Rye’s comprehensive plan has not been updated since it was first drafted in 1985 — as it turns out, it’s also the second-oldest plan among Westchester’s 45 communities.
Municipal planning experts generally recommend that comprehensive plans are updated every 7-10 years to remain relevant to shifting demographics, technology, and economic indicators.
And not doing so creates plenty of risk for a community.
“Especially (with) the growth in the New York metropolitan area, I’m surprised that they’ve gotten away with not having any (updated) plan,” Elizabeth Marcello, an urban planning professor at Hunter College in Manhattan, told The Record in an interview. “I … think it’s strange.”
In Westchester, a county with a growing population of more than 1 million and lying on the outskirts of New York City, only Pelham Manor (updated in 1979) has an older comprehensive plan.
Meanwhile, neighboring communities like Harrison, Mamaroneck, Rye Brook, and Port Chester have all updated their comprehensive plans within the last 15 years, The Record found. And other larger Westchester cities, such as New Rochelle and White Plains, have revised their plans within the last 10 years.
Municipal planning experts generally recommend that comprehensive plans are updated every seven to 10 years to remain relevant to shifting demographics, technology, and economic indicators.
During last year’s Rye City mayoral race, Josh Nathan, a councilman, warned of the dangers of not having an updated plan, making that a focus of his campaign.
“We make reactive decisions,” the Democrat said.
In recent years, Nathan – now the mayor – said that has materialized in the way city officials have tackled issues with city-owned field space.
“For example, field replacements were considered without looking at overall usage, layout, or parking,” he said. “At Gagliardo [Park], swing sets sit by I-95 without rethinking the park’s design.”
The 2.5-acre Gagliardo Park, located on High Street, has been in rough shape for years because of city neglect. The City Council has failed to upgrade the park even though proposals have been included in various municipal budgets dating back to at least 2018.
A four-decade-old comprehensive plan has left Rye without a long-term framework to guide development into the 2020s, Nathan said.
“There’s a problem, everybody jumps on it, we debate and do something,” he added. “But it may not be the smartest thing or fit long-term needs.”
An issue-by-issue approach to development also poses a risk since it may allow special interests to guide planning and building, Marcello said.
“It ends up being very opportunistic for whichever developer can come in and plunk a bunch of money down and get something done,” the urban planning professor said.
That opportunism nature has been on full display in Rye over the past few years, as a local anonymous group calling itself the Rye Community Planning Collaborative, continues to try to influence city government by proposing ambitious and controversial development projects.
The group, which will not publicly identify its members, even announced in the fall that it was on the ninth draft of its own proposed comprehensive plan.
Marcello warned of the dangerous roles powerful interest groups play in communities with outdated comprehensive plans.
“Do you want private interests and private developers … driving the way your city grows?” she said. “That doesn’t sound like a very equitable place to live.”
Nathan agreed comprehensive planning is important to ensure various community stakeholders are heard, but said special interests aren’t “inherently good or bad.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a group of people wanting to see something happen,” he said. “But when there’s a plan people can see where their interests will be taken care of.”
Over the years, there have been several stops and starts by city officials vowing to update the comprehensive plan. But the amount of time and political will it takes can often outlive their terms in office.
In 2020 under Mayor Josh Cohn, the last time the onerous project was attempted, plans were shelved due to the COVID-19 outbreak. And before Cohn, former Republican Mayor Joe Sack set his sights on updating the plan in 2017 as well, only to lose a bid for reelection and leave office.
As a result, the plan that’s on the books now was drafted before the advent of iPhones and Instagram, pay stations, and parking apps. In 1985, when Rye’s plan was created, Coca-Cola announced a new formula for its signature soda that fell flat, and rising star Whitney Houston reached No. 1 with her hit “Saving All My Love For You.”
The city, county, and country looked a lot different.
Pelham Manor Village Manager Lindsey Luft told The Record there are clear benefits to having a newly updated plan, but the follow-through is easier said than done.
It’s been 46 years since the village drafted an update to its current plan.
“It’s lengthy and it is quite cumbersome,” Luft said about the updating process, adding that the community outreach portion itself can take more than a year. And that often precedes engaging consultants, as well as conducting multiple public hearings before a plan is adopted.
Luft has worked in local government for 15 years, including as assistant administrator for the town of Mamaroneck and as secretary for the village of Ardsley. But while in Pelham Manor, she said, the lack of a current comprehensive plan hasn’t been raised as a concern.
“It really hasn’t come up,” she said.
Nathan wants Rye to see a newly updated plan completed 18 months after hiring a consulting firm to facilitate the process, he said.
Last year, the city sent out a request for proposals looking for consultants to start its comprehensive planning process. City Council members are currently reviewing those applications.
Photo Alison Rodilosso
“I believe that if you stick to the timeframe, it’s doable,” Nathan said. “That’s the goal and I’m sticking to it.”
However, an 18-month timeline could be very ambitious, according to some experts.
White Plains Planning Commissioner Christopher Gomez said three to four years is more common for the comprehensive planning process, adding the timeframe in White Plains was on the shorter end because the city was able to use in-house planning professionals.
“We had an incredibly challenging three years making it a holistic process,” said Gomez, who along with other city officials led the charge to reboot White Plains’ comprehensive plan in 2024, the first update since 1996.
He said the comprehensive planning process in White Plains cost around $220,000.
But in his experience, smaller suburban communities often have less resources to commit to a full update of a comprehensive plan, which can slow the process. Gomez, who also led a 2012 comprehensive planning process in Port Chester, said for smaller communities with fewer on-staff planning experts, the project can be a big lift.
While he recognized “so much is variable,” he estimated that communities could spend between $200,000 and $350,000 on a new comprehensive plan.
“Comprehensive plans are definitely a worthwhile endeavor, just challenging and can take years to build consensus,” he said.
Former Rye City Mayor Steve Otis – who served as mayor from 1998-2009 – said he prioritized neighborhood-oriented and shorter-term development solutions during his tenure. That was necessary to get work done, he said, while using existing city staff and volunteer committees that could do the work themselves.
Photos courtesy Rye development plan; Alison Rodilosso
“Our priorities were planning initiatives that had real outcomes short term,” said Otis, who now represents Rye as a state assemblyman.
Those initiatives included code changes to house and fence sizes, construction and leaf blower noise, and well as traffic safety and city field space improvements.
Otis touted the planning work he did while steering the City Council, noting that those city committees made the projects possible despite the city’s long-outdated comprehensive plan.
But the Democrat also conceded that it would benefit Rye if city officials finally started the process of revising the plan.
“Rye needs to revisit and update the master plan,” Otis said.
Marcello – the Hunter College professor who has primarily worked in New York City urban development – said that smaller cities like Rye, which has a population of just over 17,000, would also likely benefit from comprehensive planning due to its proximity to the Big Apple.
Data indicates Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland counties have seen steady population growth – more than a 3 percent increase from 2014-2024, compared to New York City’s 2 percent population decline over that same timeframe.
Nathan said he has ideas for how to start the community outreach portion of the project, which “is as important as the plan” itself, and he’s eager to get the ball rolling.
His term expires in 2029.
In the meantime, he said, the City Council hopes to start engaging firms in the coming weeks.
