Last Friday, the Mamaroneck School District and Hampshire LLC., the company that owns Hampshire Country Club, released the final draft of a joint Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU outlines a plan for a donation of 7 acres of land to Mamaroneck Schools, contingent on the Village of Mamaroneck greenlighting development of condominiums on the Hampshire property, something that Hampshire has been pursuing, without success, for the past decade. Click the box below to read our initial story discussing the MOU.
On the same day, The Globe met with Village of Mamaroneck Mayor Tom Murphy to understand his perspective on the proposal before it heads for a vote by the Mamaroneck Board of Education on Wednesday, July 26th. As mayor of the Village of Mamaroneck, