West 052713

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YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com Bill FAlloN

INSIDE

May 27, 2013 | VOL. 49, No. 21

CAREER OPTIONS • 17

A TOWERING PLAN FOR A STRUGGLING PROPERTY BY JOHN GOlDeN jgolden@westfairinc.com

T

he owner of a largely vacant shopping center in downtown White Plains wants to demolish the building and replace it with high-rise residences as part of a four-building mixeduse development that would transform the city skyline while creating a more walkable business district. Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc., the publicly traded real estate investment trust based in Greenwich, Conn., is seeking a zoning change for The Westchester Pavilion at 60 S. Broadway as a first step in its plans to redevelop the nearly 4-acre site as an 858,000-square-foot complex. It would be built around an inner plaza and pedestrian street linking East Post Road and South Broadway and the downtown Mamaroneck Avenue retail corridor with Hale Avenue and Maple Avenue and the grow-

OUT OF THE OFFICE • 31

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Making waves page 2 Capt. Mary Pat Driscoll

Property, page 6

speed the plow?

Small-scale farms, colossal farm bill BY Bill FAllON bfallon@westfairinc.com

tHe nearLY triLLion-DoLLar FeDeraL FarM BiLL now wending through Congress could make history by sowing small-scale assistance among farm policy that for 80 years has focused on America’s so-called program crops: corn, wheat, rice, cotton and oil seeds. This year’s hoped-for change in attitude is accompanied by regional Congressional sway – “a dog in the fight,” as one farmer said – that in the past was nonexistent or, when briefly present as in 2008, was crushed by program-crop states.

The last federal farm bill dates to 2008 and expired in January, typical of its five-year cycle. Congressional budgeting, however, must reckon with expenses 10 years into the future at nearly $100 billion per year: $955 billion. Agriculture program funding since January has been stopgap. In 2008, regional black dirt conservation efforts were scratched late in the process. But this year unlike previous years, according to onion farmer Chris Pawelski, “We have a dog in the fight,” meaning a U.S. senator and House members on the right committees. “For those who don’t grow those program Farms, page 6

Mark Adams, farmer, store owner and president of the Dutchess, Westchester, Putnam Farm Bureau.


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