After taking the summer off, Rye’s mysterious anonymous development group has been back at it — taking aim at the city’s outdated comprehensive plan, criticizing Rye officials, and trying to influence the recent City Council elections.
Only this time, city officials are firing back – calling the unusual provocateurs misleading and cowardly. Meanwhile, Rye’s political leaders continue to ignore the group, saying they won’t engage until the secretive developers reveal themselves.
The so-called Rye Community Planning Collaborative (CPC) announced in September that its members had begun drafting their own comprehensive plan. The city hasn’t updated Rye’s real comprehensive plan since it was first created in 1985.
The group is on version nine of its draft plan, the latest released just this past Monday, claiming they have received “a significant amount of feedback from the community.”
The group still hasn’t revealed its members, only communicating anonymously through encrypted email.
In their most recent initiatives, the mystery group has targeted city planning officials. The group claimed that the city Board of Appeals over the last five years has approved 99 percent of the nearly 300 applications they have received — with only two projects denied over that time.
That supposed record raises “the question of whether applications are carefully vetted or whether the board is lenient in its approach,” the group said.
But city officials have taken exception. Board of Appeals Chair Alan Weil told The Record that the anonymous group’s interpretation of the variance process is skewed and doesn’t paint an accurate picture.
“The Rye Community Planning Collaborative knows nothing about the zoning process or the methodology utilized by the Zoning Board of Appeals in making its decisions,” he said.
The board applies a “balancing test” for requested variances, weighing the potential impact of a project on the public with applicants’ rights to do what they want with their private property. Instead of issuing denials, Weil said, the board often asks applicants with unreasonable or excessive variance applications to modify and resubmit their proposals.
The anonymous group “doesn’t have the decency or courage to identify themselves and instead anonymously initiates a public discourse with a newspaper making inflammatory accusations regarding a public body made up of community volunteers,” Weil said.
Rye City Manager Brian Shea agreed that the Board of Appeals is not lenient, adding that the anonymous group should analyze how projects initially are proposed and how they end up.
“Having worked across the state, I would put Rye’s land use boards, including the Board of Appeals, up against any,” Shea told The Record. “They are deliberative, thoughtful, and fair in their review of applications.”
Rendering courtesy Rye CPC
More than a zoning document, a comprehensive plan captures how residents want their city to look, and generally requires input from community groups — not just planners, engineers, and politicians.
“It’s been 40 years since Rye last created a citywide development plan: decades of growth, challenges, and change — without an updated vision to guide us. That ends now,” the group proclaimed in an encrypted email, the only method of communication it uses in its mysterious missives to Rye residents and officials.
The so-called collaborative’s draft plan claims to want to preserve the city’s “predominantly single-family residential community” and “unique character,” while also making Rye more climate resilient, pedestrian friendly, and sports-oriented.
It also cited a need for more diverse and affordable housing options.
“It’s about protecting local control, honoring our history, and daring to think beyond old assumptions,” the group said. “Most importantly, it’s about ensuring Rye doesn’t just let things happen, but guides what happens.”
The mysterious group — which claims 10-20 members — formed in 2022 and has contrived various ambitious development proposals over the last year, everything from building new athletic facilities to turning the Rye Subaru dealership and parking lot into a massive apartment complex and commercial business hub.
Those grandiose proposals have been shrugged off by Rye officials, but that hasn’t stopped the group from trying to inject itself into the city’s planning and development conversation.
In mid-October, the group released its own “Comprehensive Plan quiz,” peppering the inboxes of Rye residents with questions about city budget allocations, historic preservation objectives, and other planning matters.
The group then took their unorthodox campaign a step further, seeking to engage political candidates in the runup to the city’s mayoral and City Council elections.
“With elections this fall, we want to know where you stand,” the group informed candidates in an August email.
Photo Lois Wald
“As voters choose our next City Council, it’s worth recognizing how important their role will be in shaping Rye’s updated comprehensive plan,” the group chimed in with another email weeks later. “The future mayor’s appointments to land use committees will guide decisions on development.”
But none of the three mayoral candidates — Democrat Josh Nathan, Republican Bill Henderson, and independent Rick McCabe — were interested in engaging with the group while it remained anonymous.
“I don’t know who they are,” Mayor-elect Nathan told The Record last month, fresh off his election win. “It’s simply not possible or realistic for the city to engage in a discussion of this nature with a person or group that is anonymous.”
Nathan previously said the group likely materialized in part because Rye’s comprehensive plan is so outdated.
“Not having a plan opens us up to this kind of thing,” he said during the campaign.
The mysterious coalition told The Record that it plans to “share more about the group’s membership in the future” — but declined to provide a timeline.
Nathan, meanwhile, has vowed to make a new comprehensive plan a central priority. He was officially sworn into office on Jan. 1.
In the meantime, the mystery group remains busy.
“While we congratulate the incoming mayor, we don’t take political positions,” the group told The Record. “Our focus is on supporting the strongest possible planning process and working with officials of all viewpoints.
“We’re continuing to prepare an updated draft of our unofficial comprehensive plan.”
