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onstruction has begun in downtown White Plains on a $42.18 million public housing facility that is the first step in replacing aging apartment towers for lowincome residents with a community designed to eliminate the stigma of affordable housing. The Prelude, a 122,000-square-foot building rising in the first phase of the publicprivate project, will stand 10 stories tall on Brookfield Commons at the corner of South Lexington Avenue and Quarropas Street. Formerly called Winbrook Housing, the original housing on the White Plains Municipal Housing Authority campus was built in 1949. The project’s private developer is New York City-based Jonathan Rose Cos. L.L.C. “Our residents will be able to take pride in their homes and have hope that, through this new living experience, that children will be lifted up, grow and prosper,” said Mack
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a reBIrtH oF PuBlIc HouSIng In WHIte PlaInS By aaron PeLC apelc@westfairinc.com
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April 21, 2014 | VOL. 50, No. 16 Aaron Pelc
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Work has begun on The Prelude, the first building in a planned mixed-income community in downtown White Plains.
Housing, page 6
SPI, lawmakers clash as Playland plan breaks down By marK LunGarIeLLo mlungariello@westfairinc.com
CounTy LaWmaKers appear to be souring on Sustainable Playland Inc., saying the nonprofit chosen to take over management of Playland was avoiding hard questions about the group’s plans for the future of the park. Rye-based SPI, in an April 9 letter to Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, said it would continue to sit on the sidelines due to legal issues and because lawmakers lacked any shared vision of what should be done at the park. Kim Morque, SPI’s president, said in the letter that county officials had differing ideas
of attendance goals, parking and if year-round athletic fields should be built there. “This lack of a cohesive overall county view of what Playland should be has left SPI and its operators at a loss as to where to turn next,” Morque wrote in the letter. Rye-based SPI was chosen by Westchester to take over management of the park, which is county owned but located in the city of Rye. SPI removed itself from the Board of Legislators’ review process earlier this month, saying it was awaiting the resolution of a turf dispute between Westchester and the city of Rye over which entity has zoning jurisdiction for any construction in the park.
The group had previously likened its backing away to stepping off the playing field until the municipalities decided who was going to be referee, but SPI may soon find itself out of the game altogether. Board Chairmam Michael Kaplowitz, a Democrat, on April 15 called the backing out “astonishing” and took the group’s letter to mean it was refusing completely to cooperate with county lawmakers “The problem is not SPI’s or the county’s vision; the problem is SPI’s inability or unwillingness to provide answers to the critical parking/traffic, environmental and financial concerns,” Kaplowitz said. Kaplowitz, who became board chairman SPI, page 6