WPCNR THE CNA NEWS. By John F. Bailey. January 11, 2006; UPDATED January 12, 2006 with Clarification: Ken Worden of the Highlands Neighborhood Association took the reins of the Council of Neighborhood Associations kickoff meeting for 2006 Tuesday evening and a number of issues were identified as being of concern to the representatives in attendance.
Ken Worden of the Highlands Association Chairs his first Meeting Tuesday Evening. Photo, WPCNR News.
The first issue of prominence announced by Mr. Worden concern the homeless shelter relocation to 85 Court Street. Mr. Worden said Mayor Joseph Delfino had called him, designating the Highlands Association as the neighborhood closest to the 85 Court Street location. Worden said the Mayor expressed to him the Mayor’s adamant opposition to the County placing the homeless there, and called upon him and his neighbors to express their concern to County Executive Andy Spano and Legislator William Ryan. Various comments from representatives indicated the representatives were concerned by the placement.
The next issue that was mentioned was the Comprehensive Plan Committee report expressing the findings of that committee on the viability of the 1997 Comprehensive Plan for the city. John Vorperian, a member of the CPC, said the draft of that report was scheduled to be out today, Thursday, and that it would be submitted formally to the Common Council at the February Common Council meeting.
The CNA In Session. Photo, WPCNR News.
Members at the table expressed feelings the CPC reports they had seen so far were too vague. The principle consensus was that the continued development of downtown is not specific enough on heights of buildings, and how many tall buildings was the plan envisioning, and that the city would simply take whatever proposals developers would bring to them the way the plan is now.
They feared that the influx of apartment dwellers and condominium owners renting purchasing the new units coming on line in the years ahead downtown would change the demographics of the city, impacting property taxes, school population, and expressed hope the city would undertake a demographic study of who was coming into the new dwellings in the downtown.
The tax base was of acute concern to the representatives in attendance. Members spoke of the rising impact of school taxes the dwindling commercial real estate base was creating, forcing property taxes on homeowners to rise at a rapid rate. Marc Pollitzer contacted WPCNR to amend WPCNR's reporting that he had said Adam Bradley had sponsored a bill in the legislature to tax condominiums at a rate closer to the individual homeowner rate, but that it had no chance of passing due to real estate interests.
Mr. Pollitzer clarifies his statement, writing "He (Mr. Bradley) is a supporter of changing tax rates for condos/coops etc, but to my knowledge has not authored such legislation."
Mr. Bradley told WPCNR Thursday he did not sponsor the condominium bill, but confirmed that he felt it had no chance of passing either the assembly or the house at this time in its present form.
The same fate apparently is affecting Mr. Bradley’s co-sponsored bill to tax commercial property more equally with homeowner’s property, doing away with the equalization rate that creates the lower values of commercial properties. Mr. Bradley told WPCNR Thursday that he is discussing this bill with the Westchester County Assessors to find a compromise acceptable to the New York State Senate, that would reduce the certiorari paybacks commercial properties are receiving on overassessments in the past that win certiorari paybacks.
Mr. Pollitzer also wrote to WPCNR saying that Mr. Bradley was sponsoring a bill on residents' standing in Environmental Impact Statement issues, writing, " In the CNA article, the bill sponsored by Adam Bradley has to do with "standing" in EIS issues, not condo tax issues." The Article 78 suit filed in 2001 against the New York Presbyterian Hospital proton accelerator/biomedical project, which has still not been started, and is up for site plan renewal, was thrown out because the court found the residents and CCOS, which filed the suit had "no standing."
Another issue that came up was the illegal housing issue, which representatives feared was hurting the school district.
Possible Content of CNA Website. Photo, WPCNR News.
The CNA was enthusiastic about setting up a website for the organization to post neighborhood news, post minutes of the meetings and positions, while expanding awareness of the organization, invite comment. When WPCNR had to leave the meeting the organization was considering purchasing a domain name for the site, and forming a committee to hammer out who would run the website and update it.
The issue of getting more representation from the downtown was raised and the CNA seeks interest from persons living in the downtown interested in starting an association to deal with downtown issues on the CNA to include the whole city. Persons interested in being part of the Downtown Residents Association (for lack of a better name at this time), should get in touch with Ken Worden.
