P.O. Box 169
Amenia, NY 12501
www.imagineamenia.org
info@imagineamenia.org

Transformation of the old Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center
into a Transit-Oriented Traditional Neighborhood

An address by Kathleen Schibanoff, Local Liaison for the Dover Knolls development

ImagineAmenia held its Spring membership meeting on May 16, 2010. The guest speaker was Kathleen Schibanoff, who described the projected new town development, called Knolls of Dover, to be located on the site of the former New York State psychiatric center in Wingdale.

IA Board member Darlene Riemer welcomed Kathleen Schibanoff, noting that she was born in Poughkeepsie and is a long-time resident of Dover. She has held a series of major positions in organizations devoted to preservation and development issues in the area. She was Executive Director of the Harlem Valley Partnership from 1993 to 2002; she helped found the Harlem Valley Trade Show; and she has worked as assistant to the chairman of the Dutchess County legislature. Her current position is as community liaison person for the Knolls of Dover development.

Ms. Schibanoff began by explaining that if a group of concerned citizens wants to bring about changes in their community, the way to success is to become members of major local boards and committees. That’s exactly what she and her colleagues did in Dover, when the question arose of what to do with the site of the former psychiatric center.

The center was closed down by New York State in the early 1990s, and lay largely abandoned. A proactive group came together to redraft Dover’s zoning laws, and to begin the task of attracting a developer. The site covers 930 acres, some 2.5 million square feet of building space, and a large and varied selection of different building types, including dormitories, administration space, laundries, food preparation, water and power supply facilities, and so forth. By 2003 a developer had been found, who bought the entire property from the State, and committed himself to a long-term redevelopment project.

It is estimated that it will take $180 million to clean up and prepare the site for redevelopment as a mixed business and residential community. The vision that eventually emerged was for a new village with accommodation of varied types and costs. The project consists of 1,376 housing units and 250,000 square feet of commercial space. to form a walkable community, concentrating around an upgraded rail station, and using a very minimum of automobile transport. About two-thirds of the entire site is to be reserved for open space and recreation, with trails for walking and bird-watching, and the like. It is understood that redevelopment would evolve over at least a 10-year period, even a 20-year period.

The concept is certainly unique for our area. The Silo Ridge development in Amenia has some parallels, but the development challenge of the Knolls would be much greater.

Ms. Schibanoff concluded her remarks by noting that as of Spring 2010 the town board of Dover has given the go ahead for the project to proceed to Site Plan Application. After many years of hard work and some serious hiccups along the way, the basic concept of the project and all of its environmental review requirements have been accepted. An experienced developer is committed to go ahead. Cleaning up of the site is set to start this summer. The task will be to attract funding, businesses, and potential residents, while coming to terms with various federal, state and county agencies who have their own views on how certain elements of the project should be structured.

The speaker then invited questions and discussion from the floor. Among the issues that were raised by members of the audience were the following. (Questions are in green)

What conclusion has been reached about the phasing-in and the eventual mix of commercial/retail and residential properties?
 This was the subject of a great deal of discussion and work, especially during 2006. A revised plan of work now calls for a greater initial emphasis on bringing in commercial activity. Development of housing in the more outlying reaches of the property will be held for later work. The priorities are there on paper. The test will be to implement them. Plans call for at least one front building containing 110,000 square feet of space to be conserved for retail space. It could provide space for a wonderful restaurant, or a market area. The situation will have to evolve over time. It is almost certain that business rents will initially have to be subsidized. It will be a big challenge to get the businesses to come while we’re getting the residents, and to get the residents to come while we’re building up the number of businesses. A true chicken-and-egg problem.

How many families will come?
 An expert national firm was hired to get some fix on this. The figure they came up with is that perhaps 60-70 units can be sold per year, but it is very difficult to be certain, as the whole concept is so new for our area. We have noted experience in places like Florida or Georgia, where building new communities is ongoing. When we ask them for their best estimates, they are astonished that we should be asking. They look on us in the North East of the United States as the experts, as the people who did this kind of new community building long, long ago. They assume we should easily be able to answer such questions. But we can’t.

