The Town of Clarkstown hosted its second community meeting with residents from Nanuet and Bardonia to discuss the town’s comprehensive plan in relation to Nanuet and the area around Route 59.
The meeting was Saturday morning into afternoon at Nanuet High School with about 15 residents in attendance. The meeting started with a presentation on the town’s comprehensive plan, which was adopted in 2009. The town recently hired consultants Cambridge Systematics to conduct a corridor study of Route 59 to look into possible improvements and rezoning, and wanted to get public input before coming up with a plan for the hamlet. To read some ideas that came out of the first meeting, click here.
After the presentation, the group split off into two groups in the cafeteria to throw ideas around about the hamlet center and Route 59 with representatives from Cambridge, as well as Clarkstown Principal Town Planner Joe Simoes and Clarkstown Assistant Town Planner James Creighton.
When one group was asked about what makes Nanuet a desirable place to live, nearly everyone answered the school district. Chris Titze, of Cambridge Systematics, asked the group what about the Nanuet hamlet center makes it desirable, and group members said it has “mom and pop restaurants” and isn’t all large chains.
They also discussed negatives about Nanuet, with residents saying it feels cramped or confined, and that if you’re not eating or getting your nails done, there’s not much reason to venture into the actual center of Nanuet.
When asked what they’d like to see improved about Nanuet, residents said they’d like to see more technology-friendly amenities, such as free wifi, and places that will bring people into Nanuet with intent on staying a bit longer, such as a wine bar or coffee shop.
“We still need in the hamlet center the things that all of you people were drawn to also,” said Rudy Yacyshyn, a member of the Clarkstown Planning Board. “We still need personal services, like a tailor or hairdresser.”
This brought up a discussion about Main Street in Nanuet, which many residents said was cramped and didn’t have enough parking.
“You say you want these local services providing for the community itself. One of the things that is kind of a conflict, though, is you have these personal services that if individuals from [Nanuet] are coming, they need to drive to it,” Titze said. “What’s the opportunity here for allowing mixed use development, having apartments over these retail spaces? With a lot of these downtown sense of places in communities, often time that goes hand in hand. They need people living right there either to supplement the income for the building itself, or to provide the services that someone could walk downstairs and walk along the main street to go to the tailor.”
Residents seemed split on mixed use development, although even some who were initially against it softened their stance when Titze said there would most likely not be a lot of apartments there anyway, if the town went that route. He said they could zone for whatever felt appropriate, focusing on a figure between 20-30 apartments for much of the meeting.
Some weren’t on board with the mixed use development idea because they think young families would most likely rent the apartments, and the residents were worried about the impact on the Nanuet School District more young families would have.
One group thought the apartments could work if they were one-bedroom apartments designated for either seniors or local volunteers, although they also noted seniors might not want to live in a second-floor apartment.
In terms of aesthetics on Main Street, residents said they would like to see hanging plants and potted trees, and added they like the big display windows businesses have.
When discussing Route 59, residents said they think that area is the appropriate space to have all those big box retailers, and that the Nanuet section of 59 is the nicest part of the road. Titze said the development on Route 59 very much still has a 1970’s mentality, and that one of the shopping centers would most likely be dead within the next 20-30 years, just following the typical life expectancy of such shopping centers.
Residents in his group said in that case, they’d like to see the town start thinking about zoning restructure that could easily turn one of those areas into something like a senior living complex for independent and continued care living. The residents also said it’d be nice to re-green parts of Route 59 and put in pocket parks, possibly even connecting them with a nature trail that runs along 59 as well. They all agreed 59 has too much parking currently.
Another big idea the residents had was to bring entertainment into Nanuet, especially for teens, giving them a place to hang out. One resident asked if the old Huffman Koos location could be turned into a roller or ice skating rink, but Creighton said the issue with that is currently there wouldn’t be enough parking over there.
Residents also talked about bringing in a theater to Nanuet, or an art house movie theater. One resident said she’d like to see the incoming movie theater show more art house films, foreign films or just films that aren’t also showing at the other local movie theaters.
The groups also ended the meeting by coming up with five keys they feel could lead to successful development. One group came up with five keys for the hamlet center and for Route 59. Their keys for the hamlet center:
- a unique identity, possibly tied to entertainment
- incentives for improving the aesthetics
- design requirements
- limited mix use development, possibly for senior or volunteer housing
- more green space, possibly using the old firehouse location for a green town center
- maintain regional shopping
- rezone some of the light industrial office space to regional shopping to make it easier for businesses to open
- add more green to the corridor
- find opportunity to meet community needs as the area continues to age
- make it multimodal, possibly by adding bike lanes
- uniform design standards for architecture, landscaping, signage and more
- more access, whether through improved sidewalks or making it easier for pedestrians
- create a downtown or center for Nanuet and create some gateway treatments to let people know they’re in Nanuet
- figure out the relationship between Nanuet and the train station, such as who uses it and maybe even think about moving its location
- mixed use development
