The Peekskill Common Council held a work session on Monday, August 11, 2025, at 6:30 PM in the Common Council Chamber. The lengthy agenda covered 19 items, including a cumulative environmental study for waterfront development, the 2026 budget schedule, garage improvements, zoning amendments for parking and cannabis, and several municipal agreements and project approvals. Council members also provided liaison reports on community events and issues.
August 11th, 2025. We have quite a lengthy agenda with uh sixteen items and then an executive session for discussion of matters concerning the medical financial credit or employment history of a particular person, persons or corporation or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person, persons, or corporation. So at this time I'm going to turn it over to our city manager, Mr. Alexander. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. Good evening. Uh first up today, before we go into the regular part of the agenda, we have a presentation from uh and I'm gonna let uh Carol Samel introduce Sarah Yaquel from BFJ planning. So good evening, thank you. Um Good evening, uh Mayor and Council. Good evening. I just want to say a few words because I'll be up at this mic long enough this evening. Um to uh kind of give us some background and set the context for this. As you recall, we brought on BFJ planning to help us do the environmental review, the cumulative to study the accumulative potential for cumulative impacts of the development of the three sites at the waterfront. And um as a reminder, each of the sites will have to do site-specific environmental review. But the city wanted to take on this cumulative look so that we're uh supporting their environmental review. We will be holding a public hearing with the planning commission. We'll be presenting this to the planning commission tomorrow, and we'll be having an event on September 6th over at the Senior Center. Um, but this evening, what I wanted to introduce Sarah Yacole from BFJ Planning, who will go over the uh topic of conversation, which is the scope of our environmental review. We're not we haven't done yet done the study, but what will we be studying? So I want to introduce Sarah Yeko. I'm gonna open up the um PowerPoint here. Come on. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Carol. Good evening, uh, Mayor, members of the council. My name is Sarah Yekel. I'm with uh principal with BFJ planning. It's very nice to be here tonight. Um we were retained back in the spring, and we have been uh working with uh the planning department on some preliminary pieces of this of this work, and we're here tonight because we have now officially uh launched this what we're calling cumulative environmental impact report. There is an outline of all of the items to be studied up on the city's website, and we're just gonna kind of walk you all and the public through sort of the purpose of this document and then the table of contents. Uh and we are kind of in a uh public review period right now where we are looking for public feedback on any items that the public would like studied in this report and anything that may be missing. Uh so just as an agenda, just quick overview. We'll talk about the project very briefly and then really get into what is this cumulative environmental impact report, what we're the purpose of it, and what we'll be studying. Again, uh my name is Sarah Yagle, and the principal of BFJ planning. I'll be joined in this effort by uh Emily Tolbert as project manager. We have a traffic engineer on the team, as well as our project planner, Nick. Uh, in this effort as part of the environmental review, we'll also be joined by Urbanomics, who specialize in socioeconomic and demographic analysis, and Ramble, who are specialists in infrastructure and climate adaptation, resilience, and sustainability. So as you are very well aware, um the the study that we are uh undertaking is looking at the waterfront transit-oriented development sites on three city-owned uh parking lots east of the Metro North Railroad tracks. Uh the city um and in your board specifically issued an RFEI or request for expression of interest for the parking lot redevelopment, and is currently as we understand it in negotiations with three private development groups and are looking at conditional disposition of those properties at some point in the future. Uh the study that we are undertaking is really looking at the cumulative impacts of those three developments together, combined with any other developments that are happening in the waterfront area. So kind of giving you all the full picture of what to expect when these come online and sort of w how they interplay with each other. So rather than each project at this stage, looking at only its impacts, we're providing that broader context so that when those projects actually come forward for individual approvals, you'll have that broader sense of okay, it's not just these units in this location, it's those units in this location plus all these other things. So broadly we're looking at 276 residential units across the three sites, approximately 11,000 square feet of commercial, uh 125 room hotel, and 372 parking spaces. The study will also consider the two uh new lots that are proposed under uh Route 9, and so those will will be in in play here as well. So, what is a cumulative environmental impact report? To be honest, that is a title I made up. We were originally in the RFP that went out for this project, was looking at doing a generic environmental impact statement under the state environmental quality review act. But in order to utilize seeker as it's called, you really need an action that has a dislike a discretionary action either before your board or the planning board.