I want to thank you all for your patience as we worked through some important projects last week. The biggest development was the razing of River Road, adjacent to Bridge Street Properties. I know that made traveling in the area difficult, especially to Scenic Hudson Park and the Senior Center. However, we believe the contractor has completed the most difficult portion of this project and things will slowly improve in coming days. The project should be completely wrapped up in the next few weeks.
We also did some invasive probing into the columns on the front of the Town Hall. The probes were necessary to gather detailed information about the condition of the steel inside those 100 year old plus columns. To get that done, we had to re-route visitors to the Town Hall offices through the back elevator. We’ve kept these types of inconveniences to a minimum, but please understand that these are important projects. Thank you again for your continued patience.
Housing Monitor’s Report
On Friday, I received a report from the Federal Monitor overseeing the housing settlement between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the County of Westchester. The report was an attempt by the Federally-appointed Monitor to evaluate the zoning practices in each of Westchester’s municipalities to determine whether the zoning in place was exclusionary to minorities and whether the zoning could support the region’s future needs for affordable housing. Out of 31 municipalities in Westchester, seven were identified as having zoning practices that were exclusionary. I am pleased to report that Irvington is not one of them. While that only confirms something that I already knew, the report still highlighted areas for improvement in our zoning code. My colleagues and I are committed to the development of additional affordable housing and we are continually looking for well thought out ways to make it happen here in Irvington. One of the big steps we have undertaken is forming an Affordable Housing Committee, as I have mentioned before in these emails. That committee is in dire need of additional volunteers to really get going. If you have any interest in serving on this or any other committee, please contact me at the email below.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer.
Brian C. Smith
Mayor
bsmith@irvingtonny.gov