Reproduced with permission of The Scarsdale Inquirer.

© 2004 S.I. Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Published in The Scarsdale Inquirer on Friday, November 5, 2004

By SUSAN F. WOLFERT

After a four-month hiatus, the issue of whether to allow the building of homes on flag lots re-emerged at Greenburgh's town board meeting of Oct. 27. First aired in January, the issue of banning flag lots took a convoluted tour through the town's legislative review process and generated criticism in June when town councilman Timmy Weinberg asked that the issue be removed from a town board agenda. The issue was not held over for one meeting, as is standard practice, but rather removed from the agenda until last week.

Critics asserted that Weinberg put off the issue to pave the way for Silverstein Properties to create a flag lot in Edgemont's Castle Walk before a possible ban was put into place. Neighbors protested vehemently when the developer sought to subdivide an existing lot and build three new houses, one of which was designed to be on a flag lot.

Ruth Roth, counsel for the developer, and her law partner both made campaign contributions to Town Supervisor Paul Feiner last spring that some say kept the flag lot discussion off the table while the three-house plan went through the approval process. Flag lot review was still on hold in July when the Silverstein approval was granted.

Weinberg has repeatedly countered that the contributions had no effect on her seeking the holdover and that she views the flag lot revision as still a work in progress. When several complex issues about the proposed flag lot ban arose at last week's hearing, she said, "Now you know why I've had problems with this from the word go."

Flag lots are parcels of land set back from the street behind a house fronting on the street. A long driveway, or flagpole, is constructed to access the house built on such a lot. Greenburgh's current law permits development on flag lots subject to certain restrictions.

Zoning code requires that flag lots are at least twice the minimum size required of standard lots in the area. The size of the access driveway, relative to the size of the lot, is also considered. The code affirmatively prohibits flag lots-on major thoroughfares such as Ardsley, Fort Hill, Old Army and Underhill Roads in Edgemont. The Silverstein site is at the intersection of Castle Walk and Fort Hill Road, but was approved because its frontage and main access were deemed to be on Castle Walk.

At the hearing; Hartsdale resident Irwin Rosenblatt countered that prohibiting flag lots was "changing the rules mid-game." He argued that such development decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, as the proposed ban is "unfair and discriminating to a small number of constituents." Rosenblatt added that a proposed flag lot development should be permitted if no adverse environmental impacts were determined.

Bill Greenawalt of Hartsdale argued that the town board was ill prepared to vote on the proposed ban, as it could not address various questions Rosenblatt raised about the law and his own property. "Don't vote on this law if you don't even know what it says," he charged.

Greenburgh resident Ella Preiser asked how many properties would potentially be affected by a ban on flag lots, essentially wondering how many lots in unincorporated Greenburgh are at least twice as large as they need to be. Stellato responded, "It would be a prohibitive expenditure of staff time to analyze that.',"

Preiser also questioned the wisdom of unilaterally prohibiting flag lots and suggested instead revising the criteria to be met for approving them. Preiser also said that the town must "protect existing flag lots and think about potential ramifications for those owners." She implored the board to "take a harder look. This legislation is not ready."

Stellato said several times at the hearing that existing flag lots would not be deemed nonconforming properties if a ban on future flag lot development were to pass. If so, the owner of a flag lot property would not need a variance to build a new deck on his house, for example.

Stellato emphasized the need to protect property values of existing flag lot homeowners. But, resident Hal Samis noted that when laws were passed prohibiting development on steep slopes and wetlands in 2003, no protections were afforded owners of existing properties with such conditions.

The next public hearing on flag lot legislation will be held at the town board meeting of Dec. 8.

Other business

In response to a resident's question, Feiner said he was still "seeking clarification from the state comptroller" about whether Greenburgh's incorporated villages should pay a share of a negligence lawsuit settled in June 2003. Of the $9 million that was paid to Selamawit Hilliard who was left a quadriplegic and whose husband was killed when a tree in Edgemont struck their car, the town paid $6 million, with the balance covered by insurance. Feiner added that he sent a letter to the mayors of the six villages to schedule a meeting between them and the town board to discuss the issue.

Town clerk Alfreda Williams reported again that Cablevision has been trying to address the poor quality of the local access cable TV transmissions. She said, "Cablevision has been here almost daily and they finally admitted it's their problem. Service has improved substantially and will continue to get better." Residents' questions about whether the town was imposing fines on Cablevision, as it had voted to, went unanswered.

Lastly, Feiner announced that Verizon would make a presentation at the town board meeting of Nov. 10 about providing cable TV service in Greenburgh in 2005. Feiner welcomed the prospect of Cablevision having competition and said, "Hopefully we will have fewer rate increases and better service" if Verizon enters the market.

The next meeting of the town board will take place Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 7:15 p.m. at Greenburgh Town Hall.