Will enough people want to live in a village environment?
 We believe that the trend is strongly in this direction. We want a mix of ages. This will not be another retirement community, though we recognize that as more of the population comes toward retirement there should be increasing demand for the kind of environment that Knolls of Dover will provide: intimate, walkable, human-scale, with an attractive variety of retail and service outlets. The project will market a different life-style, that we believe will be welcome to a wide section of the population, including young singles, families with children, and older people. Dover currently has capacity in its school system to take in an additional 300 children without incurring great additional costs, so children will be welcome – though we don’t expect the growth in numbers of students to be that rapid. But the central idea is for the Knolls to be a bit of everything, and not a stereotyped community. There’s evidence that the two-family building is what’s becoming popular: the owner-family rents out the other half to help pay the mortgage.

What about jobs?
 We certainly expect that as the community grows, residents will need services, and this will provide a steady flow of jobs. As far as construction jobs are concerned, the developer, Mr Benjamin, runs a family business. He has been doing this for 50 years. He is 89 years old. He is fully committed to the project along the lines I have described. He will only contract with firms who commit to hiring local people for the construction work. He has already spent a great deal of money on purchasing the property, getting the project to its present state of approvals, and hiring planners and architects to prepare the technical details.
     When the State selected a purchaser for the property it emphasized that it wanted a buyer who already has a good track record of development, and someone who was committed to providing abundant job opportunities. Mr Benjamin has had much experience in bringing other developments on former State property to fruition on Long Island, in Huntington (where the community did not want any commercial developments, only housing) and in Central Islip (where there has been more difficulty in getting all of the housing units sold). Mr. Benjamin is fully committed to having all his contracting firms employ local labor to construct and then maintain the project, and will be providing opportunities for training local people in construction and all the other trades that will be required once the project is up and running.

Are there problems with re-use of the existing buildings for housing?
 Indeed there are. Many of the buildings, especially the dormitory structures, were built on an H-plan. The wings are very narrow and long, to accommodate the maximum number of beds in long rows. Many of the buildings are three storey, flat top, brick structures. They are not very attractive. They do not lend themselves to adaptation for housing. People are not looking to buy units in that kind of structure. Also, the types of materials used in their construction make it almost impossible to renovate the necessary utilities service lines for housing. It will be very difficult to find new uses for many of the buildings, but we will certainly try.
     Meanwhile, we do think it’s important to show some progress on the site. The intention is to begin some demolition work this summer. People need to see that something is happening.

Are there on-going problems with State agencies?
 The over-riding problem we have is to change the mind set of some of the agencies. For example, our project is designed to be compact, to use space sparingly, to create a sense of community. Yet the Department of Transportation is thinking in terms of driving a 5-lane highway through the center of the projected village. And FEMA has concerns about potential building on a possible flood plain. We want to pull the project toward a clearly defined center. Some agencies see their mission as pulling the project outward toward its peripheries, away from the intersection with Route 22 and the train station.

If buildings will have to be taken down, has thought been given to the environmental issues, when demotion takes place? Will there be attention to recycling materials? This could help to prevent shipping used materials half-way around the world for disposal. Thoughtful recycling might also provide local jobs.
 We will certainly pay attention to this. In a number of instances, re-use of materials from buildings will not be difficult. Some old bricks are usable for walkways. However, some may turn out to be too porous for use. All contaminated materials will be removed from the site.
     Originally, the site began construction with 3 buildings to accommodate relocated Sing Sing prisoners in a farm prison. Sing Sing itself was affected by epidemics among the prisoners. These original structures were very solidly built and have marble foundations. We hope to be able to use some of that material
     Maybe we will be able to recycle the administration building into a new town hall for Dover. It would be wonderful if we could. It could be a showcase town hall. We are not there yet, but we are working on it. It is agreed that the aim should be “deconstruction” and recycling rather than “demolition,” wherever possible.

In her summing up, Kathleen Schibanoff emphasized that it is very difficult to get a development project started, let alone completed, in New York State. It takes years to complete the formalities. In addition, we have had to face the fact that it is very, very hard to attract new business to this area. We produced a video with informational material about the fantastic attractive aspects of Harlem Valley – its plentiful space, its natural beauty, its river, its possibilities for development. These efforts have not met with great success. Potential businesses look at the catalog of pluses and their initial reaction is positive. But then they look at the map, see that the area is served by a two lane highway and are completely put off. They won’t look at coming in to open stores unless there are thousands of cars passing by each hour. We face a set of big challenges. But we will do our very best to meet and overcome them.

Darlene Riemer expressed ImagineAmenia’s thanks to Ms. Schibanoff for a most informative survey of the Dover Knolls project to date. The audience responded with extended and vigorous applause.

For more information, please visit the website at www.knollsofdover.com.

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Last updated 5/23/2010