by Cindy Goldstein and Kathy Savolt -
It didn’t take long for Westhab/Washingtonville Housing Alliance (WHA) and their proponents to lash out at Mayor Sharon Torres’ statement she excerpted and read at the July 8, 2024 Regular Meeting of the Board of Trustees (see HERE). In response, Torres posted a statement on social media reiterating her position on the project (which has not changed since she was sworn in as Mayor in December 2023). Torres has stated all along that she supports affordable housing, but the Hunter Tier Project process has been deeply flawed. See HERE.
Westhab/WHA Pushed Back
In a two-page letter dated July 12, 2024 and written on Washingtonville Housing Alliance letterhead, the President & CEO of Westhab, Richard Nightingale, took a defensive posture against what he described as “scurrilous accusations” (see letter HERE) and accused the Mayor of repeatedly disparaging Mamaroneck’s “only local nonprofit housing organization.”
Editor’s Note: The Washingtonville Housing Alliance was formed in 1980 to develop affordable housing in the Village of Mamaroneck and formed a “strategic partnership” with Westhab in 2014. Westhab/WHA has not developed any new housing since the partnership was formed.
Nightingale went on to describe WHA “as an active community stakeholder with a mission of creating affordable housing opportunities” and recited the prior Village housing issues they have opined on citing the Transit Oriented Development overlay zone and the recently adopted Comprehensive Plan. He omitted the heart of the current matter – the significant changes Westhab staff made to the Hunter Tier Request for Proposals (RFP) that appeared to provide an advantage to Westhab/WHA. See previous article HERE. According to their initial proposal, Westhab will collect a developer fee of over $5.8 million if and when the project is built. See HERE.
Nightingale went on to accuse Torres of being influenced by the opponents of the project and ignored Torres’ position on the flawed process. His letter went to many recipients including local County and NYS elected officials and the Village of Mamaroneck Ethics Board.
Former Mayor Murphy’s Accusations
Prior to Nightingale’s letter former Mayor Tom Murphy posted his rebuttal to Torres’ statement on social media (see HERE) which was also sent to the Board of Trustees (BOT) and Village Attorney Spolzino. He attacked Torres’ statement as “filled with half stories, innuendo and cherry picked lines out of email trails to paint a picture of malfeasance and improper behavior.” He went on to state that the fact the project hasn’t been awarded yet shows “there was no collusion.”
Murphy described how eight developers picked up the Request for Proposals (RFP) package and attended a site visit of the Hunter Tier parking lot. Ultimately, only two developers responded with proposals – Westhab/WHA and Luna. Murphy explained that the dearth of responses is due to a profit motive since most developers are “in it for the money” and there “isn’t much (or any) money to be made in an all affordable building.” As mentioned above, Westhab proposed a developer’s fee of $5,838,568 for 77 units - in contrast to Luna’s fee of $3,689,369 for 187 units.
Barberio Weighed In
Another participant in the lead-up to the affordable housing RFP was former Village Manager Jerry Barberio. He wrote two emails (see HERE) on July 12th. The first offered an interview with him to David McKay Wilson at LoHud promising to “crush the Mayors (sic) lies.” Copies went to VOM department heads and BOT members.
Two hours later Barberio shot off another email to the same group that included an email sent to County and NYS officials. He decried what he believed to be a violation of their political affiliation tenets – namely that members of the Democratic party support affordable housing as a monolith. He also called on them to “please lead” after describing those questioning the Hunter Tier proposal as “viciously maligning” Westhab/WHA and of being “MAGA folks and in name only Democrats.”
Torres Responded
On July 14th, when Torres posted her statement, she included this response to Nightingale (see HERE) along with a sample of emails showing Westhab/WHA’s involvement throughout the entire process (see HERE). Torres invited Nightingale to listen to her remarks at the meeting, especially her repeated support for affordable housing in the Village. She summarized what she recently learned by combing through thousands of emails between Westhab/WHA and Village officials which she found “disturbing.” She promoted a more transparent process with community involvement, something lacking in the Hunter Tier project process thus far.
Background
Torres stated at the BOT meeting on July 8th that she is reviewing thousands of emails going back as far as 2021. Westhab/WHA representatives were involved in many significant aspects of the planning prior to the Village identifying the Hunter Tier parking lot for affordable housing. These included touring 3 municipal parking lots and indicating Hunter was the most desirable, suggesting volunteers friendly to housing be considered for appointment to the Planning Board (the land use board in charge of the review of any project at Hunter Tier) and providing technical expertise for the RFP language itself. (See previous Mamaroneck Observer article HERE.)
After Torres’ statement at the July 8th BOT meeting and an executive session with Village Attorney Robert Spolzino, the BOT unanimously voted to instruct the Village Attorney to seek outside counsel to review the thousands of emails recovered so far. They had previously agreed to a request by the Ethics Board to process a background check on both potential developers.
The BOT is also waiting for an appraisal to determine the value of the Hunter Tier lot as well as information from their outside consultant NHB Planning Group LLC to give their preliminary analysis of each of the two alternatives. In the meantime, Village officials are negotiating with both responders.
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