This article was updated on Jan. 22 at 11:10 a.m.
Developers, business leaders, and land use attorneys lined up Tuesday night to speak out against a proposed six-month moratorium on business and multifamily development aimed at slowing such projects in Rye, especially downtown.
Following the hearing, the Rye City Council tabled the proposal, planning to revisit the matter on Feb. 12.
Large development projects in Harrison and Port Chester, and the approval of two three-story mixed-use buildings on Purdy Avenue in Rye, raised concerns that the city’s current zoning code does not adequately address large-scale developments and led to the proposed moratorium
Rye has not updated its comprehensive master plan since 1985, and is set to launch a multi-year effort to do so. Council members said they wanted to consider a moratorium to protect the city and the character of downtown while the master plan was being developed, a process that can take years.
Eight opponents of the proposed moratorium raised questions at the public hearing at City Hall, with some suggesting grounds they might have for legally challenging the proposal.
No one spoke in support of the moratorium.
Some opponents called the proposal vague and unfair, because it could block projects already approved by the city’s land use boards. The council also was criticized for not seeking the boards’ input when drafting the proposed moratorium.
After public comments were concluded, Mayor Josh Cohn suggested discussing shrinking the proposal to only include the central business district, excluding some projects already in the pipeline.
But the council instead voted to go into executive session to speak with Kristen Wilson, the city’s corporation counsel.
Following a 30-minute closed-door session, the council returned to close the public hearing and resume deliberations on February 12.
During the hearing, city Planning Commission Chairman Nick Everett called the proposed legislation flawed. Language in the proposal that refers to protecting local character, historical, or environmentally sensitive areas was so broad, Everett said, that it would fail to provide the guidance needed to create and evaluate projects.
Everett, however, said he is not opposed to a moratorium on downtown and multi-family development.
But a moratorium should only be for new projects, he argued, not developments with Planning Commission approval, like a mixed-use building at 11-15 Purdy Ave., or a four-story multifamily complex at 6 School St. that would contain six two-bedroom apartments and six off-street parking spaces.
Representatives of those developments spoke against retroactively applying a moratorium when they have spent months refining their proposals with input from land use boards.
Neither of those projects have been approved for building permits yet.
Karl Mittermayr, a principal behind the proposal to consolidate three older structures at 11-15 Purdy Ave. into a three-story mixed-use building, called the application of a moratorium on that project “unnecessary and unfair.”
The attorney for that project, Steven Wrabel, wrote in a Jan. 17 letter to the City Council that his clients were “shocked” when they learned that a moratorium proposal “was mentioned publicly for the first time in the middle of the City Council meeting on January 8th… especially given that Site Plan approval is already in-hand and the requisite building permit fees were paid in December to the City.”
He argued that there was no crisis that would justify the council taking rapid action.
The Purdy Avenue and School Street projects could possibly receive their building permits before the council takes the moratorium up again on Feb. 12.
