In the Region | Westchester: Board Scales Down Plan for Reader’s Digest Site in Chappaqua

CHAPPAQUA

ALMOST seven years after developers paid $59 million for the 114-acre Reader’s Digest property in this affluent hamlet, drafting plans for 348 condominiums and town houses next to the publisher’s former headquarters, the town board of New Castle has finally ruled on the application.

The board did not reject Summit Development and Greenfield Partners’ plans for residences on the property — since renamed Chappaqua Crossing — out of hand. But it strictly limited the number of units that may be built and the part of the property where development may occur.

The developers were aware of the town’s resistance to the scale they had in mind, twice reducing the size and scope of their plans, most recently seeking 199 units. But that was still too many for the board, which early this month announced that it would allow 111 condos and town houses, on just 31 of the 114 acres.

The reason, according to Barbara S. Gerrard, New Castle’s supervisor, is not that the board opposes affordable multifamily housing in Chappaqua, a hamlet of mostly single-family homes — though that is what the developer, known as SG Chappaqua, alleges in two lawsuits. Nor is it that neighbors at public hearings vehemently opposed the plans, citing concerns about increased traffic and overcrowded schools.

Ms. Gerrard said residential development was reined in to leave sufficient land for commercial development in a town where businesses — mostly the small shops in downtown Chappaqua and in Millwood, another hamlet — contribute less than 3 percent to the tax base.

With an eye toward generating more commercial revenue to support the town’s $36 million annual budget, the board also lifted restrictions on how many commercial tenants SG Chappaqua may house in the property’s central structure, a three-story red brick office building with a towering white cupola.

Occupied mostly by Reader’s Digest from 1939 until it declared bankruptcy in 2009 and broke its lease with SG Chappaqua, the structure now has only three tenants in 95,000 of the 700,000 available square feet. Town zoning had limited occupancy to a maximum of four tenants in no more than about 470,000 square feet of the building.

Clearly, the departure of the Digest, a major taxpayer for 71 years, has had a profound effect. Ms. Gerrard described the decision to allow 111 multifamily homes as “difficult but necessary.” Many residents had wanted the property to remain as rolling hills and manicured lawns.

“As a former tax attorney,” Ms. Gerrard said, “I know how hard it is to make everyone happy. I also know that if the two ends of the spectrum walk away from the table not really satisfied, then you probably did a fair job, and if one end is ecstatic, then you should review your decision.”

SG Chappaqua, which has refused to comment on the case, is dealing with its unhappiness in Federal District Court in Manhattan and State Supreme Court in White Plains. Both suits were filed in February, months before the board reached its decision.

Among other things, the state lawsuit accuses New Castle of discrimination for violating a settlement reached last year by Westchester County with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to create fair and affordable housing in 31 Westchester communities that have few black or Hispanic residents.

The settlement was designed to prevent the further concentration of affordable housing in cities like Mount Vernon and Yonkers, which already have a preponderance of low-income blacks and Hispanics. New Castle is almost 90 percent white, and its median household income is $193,866, among the highest in the county.

Also, SG Chappaqua, thwarted in its attempt to build upscale residences, is demanding that the town buy the property. In addition to the $59 million it paid Reader’s Digest for the acreage and the buildings, SG Chappaqua says it has spent $10 million on architects’ and lawyers’ fees and environmental reviews, among other things.

The other lawsuit charges the town with violating the federal Fair Housing Act.

New Castle is preparing its rebuttal and “expects to vigorously defend the action,” said Clinton B. Smith, a lawyer with Wormser, Kiely, Galef & Jacobs in Manhattan and White Plains.

Victor Siber, a longtime Chappaqua resident, called the developer’s accusations of discrimination a “red herring,” noting that 20 percent of the residences approved for Chappaqua Crossing are to be sold below market rate.

Robert Greenstein, a Chappaqua homeowner and a Manhattan lawyer who collected 900 signatures on a petition opposing the developers’ plan, approved the board’s decision. “This is not about a town being elitist,” he said. “I don’t buy the developer’s argument that we’re against affordable housing.” He noted that the hamlet also planned to build affordable units outside the Digest site.

Mr. Greenstein said commercial development would relieve the tax burden on homeowners.

A resident of Chappaqua for seven years, he said, he pays about $35,000 a year on his five-bedroom colonial, built in 2004. “Compared to other communities, our taxes are very high,” he said. For example, in Armonk, home to the corporate headquarters of I.B.M., the taxes on a comparable seven-year-old colonial are about $27,000.

