Please help to prevent a medical facility and parking structure to be constructed in a Mount Kisco, NY residential neighborhood!!

There is a proposal that will be discussed at the Mount Kisco planning board to knock down a house on Barker Street and put up a large medical facility and parking structure. The applicant owns the lot directly next door/behind the lot of this proposal.  The lot on the residential street (Barker) is .4 acres.  The lot on North Bedford Road is 2.5 acres.  The proposal is to merge both lots to so that the developer has enough room to construct these facilities.

The current structure is a house zoned for commercial use because it’s currently used by a couple of lawyers and title companies.  A giant structure would destroy our neighborhood and increase traffic significantly.  I feel strongly that these lots should NOT be merged.  The commercial lot on Barker is .1875 or 3/16ths the size of the huge lot on the main road.  There is a reason why this lot is smaller! People live directly next door and across the street. It’s completely inappropriate to propose these types of buildings in a residential area.  

The developer is planning to demolish the existing two-story 4,500 square foot house and cut down all surrounding trees to make way for a three-story 6,200 square foot medical facility and double decker parking structure REQUIRING MULTIPLE VARIANCES AND A SPECIAL USE PERMIT.  It would be such a drastic change to our neighborhood.  We need support to prevent this from happening in our community. 

1. The developer submitted paperwork to the Board that claims the proposal is “consistent with the character of the existing building and natural landscape”.  If you look at the current house versus the proposed structures, I am at a loss at how someone could believe the “character” of a house versus a building + parking structure is the same.  

2. They also plan on removing 60+ trees and their paperwork states that “the majority of the trees are in fair to poor condition.” Who assessed these trees? Is this something that the Tree Preservation Board of Mount Kisco should be involved in?  Additionally, this tree line protects the residential neighborhood from exposure to Bedford Road, so the removal of these trees would remove that natural barrier.

3. Their paperwork also claims that there will be no increase in traffic.  I think a reasonable person could infer that if they plan on requiring a multi-level parking lot, there will be more traffic. To my knowledge, they have not conducted any traffic studies to support this claim.

Traffic is my biggest concern as a mother of two young children who like to ride their bikes on the street, I feel strongly that the influx of traffic related to this development will impact resident safety.  This neighborhood is overwhelmingly filled with families with young children and cars speeding down our streets is already an issue.  This development will exacerbate it.  

4. This development will drive down property values in our area.  No one here willingly signed up to live next door to a multi-level parking lot and a giant office building.  

We must protect the integrity of our neighborhood by preventing this inappropriate development.  This proposal would devastate our community.  The only person who benefits from this is the owner/applicant/developer, at the expense of all the families in this neighborhood.  We urge the Mount Kisco Planning Board to reconsider this proposal.

*please do not donate - we are only looking for signatures to help us prevent this from happening.  I am truly appreciative of your support!