being proposed and most have no idea whats going so they just go along like sheep following the flock. And who’s going to want to live next to the sewage plant? Who’s paying to move the city yard? And when is that happening?
If the plan were to build a park, like Harbour Park in Mamaroneck most would support that, but Bramsons done no planning to figure out how to pay for such an endevor so we’re stuck working with a developer. Anyone know what the devleper wants? They want to make as much money as possible with no regard for anything else so why does city hall think they’re the answer to all our problems?
And as to that propery owner who’s holding out, Bramson’s probably setting up the eminent domain trap, I can’t wait to read about the blighted neighborhood over there! And why doesn’t the project go all the way to Five Island road? Or are those dilapidated properties going to fix themselves?
For a city that can’t figure out what to do with an island (Davids) that it already owns, why take on a project of this magnitude? I just doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t think we should sell out (again) to the developer.
Echo Bay development
OK ! let’s talk about a water front tha has an old contaminated con ed parcal, A shut down concrete plant,a car dealer ship that goes in and out of buisness, A MC Donalds, A shut down falling down armory ,a city contaminated yard,a small strip of body shops and muffler shops ,Another car dealership that has a taken down a building that is probably an enviormental mess, backed up to our sewer ytreatment plant that is over loaded…….
OOHH YEA!!! and a possible developer trying to do somthing with it .
LET’S think ?
May be we do all we can to attract any and all possible developers to come and sit down!
And let’s see our PAID planning and development officials earn there pay!!