“What we need is an I.B.M.- type company of our own,” Mr. Greenstein said.

But for now, as the legal actions work their way through the courts, most residents would like to see the property’s rolling hills and gardens better maintained, said Mr. Siber, who lives on nearby Cowdin Lane. “It’s not a wasteland, but it’s not maintained anymore like it was,” he said.

Geoff Thompson, a spokesman for SG Chappaqua, says the company employs four workers full time to maintain the grounds.

View the original article here

In the Region | New Jersey: Condo Market Shows Improvement

OUTSIDE a condominium tower on Prospect Avenue one recent Sunday, Robert Young was pulling hard to uproot an open-house sign he had planted earlier.

“I really had to pound it in,” said Mr. Young, an agent at Weichert Realtors, as he tugged at the metal stakes. “At first nobody was showing up, and I saw the wind was knocking the sign flat.” Once he secured it, Mr. Young said happily, several condominium shoppers did appear.

“I think we’re going to sell this puppy,” he added. “It’s got a nice price, mortgage rates are still low and it appears that people are finally recognizing this is a good time to buy.”

Of course that was just one agent wearing his happy face. But there are others marketing condos in northern New Jersey counties — Essex, Hudson and Morris, as well as Bergen — who say traffic has been surprisingly decent at open houses this spring and who see the market picture as improving, if not necessarily pulsating with good health.

Brian Morgenweck, a broker with the Power Realty Group in Hackensack, said that on average in Bergen County condos were spending 117 days on the market, which is under four months.

As of April 20, he said, 1,797 condominiums were listed in Bergen County, versus a high of 1,945 last July, shortly after the expiration of the federal tax credit for home buyers.

“So the inventory of available units is shrinking,” said Mr. Morgenweck, who is the founder of his agency, “and even more importantly sellers are finally coming around to serious reality with their prices.”

Because of the way the market is churning, said the New Jersey market analyst Jeffrey G. Otteau, it is impossible to pinpoint the average or median asking price of condos on the market in Bergen County.

But he did compute the median price for the 192 condos for sale in Hackensack: $222,000.

In two other Bergen communities with substantial numbers of condos for sale — Cliffside Park, with 160, and Edgewater, with 168 — Mr. Otteau said the median prices were $390,000 and $535,000, respectively.

In those three towns, condo prices are running well below those for single-family houses, and in Edgewater, where the median house price is $1.299 million, condos cost less than half that.

“To the extent that condos are holding their own in this market,” said Mr. Otteau, the president of the Otteau Valuation Group in New Brunswick, “the fact that they are less expensive than single-family homes has to be considered a driving factor.”

But to talk of any market’s holding its own, he added, is not to say it is healthy.

At the current rate of sales in Bergen County, for example, it would take 13.3 months for all the units now on the market to be sold — if no other condos were added to the inventory of homes for sale. In Hudson County, which had 1,781 condos on the market in April, it would take 11.8 months to sell them all.

Certain local markets are defying the norm, and performing better than their counties:

Hoboken in Hudson County has 6.2 months’ supply of condos on the market, a healthy number in the eyes of statisticians. Mahwah in Bergen has 6.1 months’ supply.

In Mahwah so far this year 14 or 15 condos have sold each month. The same number sold in Hackensack, but it also had 192 condos remaining unsold after 30 days; Mahwah’s unsold quantity was 90.

In some cases where condos are selling relatively well compared with single-family houses, Mr. Otteau said, the trend may simply reflect how poor the market is for houses. After all, in his company’s latest report to subscribing real estate professionals, he referred to the overall housing market as having a “faint pulse.”

West Orange in Essex County has 99 condos for sale, an inventory that would take an estimated 10.2 months to sell. The average unit is spending 112 days on the market. That compares with an unsold inventory of 279 single-family houses, or 12.4 months’ supply, with houses spending an average of 109 days on the market.

Ellen Oxfeld, a Coldwell Banker agent, said the condo market in West Orange had picked up over the last three months. She cited agency statistics indicating that the absorption rate for condos — meaning how long it takes them to sell — had shrunk to 6.2 months in March, from 8.3 months in February and 14.5 months in January.

“All markets are local,” she said. “And right now, condos are doing fairly well here.”

A month ago Ms. Oxfeld listed a three-bedroom town house condo at Normandie Estates for $379,000. Built in 1998, it last sold in 2003, for $432,000.

In Morristown, too, condos are selling faster than single-family houses. There is a 12.8-month supply of condos on the market, and a 14-month supply of houses. Condos spend an average of 81 days on the market; houses spend 115 days.

