In a very well-attended meeting Wednesday evening, the Rye City Council backed off its proposed six-month building moratorium – at least in its proposed state, and at least for now.
Even with the proposal buried as item number 16 in the agenda, Rye Mayor Josh Nathan said at the top of the meeting that, based on letters and recent private meetings with people representing twelve different projects in town that are in process, the council would be amending its building moratorium to exclude one- and two-family homes outside the B1 and B2 districts.
“We’re going to continue to do some more work on this,” Nathan told the assembled 100-odd residents, almost all in attendance to hear or speak about the moratorium. “We’ve all got to figure out together how to deal with flooding, how to build responsibility, and encourage the right kind of improvement, and be good neighbors to each other.”
One and Two Family Homes Removed
Once the topic of the moratorium came up on the agenda, one hour into the three and one-half hour meeting, the council moved to head off some of the opposition by formally removing one- and two-family home building activity outside the B1 and B2 districts from the proposed six-month moratorium.
This did not stop a cavalcade of speakers who objected to the moratorium in its initial and revised flavors for a variety of reasons.
First up was Dr. Stacey Sotirhos, the interim Head of School at Rye Country Day School. The school is developing its nine-acre East Campus on land that it purchased from the New York State Thruway Authority back in 2022 into a massive sports complex.
“We have listened to the concerns about… traffic, environmental impact, aesthetics, lighting, buffering, and neighboring character, and we responded proactively, investing in substantial resources in environmental studies, traffic analyzes, engineering, planning, and neighbor engagement to refine the entire proposal,” said Sotirhos. We are respectfully requesting that the city council not adopt the moratorium.”
Leo Napier, one of the school’s outside attorneys, added the school’s current ice hockey rink is nearing its end of life, and that any unintended delays on the new sports complex may have the unintended consequence of creating an amount of time without an ice hockey facility. It was the first of many comments throughout the evening about unintended consequences.
Developer and Realtors
“One of the greatest liberties we have as Americans was the right to own property and to reasonably reasonably improve that property within the laws established by our communities,” said developer Paul Varsames. “This proposed moratorium completely ignores that principle.”
This is a long-term issue that deserves thoughtful and comprehensive analysis. To now suggest a six month pause on construction will somehow solve decades of planning concerns is unrealistic and unfair to property owners, builders, and residents who are following the existing laws and regulations…. People are carrying substantial mortgages, property taxes, insurance premiums, utility expenses, architectural fees, engineering costs, and other obligations on properties purchased in good faith. To suddenly tell them they cannot move forward for six months, despite complying with all current regulations, is financially damaging and fundamentally unfair.”
“Are we truly arguing that aging homes with outdated infrastructure, including lead water lines, failing sewer systems, oil contamination risk, asbestos, and radon exposure, are environmentally preferable to modern code compliant construction,” said Joe Lorono of Lorono Construction Corp. “That argument simply does not withstand scrutiny.”
‘It sends a very troubling message to current homeowners that the regulatory environment in Rye can suddenly become unpredictable, and in a community where people have significant resources into their homes, predictability matters,” said Pati Holms, managing broker at Julia B Fee Sotheby’s International Realty, who said she has a five-decade Rye resident and current seller client who was very concerned that the moratorium would paralyze any efforts around the sale.
A sweeping moratorium is a blunt instrument for what should ultimately be a more fine tuned and thoughtful process.”
Michael Blumenthal of 31 Stuyvesant Avenue in Rye was one of the most compelling speakers of the evening. Blumenthal and his wife, ages 75 and 76 years old, have lived on the property for 37 years and now plan to downsize. He said a moratorium is simply tone deaf to the needs of senior citizens.
“I haven’t slept in five days,” said Blumenthal. “This moratorium would have crushed me from a financial and health standpoint. Anyone living in an old house that wants to move to the next stage of their life would never have been able to sell their house.”
It would have imposed a complete financial and health hardship of my wife and I, as well as any other senior citizen in Rye, embarking on the same process, utilizing the sale proceeds with their home, which is a nest egg that they have relied upon for decades to move to more appropriate housing for the last stage of life.”
What’s Next?
“I hope you don’t just kick the can down and we revisit the moratorium two months from now, six months from now,” said Robert Georgio of Georgio Homes. “There’s no reason for it. Conduct the analysis without a moratorium, implement new codes if necessary, and we’ll all confirm. But I don’t think there’s really a need for a moratorium.”
After a very unusual and extended pause of its meeting to privately consult with the city’s corporation counsel, the Rye City Council has set a special meeting to consider the revised six-month moratorium (the one excluding one- and two-family homes outside of the B1 and B2 districts) on Monday, June 8th at 7pm.
Watch the meeting:
This is the entire City Council meeting. There is discussion of the moratorium at the beginning and then again at approximately one hour into the meeting:
Part 1
Part 2
