WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. News Comment by John F. Bailey. June 9, 2006: The city published its 2005-2010 Consolidated Plan 2006-2007 Annual Action Plan Recommendations  in the Legal Notices Thursday. It is a candid, blunt snapshot of the city’s priorities as the Administration sees them.  The advertisment details how the city  is going to proceed with spending, with dollars and cents detail on how federal and city funds will be spent on housing, infrastructure, city assets and public programs.

Mr. and Mrs. White Plains will have an opportunity to comment on the City Consolidated Plan at a public hearing June 20 at 7 P.M. in the Common Council Chambers at 255 Main Street. The plan published this week, establishes priorities and areas for housing needs in the city, calls for an assessment of housing and community development needs, and assistance to the homeless and special housing for a “broad spectrum” of incomes.

(More)

All Right, Mr. and Mrs. White Plains, here's what we're going to do. Photo of City Action Plan published in the Legal Notices this week. The advertisement details policies the city expects to pursue in the next five years and publishes discretionary and grants spending for the budget year 2006-2007. Photo, WPCNR News.

The Action Plan in one column, tells Mr. and Mrs. White Plains exactly what the city administration is going  to attempt to do with the Core Area and the Close-In Neighborhoods. They want to bring in considerably more housing than is on the drawing boards today, and beyond that which is being built at this moment.

The city sets as priorities developing affordable housing for a “broader” range of income groups from median income to low income; options for the purchase of existing housing by low to median income groups should be “encouraged.”

Noting that 47 to 70% of White Plains households are low or moderate income the city sets an objective to “preserve and upgrade the quality” of housing in the Close-in Neighborhoods, and to build “higher quality housing stock” for such neighborhoods. One might read that to mean townhouses in the “affordable range” on the fringes of downtown.

In the Core Area, the Action Plan notes that  over the next five years, the city will seek to “expand the supply of both market rate and affordable rental and ownership housing in the Core Area,” to develop “a critical mass of housing in the downtown to support downtown revitalization.” The plan says that this strategy will develop “a balance of market rate housing and housing affordable to low, moderate and median income households.” To date, new housing built in White Plains has meant condominiums priced at $600,000 and up; Apartments at $2,500 and up.

The Plan notes in setting goals of more affordable housing in the Core, that existing housing available to “extremely low, low and moderate income households ranged from 47% to 87%. Rental housing for the same three income groups availability was 82%.

Another group the city reports it is going to build more “housing options” (a key word missing here in the plan is the word “affordable”),  for senior citizens in the Core and Close-In Neighborhoods. This could be read to mean more senior developments such as the Sunrise care facility planned adjacent to White Plains Hospital Center, and now being considered at St. Agnes Hospital.

The city also formulates an interesting paradox that of taking away open space to build “more affordable housing units.” This is frowned upon in the outer neighborhoods but not in the Core and Close-in neighborhoods. The advertisement states the city is entertaining large development of special housing on open space in the city: “Lot areas should not be reduced in Single Family and one/two family residential districts to increase density and to create lower cost housing, unless part of an overall program to create special housing, such as a continuum of care senior citizen housing, or to provide an additional benefit to the City, such as continguous open space, additional recreational facilities and parkland.

Doesn’t that sound a lot like the North Street Community proposal, being preendorsed by the city Action Plan?

The city claims it wants to address the problem of homelessness but is vague on how it wants to do that, other than maintaining present services.

The City pubished as  policy that it will work to improve appearances and viability of commercial and retail establishments in the Mamaroneck Avenue corridor.  It also fully commits to improve appearances and economic “vitality” in neighborhoods adjacent to the Close-In Neighborhoods, designating a Neighborhood Strategy Area in the South Lexington/ Post Road area.

The city published these policies as to what it proposes to do this week.