View the original article here

In the Region | Long Island: East End Homes Prepare for Guests

“It goes a long way to paying our taxes locally,” said Mr. Stoecker, a senior vice president of Town and Country Real Estate in East Hampton, “and it’s a positive experience all the way around.”

So goes life as summer approaches in the Hamptons. Happy for a windfall, homeowners are cleaning out kitchens and closets in anticipation of paying guests. The homeowners then decamp  for less pricey accommodations or  take vacations with their bounty. In some cases investors are sprucing  up their well-appointed houses, enticing renters willing to pay $15,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 for a month — or  more than $600,000 for a Memorial Day to Labor Day stay (and that’s not including the maid, the pool boy, the gardener or the electric bill).

“We have very few hotels,” said Gary DePersia, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group in East Hampton. “Renting a house has become a convention out here.” It is also something of a race for the most suitable property, with “people in a frenzy trying to find the right house,” whether that’s a $35,000-a-month rental, or a $300,000-a-season rental.  “Each renter has their own idea of what their Hamptons experience should be,  have a location in mind, a bedroom count in mind and a price in mind,” Mr. DePersia said.

From Westhampton to Montauk, Shelter Island or the North Fork, there are 5,000 to 7,000 rental listings on the market at any given time, Mr. DePersia said, but “in any location, there are only a finite number of good houses.” With prices higher than last year’s and places renting at a faster pace, he said, the winners are houses with amenities like  flat-screen televisions, DVD players, wireless Internet access and fresh-looking furnishings. “People expect the same amenities out here as when they stay in a fine hotel,” he said.

Fifteen years ago, he recalled, most Hamptons rentals were taken for the entire summer. As the economy dipped in recent years, the two-week rental became more popular, as well as options to rent for August only, or for July through Labor Day, to coordinate with children’s day-camp schedules. People “are not going to downsize the house,” so instead they book a shorter stay, he said.

Lawrence Citarelli Jr., the president of First Hampton International Realty, has a $395,000 listing for anyone interested in spending July in a 12-bedroom 12-and-a-half-bath mansion on six acres — with pool, tennis and eight fireplaces (in case it gets chilly).

Mr. Stoecker and Jennifer Wilson, who work as a  team for Town and Country, have an inventory of 93 homes for sale and 785 summer rentals. So far, Ms. Wilson estimated, about 60 percent of rentals have been scooped up, and more than last year are being rented for the whole season.

Indeed, Mr. Stoecker said, this season seems more like the days before the market took a nose dive — with renters who started shopping on Thanksgiving weekend and trudged through the ice and snow, then “pulled the trigger” in January.  He also said that houses south of Route 27 usually rented first and that communities “with the  most inventory are the woodsy sections of East Hampton, Amagansett and Sag Harbor.”

But despite Mr. Stoecker’s enthusiasm, perusals of sites like Craigslist turn up a wealth of options for single-week stays, or even long weekends. One recent example is a historic house on a Peconic Bay inlet in Sag Harbor with “lots of lounging areas,” according to the advertisement. Weeks in May and September are $3,200, in June and July $3,800. Cleaning and utilities are included. (When stays are longer, utilities, housekeepers, swimming coaches, landscapers and pool cleaning services can add 15 percent or more to a tenant’s bill, brokers say.)

One of Mr. Stoecker’s properties, a 3,000-square-foot North Haven house on two acres with a waterfront pool and a private beach on Sag Harbor Bay, belongs to Shannon Such and Howard Deutsch. It is listed for $295,000 for the summer. For the last 25 years it has been rented out for the summer — for 23 of them to the same family.

Ms. Such, a lawyer in Manhattan, says that in the fall, winter and spring her husband spends most of the time enjoying the “almost spiritual” water views at the “light and airy and informal but fun” cottage, while she comes out to the East End on weekends.

Summer is “a beautiful time, but it is a crowded time,” Ms. Such said. “It gives us an opportunity to travel”   — this summer to Peru — and the presence of tenants easily covers the annual cost of maintaining the house. “It is a bit of an annuity.”  

Dee Kerrigan Perfido, a broker-owner of First Hampton International Realty in Westhampton Beach, said she had seen a “nice uptick” in rentals for the first time in three years. Waterfront homes for rent are “going very quickly,” partly because many that sat out the downturn as rentals have now sold. Former tenants are among the buyers. “Renters have decided they liked it here and they’ve bought,” Ms. Kerrigan Perfido said.  

