Harbor Square Developer Shares Latest Plan, Seeks Funds for Restaurant

A request from developer Ginsburg Development Corporation (GDC) for the Village of Ossining to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds originally forked over to benefit the village's Downtown Development Fund didn't sit well with trustees at Tuesday's work session.

Joseph Dziegelewski, senior vice president and director for development of GDC, told the board the company anticipates filing an application with Westchester County's Industrial Development Agency (IDA) for tax exemptions as it maps out its plans for Harbor Square, once it also receives the green light from the Town of Ossining and Ossining Union Free School District.

"We would like to start the IDA process sooner than later," he said to the board. "We have drafted something for the board to review."

Dziegelewski outlined the IDA program application draft, which along with providing tax and mortgage exemptions, includes a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) program.

He also said the site proposal was previously approved without any affordable housing units and GDC paid the village a $1,500,000 fee, "of which $750,000 has been deposited now" in lieu of providing affordable housing. Since then, Dziegelewski stated, 19 affordable units have been added to the plan.

"Thereby, we are requesting the return of the affordable deposit," he said.

GDC also previously paid the village approximately $250,000 toward its Downtown Redevelopment Fund, Dziegelewski said.

"In further discussion with the village and in light that the village and we are trying to energize the downtown as best we can...we have agreed to an additional $400,000 contribution to be allocated to the downtown committee," he said. "That may support either public projects, waterfront projects, downtown projects, whatever they may be..."

Harbor Square is a proposed 188-unit rental property along the waterfront, neighboring both the Hudson River and Sing Sing Kill.

The proposal, which has other elements including a park, restaurant and improvements to the waterfront area, was initially proposed in 1998 and preliminarily approved in 2005 when GBC purchased the property.

Since that time, GBC has cleaned up the site in preparation for residential use and presented multiple iterations of the plan for the village's review.

Trustee Robert R. Daraio told Dziegelewski he was not in favor of returning funds to GBC that could and are being used for downtown revitaliation projects.

"I think there would be a much better chance of you getting some of that money back at the beginning if we decided to go forward with giving back some of the $750,000 in the beginning; at that time, the $400,000 would go to the downtown committee," he explained. "We would want that then rather than later, so that you would end up with $350,000 toward your restaurant expenses and we would have the money we need to continue our downtown development."

Daraio expressed some frustration with regard to the status of the project as a whole as well.

"This has been going on forever. Frankly, there is a great concern that this is ever going to happen," he said. "The idea of giving back money that we have...without there being a building, is disturbing to me at the very least."

Dziegelewski responded by saying GDC was previously awarded a tax certiorari refund around 2008 or 2009 and said he believes the property is "still fairly overtaxed."

He said GDC planned to use the returned funds to jump-start the site's proposed restaurant.

The board ultimately chose to continue discussing this aspect of the PILOT and prepare a resolution for next week's regular meeting in support of the non-controversial aspects of the IDA application. GDC will then be able to circulate the application to the Town and school district for review.

The board also plans to entertain a resolution next week citing a negative SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act) declaration for the project.

Said Trustee Manuel R. Quezada at the close of the discussion, "We have to come up with the appropriate...solution for what you are asking at this point. So to me, the project has been in a hole almost eight years...we are not definitely not going to take eight years to get this done, believe me."