Mount Vernon’s City Council and administration are moving full steam ahead with a so called “Comprehensive Plan” that is neither comprehensive nor a plan. What it is, in reality, is a wrecking ball aimed at the only thing left that still works in this city: our single-family neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are the bedrock of Mount Vernon, stable, safe, beautiful communities that generate the overwhelming majority of our tax revenue. And yet, instead of protecting them, the Council and Mayor are preparing to sacrifice them on the altar of donor-driven development.
The draft plan is deliberately vague, but its intent is clear: eliminate the protections of single family zoning by rolling them into a broader “low-density residential” category that will allow duplexes, triplexes, and accessory apartments. Once that door is open, the city’s most valuable neighborhoods will be flooded with higher density housing, lower property values, and increased burdens on already crumbling infrastructure. Homeowners who have invested their life savings will see their neighborhoods irreversibly changed, and the city will see its strongest tax base weakened.
But the insults don’t stop there. Another shocking “recommendation” is to grant the Bronxville Field Club historic status. You read that right: historic status to a private institution with a long, ugly history of exclusion, a place where the very officials pushing this plan are not welcome as members. A private club that has spent decades keeping Mount Vernon residents outside its gates while pretending it isn’t even located here, insisting instead on an imaginary Bronxville address. Worse, its negligence has contributed to the flooding issues experienced by our neighbors in Hunts Woods. And our leaders’ response? Not accountability, not environmental remediation, but a shiny “historic” designation. Grovel much?
While homeowners are being told to brace for rezoning, the friends-and-family machine continues to thrive. Just look at the Library Square PILOT project, a prime example of backroom dealing dressed up as progress. Very soon, we’ll take a closer look at this development and the heavy financial burden it threatens to place on the people of Mount Vernon.
Meanwhile, real issues facing residents, illegal parking snarling neighborhoods, flooding, failing infrastructure, garbage strewn streets are met with shrugs, vague promises, and inaction. The City Council can’t muster leadership to solve six months of parking chaos near a mosque, but they can rush a 475-page consultant’s plan through without reading it. They can’t fix pipes, but they can line up behind developers and their donors. South 5th Av has been shut down for over a week, due to a sewer collapse. Where is the sewer money given to Mount Vernon by NY State?
This is not leadership. This is not planning. This is cronyism wrapped in glossy consultant jargon. It sacrifices taxpayers to benefit insiders, weakens our neighborhoods, and hands out favors to politically connected developers and private clubs. In other words, this is business as usual.
If this Comprehensive Plan is adopted, it will be remembered not as a vision but as a betrayal, the moment our leaders chose corruption over community, and greed over the very neighborhoods that sustain Mount Vernon.This cannot stand. Several members of the community are pooling resources to hire an attorney to fight this latest disaster. We will provide more on that for those interested in joining the fight in future issues.
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