Downtown Development Is Front and Center in Pivotal City Council Race

With a pivotal council race now in full swing, all six candidates are honing in on the issue of development, one of the biggest campaign issues on the city’s November ballot.

Both Republican and Democratic candidates alike say they want to guide development through long-term planning and robust community input, pushing back in particular on an anonymous planning group’s visions and criticism of city land-use decisions.

The city has taken the initial steps to embark on updating its 40-year-old master plan and the candidates are urging residents to engage openly in helping shape the city’s future.

Drafted back in 1985, the plan became increasingly less relevant with the turn of the century. In the absence of an updated guiding document, the mysterious “Rye Community Planning Collaborative” has recently teased its own master plan proposal for the city. The group aims to release the full document ahead of the election, possibly to influence the vote or the candidates.

Democratic candidate Amy Kesavan, 47, criticized the secretive group, saying that big ideas should be made with openness and transparency, not cause polarization and keep voters in the dark.

The former Pentagon official said that updating the master plan is the best way to protect the community and added that the city’s current lack of long-term planning is the single-biggest factor that pushed her to run for a council seat.

“We need to develop a comprehensive master plan that will preserve the best of our community and keep Rye moving forward,” Kesavan, who’s lived in Rye for 13 years, said.

Republican candidate Maria Shuck, 65, agreed that it’s time for an update to the city’s guiding document.

“The level of development is increasing at a rapid pace,” she told The Record. “The plan should cover zoning, commercial and residential development, flood mitigation, public safety, traffic, bike and pedestrian safety, etc.”

Shuck, originally from Sweden, decided to become involved in Rye politics when her neighborhood underwent several construction projects, she said.

The Harvard law graduate also supported the top of her ticket, Republican mayoral candidate Bill Henderson, on the city’s current rock chipping law and believes that development downtown needs to strike a balance.

“When it comes to the central business district and the heart of town, we need to retain the character while still allowing for mixed-use buildings which are already a salient feature of our town,” Shuck, who has spent the last 32 years in the city, added.

The downtown district has seen an influx of development projects that led city officials to consider a six-month building moratorium earlier this year. The proposal was eventually scrapped, but the City Council decided to convene a working group to issue recommendations for future development projects.

Councilman James Ward, a Democrat who is running alongside Kesavan, Marion Anderson, and mayoral candidate Josh Nathan, voted against the moratorium. In its place, Ward, 57, supported a study of the Central Business District that led to new building height limits and architectural standards — steps that the 14-year resident called an important start to comprehensive planning.

Republican candidate Robin Jovanovich, 74, said the city should strive for a better balance overall when it comes its pace of development. But along with development, the former editor in chief and publisher of The Rye Record, said there’s one key supplement that city officials must consider.

“The rise of mixed-use buildings in downtown is a positive development, but without the creation of more parking spaces and without a downtown police officer, the increase in density creates serious safety concerns and lots more frustration,” she said.

Jovanovich, who spent years working on Elm Place, said that despite having a merchant parking lot permit, she still has to drive around for “more than 15 minutes” trying to find a parking spot.

She also wants more diversity when the “overdue” comprehensive plan is finally updated.

“We want a vibrant downtown, perhaps one with fewer nail salons and coffee shops,” said Jovanovich, a Rye resident for 33 years. “We also want a diversity of population and home styles.”

Kesavan, a nurse in the maternity unit at Greenwich Hospital, said the Democratic slate is running to “conserve our community’s character and quiet charm while building a more sustainable future.”

“We can’t achieve those goals by shooting from the hip,” she said. “It takes a carefully considered and expert-led approach” —making the attempts at influence by the anonymous planning group ominous.

Jovanovich called the group, which only communicates by encrypted email, a “distraction,” while Shuck, the president of the Lund University Foundation, said the group’s members should identity themselves if they want to engage in a constructive community conversation.

Ward, the former chairman of the city Sustainability Committee, also questioned the mysterious group’s choice to remain anonymous, saying if their ideas have merit, they should present them openly and take part in the discussion.

“I don’t see what this group gains by being anonymous. If you have good ideas, show up and let’s discuss,” he said.

Anderson, 69, echoed those sentiments and also expressed concerns about how outdated the city’s master plan is.

Without more careful management of overall development, Kesavan worries that Rye could face stormwater issues, traffic congestion, rising school enrollment, and strained public safety resources.

Ward, the head of valuation for Viking Global Investors in Stamford, Conn., added: “New projects can absolutely enrich what we have, but only when they fit with the established neighborhood’s personality.”

James Fee, who rounds out the Republican ticket, said he prefers a community-led approach to planning.

“The appropriate pace of development is one that is supported by the majority of the current residents of Rye. This requires a thoughtful and extended discussion,” said the 36-year-old Fee, who got involved in local civics to fight against “unfair” fees for new members of Rye Golf Club.

Anderson, a lifelong resident who runs the nonprofit Heartsong in White Plains, said maintaining the “aesthetics and scale” that make the city such an attractive place to live is important to her, but she’s also eager to protect the limited multifamily housing — Blind Brook Lodge, Highland Hall, the Vienna, and Rye Manor — in the community.

The city has taken initial steps to redo its master plans, having already formed a committee, with the next step expected to be the hiring of a consulting firm to help lead the process.

“The comprehensive planning process, which is supposed to get off the ground soon, would seem to be a good forum for that discussion,” Fee, an attorney with the Manhattan law firm Labaton, Keller Sucharow LLP, said.

Fee’s comments also mirrored many of the thoughts put forward by both parties regarding the development group, which floated wild proposals to transform portions of Rye Golf Club into field space and redevelop the Rye Subaru property into a massive mixed-used development.

As long as they operate in the dark, the 5-year Rye resident said he won’t entertain them.

There are four City Council seats up for grabs. Election Day is Nov. 4, with early voting beginning Oct. 25.