A $300 million capital budget sent down to the Westchester County Board of Legislators on Oct. 14 allocates nearly $110 million to recreation and parkland, and could inject millions of dollars at Kensico Dam and into the county’s affordable housing requirements.
The capital budget serves as a guiding blueprint for major infrastructure and planning projects to be undertaken in the following five years and is in tandem with the operating budget, which will be unveiled by County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican, in November, and serves as the county’s overall budget.
Among the major projects included in the 2017 capital budget’s ambitious parks plan are comprehensive improvements to Glen Island bridge—which would total nearly $10 million—as well as the restoration and transformation of Kensico Dam’s reflecting pool which has been barren since 2007.
The Kensico Dam project, which could cost upwards of $21 million, was unveiled earlier this month by Astorino and would see the construction of a skating rink and regulation size hockey rink.
According to county Legislator Sheila Marcotte, the chairwoman of the Board of Legislators’ Budget and Appropriations Committee and an Eastchester Republican who is currently reviewing the proposal with the committee, Astorino’s plan is an ambitious one.
“It’s an aggressive plan of action,” Marcotte said. “Infrastructure, as we know, in the county has aged; roads; bridges…. And I’m pleased that we are putting a fair amount of [the budget] into infrastructure.”
Not grouped in with the budget’s list of recreation proposals are $33 million in improvements to one of the county’s most famed assets, Playland Park in the city of Rye.
Those projects are a part of an ongoing agreement between the county and the management company Standard Amusements, which will also inject $30 million of its own funds into improvements at the park, according to a contract approved by the Board of Legislators in May.
Among the major Playland projects included in the budget are a proposed $8.5 million for structural renovations, as well as $5.1 million for renovations to Playland’s Switchgear building, which houses important electrical equipment.
Marcotte said that since these projects are mandated through a separate agreement with Standard Amusements, they were itemized as distinct from the rest of the county’s prospective recreation budget.
Playland’s pool, which must also undergo significant rehab, was not listed in the projects, but is currently under review from the Board of Legislators, which aims to renovate and keep it after a proposal from Astorino’s administration to remove the structure was shot down.
After recreation, which constitutes 36 percent of the budget’s proposed expenditures, building and improvements, renovations to county-owned roads and bridges comprise the next largest categories targeted; 24 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Projects enumerated in the both the buildings and infrastructure categories include the replacement of roofs for various government buildings across Westchester, totaling $4.5 million, as well as renovations to the Ashford Avenue Bridge in Greenburgh for another $4.5 million.
The capital budget will also work toward reaching the required affordable housing mandated in a contentious settlement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development dating back to 2009.
Since 2010, the county has spent nearly $60 million implementing affordable housing requirements. According to Ned McCormack, spokesman for the Astorino administration, the county doesn’t currently have a figure on how much more it will spend this year.
As outlined in the settlement, the county is required to have secured building permits for 750 units of affordable housing by the end of 2016. Currently, it has finalized 658 of those permits, according to McCormack, who said that the county is on pace to meet the 750-unit threshold before the end of 2016.
If the county fails to meet the benchmark, it could be subject to extensive federal fines.
County Legislator Mary Jane Shimsky, a Hastings-on-Hudson Democrat, said that, while most of the projects included in the capital budget are “sorely needed,” in particular those projects dealing with roads, any trepidation towards the aggressive plan is centered on seeing the work to fruition.
“We need to make sure that the work actually gets done or it’s all just window dressing,” Shimsky said. “And to do that we need to make sure we have the boots on the ground.”
According to Shimsky, the county has cut its engineering staff significantly over the past several years, making extensive capital projects much harder to execute. The result, she said, is a $1.5 billion backlog in capital spending.
“We simply don’t have enough [staff] to operate on a $330 million-a-year clip,” she said.
Ideally, Shimsky said she would like to see the county bolster the public works and engineering staff in the coming operating budget.
Last year, $234 million in capital projects was eventually adopted in the final operating budget after being vetted by the Board of Legislators.
According to Marcotte, legislators will mull over the budget and the final capital budget will be voted on in mid-December.