View the original article here

In the Region | Westchester: Board Scales Down Plan for Reader’s Digest Site in Chappaqua

CHAPPAQUA

ALMOST seven years after developers paid $59 million for the 114-acre Reader’s Digest property in this affluent hamlet, drafting plans for 348 condominiums and town houses next to the publisher’s former headquarters, the town board of New Castle has finally ruled on the application.

The board did not reject Summit Development and Greenfield Partners’ plans for residences on the property — since renamed Chappaqua Crossing — out of hand. But it strictly limited the number of units that may be built and the part of the property where development may occur.

The developers were aware of the town’s resistance to the scale they had in mind, twice reducing the size and scope of their plans, most recently seeking 199 units. But that was still too many for the board, which early this month announced that it would allow 111 condos and town houses, on just 31 of the 114 acres.

The reason, according to Barbara S. Gerrard, New Castle’s supervisor, is not that the board opposes affordable multifamily housing in Chappaqua, a hamlet of mostly single-family homes — though that is what the developer, known as SG Chappaqua, alleges in two lawsuits. Nor is it that neighbors at public hearings vehemently opposed the plans, citing concerns about increased traffic and overcrowded schools.

Ms. Gerrard said residential development was reined in to leave sufficient land for commercial development in a town where businesses — mostly the small shops in downtown Chappaqua and in Millwood, another hamlet — contribute less than 3 percent to the tax base.

With an eye toward generating more commercial revenue to support the town’s $36 million annual budget, the board also lifted restrictions on how many commercial tenants SG Chappaqua may house in the property’s central structure, a three-story red brick office building with a towering white cupola.

Occupied mostly by Reader’s Digest from 1939 until it declared bankruptcy in 2009 and broke its lease with SG Chappaqua, the structure now has only three tenants in 95,000 of the 700,000 available square feet. Town zoning had limited occupancy to a maximum of four tenants in no more than about 470,000 square feet of the building.

Clearly, the departure of the Digest, a major taxpayer for 71 years, has had a profound effect. Ms. Gerrard described the decision to allow 111 multifamily homes as “difficult but necessary.” Many residents had wanted the property to remain as rolling hills and manicured lawns.

“As a former tax attorney,” Ms. Gerrard said, “I know how hard it is to make everyone happy. I also know that if the two ends of the spectrum walk away from the table not really satisfied, then you probably did a fair job, and if one end is ecstatic, then you should review your decision.”

SG Chappaqua, which has refused to comment on the case, is dealing with its unhappiness in Federal District Court in Manhattan and State Supreme Court in White Plains. Both suits were filed in February, months before the board reached its decision.

Among other things, the state lawsuit accuses New Castle of discrimination for violating a settlement reached last year by Westchester County with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to create fair and affordable housing in 31 Westchester communities that have few black or Hispanic residents.

The settlement was designed to prevent the further concentration of affordable housing in cities like Mount Vernon and Yonkers, which already have a preponderance of low-income blacks and Hispanics. New Castle is almost 90 percent white, and its median household income is $193,866, among the highest in the county.

Also, SG Chappaqua, thwarted in its attempt to build upscale residences, is demanding that the town buy the property. In addition to the $59 million it paid Reader’s Digest for the acreage and the buildings, SG Chappaqua says it has spent $10 million on architects’ and lawyers’ fees and environmental reviews, among other things.

The other lawsuit charges the town with violating the federal Fair Housing Act.

New Castle is preparing its rebuttal and “expects to vigorously defend the action,” said Clinton B. Smith, a lawyer with Wormser, Kiely, Galef & Jacobs in Manhattan and White Plains.

Victor Siber, a longtime Chappaqua resident, called the developer’s accusations of discrimination a “red herring,” noting that 20 percent of the residences approved for Chappaqua Crossing are to be sold below market rate.

Robert Greenstein, a Chappaqua homeowner and a Manhattan lawyer who collected 900 signatures on a petition opposing the developers’ plan, approved the board’s decision. “This is not about a town being elitist,” he said. “I don’t buy the developer’s argument that we’re against affordable housing.” He noted that the hamlet also planned to build affordable units outside the Digest site.

Mr. Greenstein said commercial development would relieve the tax burden on homeowners.

A resident of Chappaqua for seven years, he said, he pays about $35,000 a year on his five-bedroom colonial, built in 2004. “Compared to other communities, our taxes are very high,” he said. For example, in Armonk, home to the corporate headquarters of I.B.M., the taxes on a comparable seven-year-old colonial are about $27,000.

“What we need is an I.B.M.- type company of our own,” Mr. Greenstein said.

