Denied Mayor’s Support, Brightview Withdraws Its Senior Living Proposal in Irvington

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April 21, 2016

by Barrett Seaman

“At the end of the day,” said Mayor Brian C. Smith, the last of the Irvington board members to opine on Brightview’s latest revised Senior Living plan, “a 100,000 square foot building, three times the size of the existing one, is just too big for me, and I can’t support this.”

Those words, in spite of a 3-2 majority among the five board members willing to go forward with the project, put the nail in the coffin of an effort that began 20 months ago. Reacting to Smith’s pronouncement, Brightview’s attorney, David Steinmetz, declared that in its entire history of building homes for seniors, his client “had never gone to an opening of a facility without the support of the chief executive of the host municipality.”

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“Mr. Mayor,” he said, “your view, and your position on this, is critical to my client.”

With that, Brightview’s team of executives, engineers and architects, packed up their display materials and walked out.

At Brightview’s last presentation on March 7, two board members reacted favorably to the developer’s reduction of the site from an initial 160,000 square feet down to 100,000 sq. ft. along with various changes designed to minimize the perception of mass. Two other board members, including the mayor, were still uncomfortable with the scope and visibility, while one, Trustee Mark Gilliland, declared himself “on the fence.”

Brightview’s design team subsequently met with Gilliland and sought to incorporate his ideas and lure him off the fence. Among other changes, their re-design, presented April 18, removed the fourth story at the front of the building and incorporated Mansard roofs to reflect Irvington’s Hudson Valley motif, and pushed the building back 47 feet further away from Broadway. It indeed succeeded in winning over Gilliland, who said: “In a nutshell, I’m pretty surprised—favorably surprised—by what you’ve done.”

Even with Gilliland’s endorsement, Brightview had been reluctant to proceed until they won the mayor’s approval. Sources tell The Hudson Independent that they made that criterion clear to him before they submitted their revisions to the board last Friday in advance on their April 18 presentation.

The meeting was surprisingly lightly attended, given the critical nature of the decision at hand. There was a smattering of applause whenever a trustee said something critical of the proposal and a more sustained applause after the mayor articulated his position. Former mayor Dennis Flood, an opponent of the project, approached the microphone after the Brightview team had left. “Thank you, Brian,” he said to the mayor, “for being a leader.”

The only other public comment came from Jerry Carrafiello, the owner of the eight-acre property on North Broadway who had approached the village two years earlier seeking guidance as to whom he should sell the land. He recounted how he was led to believe that the board would look favorably upon either a multi-family housing project or a senior living facility. Twenty months later, he was back to owning an office park. “Why’d you waste my time?” he challenged the mayor. “Why’d you waste this community’s time?”

Carrafiello also raised the connection between the Brightview decision and the recent reassessment. “I do think $500,000 in taxes [what Brightview was projected to pay in combined taxes going forward], where I’m paying only $150 [thousand] and may be a buck ten after my challenge, does have some meaning to this community,” he said, noting that many Irvington residents had “just taken a big hit” on their property taxes under Tyler Technologies’ valuations.

Later, in an interview with this paper, Mr. Carrafiello made clear that he intends to reinvigorate his property as a commercial office park, which he can do “of right,” but he has had numerous expressions of interest from potential buyers, including non-profits that would contribute no tax revenues. “There are a number of not-for-profits looking around Irvington,” he said. Whomever he sells to, he promised it would not require re-zoning. “There’s no way I will sit through another two years with this village, he said, still angry from the meeting. Whatever he does, he vowed: “I’m a thousand percent sure I will not ask the village’s permission.”

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