Here's your Round 2 winners for Lohud's Big Cheese BEnC bracket
WHITE PLAINS

FASNY rejected, will sue White Plains

With the French-American School of New York's plan to build at the site of the former Ridgeway Country Club falling short by a vote, the school plans on taking legal action.

Matt Coyne
mcoyne@lohud.com
  • Hunt-Robinson, Krolian and Lecuona vote no
  • Smayda, Roach, Martin and Kirkpatrick vote yes
  • FASNY needed a supermajority in order to close Hathaway Ln and move forward with its plan

WHITE PLAINS After several contentious years, the White Plains Common Council said no, but the final decision on whether or not the French-American School of New York can build at the site of a shuttered country club will likely rest with a judge.

Many neighbors opposed the plans to convert the former Ridgeway Country Club into a school.

In front of a crowd that spilled out into the hallway, the council issued a polite "non" to the bilingual school's request to close a portion of Hathaway Lane in the Gedney Farms section of the city Wednesday night, blocking it from moving forward with a $60 million campus plan.

With a 4-3 vote, one short of the supermajority needed to make changes to an environmentally-sensitive property, the French-American School of New York (FASNY) will have to win a suit if they want to build.

"We’re hopeful that in the end, the court will see that this plan is well thought through and that we’ll be able to move forward with it and become part of the White Plains community," said Geoffrey Thompson, a spokesperson for the school, who noted the school would move "very quickly" with legal action.

The FASNY plan has been under review for nearly five years and, according to many around the city and close to the project, has been one of the most contentious developments in city history.

The 35-year-old, 800 student-strong school sought to consolidate its three campuses in Scarsdale, Larchmont and Mamaroneck into one on a portion of the 131 acre space that was once the Ridgeway Country Club. Included was handing over 78 acres to the city for $1 and maintaining it as public space, while building a high school, middle school, elementary school and gym and performing arts center plus athletic fields on the remainder. The number of students at the campus would also be ramped up over a number of years.

The plan was met with resistance from residents, who thought the development was too big, would cause traffic jams and would disrupt an otherwise residential neighborhood. In April, more than 300 rallied against the proposal.

Wednesday night, council members Nadine Hunt-Robinson, Dennis Krolian and Milagros Lecuona cited concerns that closing Hathaway Lane would cause public safety issues.

“In my judgement, the increased fire response time, noted by the White Plains Department of Public Safety, is not reasonable to the Gedney residents," Hunt-Robinson said to applause from the overflow section outside the chambers. "When your home is burning down, seconds count.”

The members who voted yes, including Mayor Thomas Roach, Council President John Martin and council members Beth Smayda and John Kirkpatrick, worried that voting no would expose the city to the kind of lawsuit that would roll back all of the concessions and changes the city got out of the school.

Roach said that, despite his yes vote, that he would "zealously and vigorously" defend the interests of the city should it be taken to court.

The possibility of a lawsuit has been very real. Kirkpatrick noted at a meeting in July that the school could bring the city to court, as previous court precedent affords educational institutions leeway in building. On July 31, a letter from the current and former FASNY Board of Trustees chairmen, Andrea Soros Colombel and Mischa Zabolin, said there was no "defensible or legally sustainable rationale" to deny the school's plan.

An ad in Tuesday's Journal News from Citizens for Educational Diversity in White Plains said a no vote "exposes the city to a multi-million dollar lawsuit."

A statement from the school said it would "immediately" take legal action in New York and possibly at the federal level seeking both an overturning of the Common Council's decision and "potential millions of dollars in damages."

“We’re confident that we will be able to prevail in court," Thompson said. "It’s an unfortunate route and it costs the taxpayers money, but it’s where we’re going to have to go."

Twitter: @coynereports