Lewisboro Town Board eyes status of offices at former school

SOUTH SALEM, N.Y. - At a recent board meeting, Lewisboro Town Board members began wrestling with the thorny subject of how – and where – it might find a new home for a host of key town departments.

In recent years, those business functions have occupied space at what used to be Lewisboro Elementary School, which the Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education shuttered in 2014. Currently, five departments call the former school “home”: the Lewisboro Police, the Town Court, the Building Department, Planning, and the Zoning Appeals department. 

Last summer, however, the Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education announced that the Town of Lewisboro could no longer lease the space for longer than a month-to-month basis. That decision called into question the future of the town’s occupancy arrangement. 

Complicating matters, the Board of Ed has said it does not wish to sell the property but has stayed mum on what it might want to do with the complex. The 58,000-square foot former school needs a new roof, a new water system, and a host of other expensive maintenance items.

Mike Lynch, a Lewisboro resident and school facilities director in White Plains, addressed the Town Board’s April 28 meeting on what he saw as possible options for the former school and the town. Lynch has also served on several town committees overseeing school improvements and last year was appointed to a Board of Ed committee to investigate options for both the Lewisboro Elementary property and property on Shady Lane in South Salem. 

“They [the Katonah-Lewisboro Ed Board] want to keep the LES land, but they don’t necessarily want the expense of maintaining that building,” said Lynch. “Parts of Lewisboro Elementary are more than 85 years old; the newest section is more than 20 years old. The windows are out of date, the roof is shot, the building needs a new water system, among other things. All told it will require millions of dollars of work.”

Because the building is no longer classified as a “school” it no longer requires the same type of state-mandated building condition survey. These must be done every five years at schools. The building’s deficiencies will also make obtaining a proper certificate of occupancy for the building difficult, particularly the issues with the water system. 

The Katonah-Lewisboro School District recently hired an architectural firm to assess the building and how it might be rehabilitated. Lynch said he favored razing the structure but was in the minority on the committee. He described using the former school for town offices as a less-than-ideal compromise.

“Correcting [the building’s] deficits will leave little money to outfit the rooms for town office use,” said Lynch. “You're going to use the building every day and it's not going to be really what you wanted.”

The issue of where to house the town’s offices has been kicked around for quite some time. In 2003, Lynch was appointed chair of a committee to assess the expansion and renovation of the town facilities. The committee ran a contest with five different architectural firms participating, focusing on the development of a centralized town campus. 

Lynch said the switch to a month-to-month lease is a cue for the town to start looking for new quarters. The school district can be expected to reach a point “where it’s not going to have people in it,” Lynch said.

Sentiment among Lewisboro residents in attendance was mixed. “When the town moved into the school facility, it became in a way a community center again,” noted Lewisboro hamlet resident Timmy Parsons. “People were meeting there, talking and seeing each other, and it was alive again in a different way. I would like a stronger voice from those of us who live here and pay the taxes for the school district.”

Nicholas Lung-Bugenski is a neighbor of Parsons. He also lamented paying tax sums to two different coffers and recalls there being greater cooperation between such entities in his hometown, Romeo, Mich. This is vital, he said. “It’s all an extension of what we the people have come here for,” he said.

Resident Adam Mina urged the Town Board to steer clear of the school property. “I think you guys need to look into another space or something for a long-term project,” Mina said.

At the Town Board’s May 12 meeting, Supervisor Tony Gonçalves announced the creation of a task force to investigate alternative sites. Its members include Lynch; Building Inspector Kevin Kelly; Zoning’s Duff Price; local builder Adam Giardina; Steve O’Hara of the Architecture and Community Appearance Review Council (ACARC); and Andrea Rendo, Town Board liaison.

At the same meeting, the Town Board unanimously approved a host of resolutions involving town affairs:

• Upon recommendation of the town’s Comprehensive Planning Commission, it adopted five measures that amend portions of the town code. Specifically, these measures amend Chapter 7 of the Architecture/Community Appearance regulations; Chapter 191 of the Streets/Sidewalks rules; Chapter 195 of the town’s Subdivision regulations; Chapter 217 of the Wetlands/Watercourses regulations; and Chapter 220 of its Zoning rules.
• It voted unanimously to award a contract to Mid Atlantic Timber Frames of Paradise, Penn. This contract is for timber framing on the town pool’s bathhouse and is not to exceed $429,000. At the same time, the Board okayed the transfer of funds, not to exceed $570,000, for the overall bathhouse project.
• The Board voted unanimously in favor of a resolution designating 5 percent of its fund balance as an emergency reserve. At the same time, it increased the amount on the overall fund balance, from 10 percent to 20 percent of operating expenditures.
• The Board approved a transfer of $5,500 from the fund balance to subsidize a portion of a new swing set at Vista Park. That total cost is estimated at $10,450. The remainder will come from other Recreation Department funds on hand.
• The Board okayed a resolution approving the appointment of Robert Fischman as project manager for solar panels at Onatru Farm, at a cost not to exceed $6,000.

On another oft-discussed topic in recent months, the Town Board scheduled a public hearing on changes to the building permit process. The hearing was done in conjunction with the Board’s May 12 meeting but elicited no public comments. Accordingly, the Board unanimously okayed the proposed changes.

Of note, the new rules require projects to begin within three months of the issuance of a building permit. In addition, a permit will expire after 36 months. Permits can be renewed, upon approval of the code enforcement officer, at a fee equal to the cost of the initial permit. The maximum is $1,000 for residential permits and $5,000 for commercial ones.