Westchester County plans to develop 46 new units of affordable housing near the Palmer Avenue train station in Larchmont that will help satisfy a federal housing desegregation settlement.
County officials are working with Elmsford-based builder Wilder Balter Partners to develop the 46 units at 2101 – 2105 Palmer Avenue, using a project already approved by village officials back in 2008.
The original developer, Esposito Builders, won approval from the planning board in 2008 to build 51 units, with 46 to be sold at market rate and the remaining five set aside for moderate-income tenants who work in Larchmont.
The county’s new plan is to build all 51 units as affordable housing, including the five originally set aside for local workers. The other 46 affordable units are expected to help the county meet the requirements of a fair-housing settlement with the federal government.
Last year, Westchester agreed to spend $52 million on building 750 affordable-housing units in mostly white, affluent areas after the Anti-Discrimination Center sued the county in 2007, accusing it of accepting federal housing aid without building affordable units in those communities.
Communities that have to build such housing under the settlement have been identified as places where less than 3 percent of the population is black and less than 7 percent is Hispanic.
So far, the federal monitor has approved proposals for a total of 14 units in Yorktown, Pleasantville and Briarcliff Manor as well as 18 units in Rye.
Esposito Builders, the original developer, bought property at 2101 Palmer Ave. in 2002.
Richard Esposito, who runs the Peekskill-based company, said he’d hoped to move forward with construction after village officials approved the plan in 2008, but the economic downturn made it too difficult to get financing.
He declined to say how much the new developer, Wilder, is paying for the undeveloped Palmer Avenue property.
A message was left at Wilder’s Elmsford offices.
The original project drew opposition from a neighborhood group, The Concerned Citizens of Larchmont, which cited concerns about congestion, stormwater runoff, increases in school enrollments and limited downtown parking.
On Tuesday, Larchmont Village Mayor Josh Mandell said he wanted to get more information from county officials and the new developer, as well as hear residents’ opinions, before he takes a position on the affordable-housing project.
“I want to let the public have a voice,” he said. That’s really my concern.”
Residents can learn more at a public forum at 7 p.m. next Monday, Nov. 22, at 120 Larchmont Ave, he said.
Calls to the offices of Westchester County Board of Legislators Majority Whip Judith Myers of Mamaroneck and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino were not returned by press time.
Larchmont is 1.1 square miles and has a population of about 7,000.
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[...] this month, plans were announced to build a 51-unit complex in Larchmont, replacing a project which would only have 5 of the 51 units be deemed “affordable”. [...]