On the shore of the Hudson River in Sleepy Hollow, NY sits a large abandoned lot filled with cracked cement blocks and weeds. What was once home of a booming General Motors plant this lot now sits in ruins; a useless eyesore. Luckily the story is not as pessimistic as it sounds, this plot of land could possibly return to prosperity it once held but in the form of real estate rather than manufacturing in its past.
Roseland Property, a real estate developer, has entered in a project to rebuild the area into a residential hub called “Lighthouse Landing.” This project would create between 1,100-1,500 residential units for the area. The result of the project would ascetically and economically reinvigorate an area which has suffered losses after the G.M. plant shut down.
Unfortunately there are some downsides with this project as well. Sections of the property are contaminated with lead from when the factory was in operation. The State of New York will hold the developers responsible for the 25 million dollar clean up operation before they can start building. Traffic could also become a problem both during the building process and when the development is completed. This would frustrate the long standing members of the Sleepy Hollow community and devalue the property.
There are many positive implications of this project on the larger scale. Many questions are raised for the future of the Hudson. Will there be a revival of the prosperity which once surrounded the region? If so what will it look like? While this is just one example of good things to come, it is definitely a start.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/realestate/
11wczo.html?ex=1172120400&en=549bdee956710755&ei=5070
4 Comments:
Here's Riverkeeper's take on the project:
http://riverkeeper.org/campaign.php/development/we_are_doing/755
This project is exactly what was discussed in the PBS video we watched on the Hudson. As times change we move out of the mind set of the Hudson as an industrial river. Through the environmental movements the view of the Hudson has shifted and is now seen for its ascetic beauty rather than its convenient shipping and travel purposes. With this change has brought more residential, rather than commercial, development to the banks of the Hudson River. Even though this may be a step in a better direction from the pollution of the industry there is still a price to be paid. As the Riverkeeper’s website suggests there are still environmental impacts from this development. Overcrowding is another issue brought up. If everyone wants that scenic view then at some point you are going to have too many houses and not enough of the original Hudson shores left. There needs to be a balance between the human residents moving in and the amount of displacement their movement causes.
I attended Hackley School in Tarrytown, a stones throw away from from Sleepy Hollow, and I have spent a decent amount of time in parks along the Hudson River and near the old GM lot. In the past couple of years, a particularly heinous (in my humble opinion anyway) housing development went up right near the lot. It consists of a series of condos packed closely together, with only a few feet of perfectly manicured lawns separating the condos from the river. I do not know if it is part of the project that you are talking about, but it is clear that this is a growing trend along the Hudson River in Westchester.
I think that the environmental impact of this development is a very real concern. I can imagine that at the very least we will witness increasing amounts of fertilizers and pesticides creeping into the river water with the houses so close to the banks. I agree that these additional houses will benefit the real-estate market in Sleepy Hollow, but this already wealthy town has not exactly fallen on hard times. Tarrytown tends to have a more middle class population (by Westchester standards) and did suffer from the loss of GM, but this is all relative. The struggling towns in upstate New York make Tarrytown look like Monaco. My point is that neither town is in desperate need of economic revitalization. Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown are already heavily congested; this development have the potential to do away with the small town atmosphere in these areas. I would much prefer that the land along the Hudson be used to benefit a larger segment of the population, rather than the wealthy people who will be able to afford these homes.
Amy, could you envision an appropriate combination of housing, commercial, and open space?
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