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Politics & Government

Trustees Examine Rivertowns Square: Ecology

Trees, gas lines and a babbling brook up for discussion in the review of a draft FEIS

In the second of three reviews of Rivertowns Square’s potential impact on Dobbs Ferry life, village trustees took up environmental issues Tuesday.

The review—of a proposed final environmental impact statement, or FEIS—sought to gauge the “accuracy and adequacy” of the developers’ responses to issues raised earlier in a draft impact statement

While questions remained after a two-hour examination of the mixed-use complex, no major environmental hurdles appeared to have emerged. The developers of the proposed center, Saber Dobbs Ferry LLC and Lincoln Dobbs Ferry LLC, envision a mélange that includes retailing, residential and multiscreen-movie uses. Rivertowns Square would sit on more than 17 acres just north of Chauncey Square, where Lawrence Street crosses the Saw Mill River Parkway.

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Seated at a separate table, four consultants, including Dwight Douglas, the village planner, addressed a dais that included all but one member of the village board as well as Village Administrator Marcus Serrano and Village Attorney Darius Chafizadeh.

The other consultants were George Pommer, a professional engineer with Hahn Engineering in Brewster; Lucille Munz, a landscape architect with Munz Associates in South Salem and ecologist Steven Marino of Tim Miller Associates in Cold Spring.

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Pommer, the P.E. consultant, said a new, larger gas main will be installed along the length of Ogden Avenue, from Ashford Avenue to the site of the proposed  complex. The 12-inch diameter pipe had originally been scheduled to replace the existing 6-inch main only from the site to Ogden’s intersection with Beacon Hill Drive. Planners determined, however, that the larger main would have to continue to Ashford. Digging will go on along the length of Ogden to bury the new pipe.

Virtually all of the Rivertowns Square utilities would be buried, Pommer said. Except for two poles near the parkway/Lawrence Street intersection, lines for such services as power, communications and water will remain out of sight.

Stormwater-runoff issues, Pommer said, also appear to have been resolved. “From our preliminary review,” he said, “they’ve met that requirement.” Among the tools developers employed to stem runoff, he said, were stormwater planters, which are designed to cut the flow throughout the site. Bioretention systems, the planters collect runoff, then filter it through successive layers of soil and mulch.

Marino, an environmental planner and wetland ecologist, said he was looking for further mitigation specifics for a stream. Described as "a babbling brook," it enters the development property from Ogden Avenue. Plans call for it to be diverted via pipe, spilling it into another stream at the north end of the property, where both flows merge before entering the Saw Mill River.

But after the meeting Steven J. Rosenbloom, a Round Hill Road resident and critic of what he terms the “monstrous [Rivertowns Square] proposal,” called the planning incomplete. The draft FEIS, he noted, did not discuss the steam’s potential impact on Saw Mill flooding. Although the stream already empties into the river on its own now, it undergoes the ground’s natural filtering before reaching the river.

Rosenbloom made his remarks to a reporter because the public, while encouraged to attend the board’s FEIS work sessions, is not permitted to address the trustees or their consultants. Residents also do not have access yet to the draft document under discussion, forcing some energetic note-taking.

Landscape architect Munz, continuing to seek clarification of how many trees were being preserved, noted that developers have estimated a total loss of some 350. But urging, in effect, a tree census, Munz said it remained unknown whether that number represented a small fraction of the property’s total trees or a significantly large percentage. She said a chart will ultimately spell out how many trees are being preserved.

“I also recommended that evergreen trees be placed along Ogden Avenue, running north,” Munz said.

The board will conduct its “final” public workshop at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, when it’s scheduled to consider socioeconomic and construction issues as well as revisit loose ends from the previous two sessions.

 

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