But for now, as the legal actions work their way through the courts, most residents would like to see the property’s rolling hills and gardens better maintained, said Mr. Siber, who lives on nearby Cowdin Lane. “It’s not a wasteland, but it’s not maintained anymore like it was,” he said.

Geoff Thompson, a spokesman for SG Chappaqua, says the company employs four workers full time to maintain the grounds.

View the original article here

In the Region | New Jersey: Condo Market Shows Improvement

OUTSIDE a condominium tower on Prospect Avenue one recent Sunday, Robert Young was pulling hard to uproot an open-house sign he had planted earlier.

“I really had to pound it in,” said Mr. Young, an agent at Weichert Realtors, as he tugged at the metal stakes. “At first nobody was showing up, and I saw the wind was knocking the sign flat.” Once he secured it, Mr. Young said happily, several condominium shoppers did appear.

“I think we’re going to sell this puppy,” he added. “It’s got a nice price, mortgage rates are still low and it appears that people are finally recognizing this is a good time to buy.”

Of course that was just one agent wearing his happy face. But there are others marketing condos in northern New Jersey counties — Essex, Hudson and Morris, as well as Bergen — who say traffic has been surprisingly decent at open houses this spring and who see the market picture as improving, if not necessarily pulsating with good health.

Brian Morgenweck, a broker with the Power Realty Group in Hackensack, said that on average in Bergen County condos were spending 117 days on the market, which is under four months.

As of April 20, he said, 1,797 condominiums were listed in Bergen County, versus a high of 1,945 last July, shortly after the expiration of the federal tax credit for home buyers.

“So the inventory of available units is shrinking,” said Mr. Morgenweck, who is the founder of his agency, “and even more importantly sellers are finally coming around to serious reality with their prices.”

Because of the way the market is churning, said the New Jersey market analyst Jeffrey G. Otteau, it is impossible to pinpoint the average or median asking price of condos on the market in Bergen County.

But he did compute the median price for the 192 condos for sale in Hackensack: $222,000.

In two other Bergen communities with substantial numbers of condos for sale — Cliffside Park, with 160, and Edgewater, with 168 — Mr. Otteau said the median prices were $390,000 and $535,000, respectively.

In those three towns, condo prices are running well below those for single-family houses, and in Edgewater, where the median house price is $1.299 million, condos cost less than half that.

“To the extent that condos are holding their own in this market,” said Mr. Otteau, the president of the Otteau Valuation Group in New Brunswick, “the fact that they are less expensive than single-family homes has to be considered a driving factor.”

But to talk of any market’s holding its own, he added, is not to say it is healthy.

At the current rate of sales in Bergen County, for example, it would take 13.3 months for all the units now on the market to be sold — if no other condos were added to the inventory of homes for sale. In Hudson County, which had 1,781 condos on the market in April, it would take 11.8 months to sell them all.

Certain local markets are defying the norm, and performing better than their counties:

Hoboken in Hudson County has 6.2 months’ supply of condos on the market, a healthy number in the eyes of statisticians. Mahwah in Bergen has 6.1 months’ supply.

In Mahwah so far this year 14 or 15 condos have sold each month. The same number sold in Hackensack, but it also had 192 condos remaining unsold after 30 days; Mahwah’s unsold quantity was 90.

In some cases where condos are selling relatively well compared with single-family houses, Mr. Otteau said, the trend may simply reflect how poor the market is for houses. After all, in his company’s latest report to subscribing real estate professionals, he referred to the overall housing market as having a “faint pulse.”

West Orange in Essex County has 99 condos for sale, an inventory that would take an estimated 10.2 months to sell. The average unit is spending 112 days on the market. That compares with an unsold inventory of 279 single-family houses, or 12.4 months’ supply, with houses spending an average of 109 days on the market.

Ellen Oxfeld, a Coldwell Banker agent, said the condo market in West Orange had picked up over the last three months. She cited agency statistics indicating that the absorption rate for condos — meaning how long it takes them to sell — had shrunk to 6.2 months in March, from 8.3 months in February and 14.5 months in January.

“All markets are local,” she said. “And right now, condos are doing fairly well here.”

A month ago Ms. Oxfeld listed a three-bedroom town house condo at Normandie Estates for $379,000. Built in 1998, it last sold in 2003, for $432,000.

In Morristown, too, condos are selling faster than single-family houses. There is a 12.8-month supply of condos on the market, and a 14-month supply of houses. Condos spend an average of 81 days on the market; houses spend 115 days.

View the original article here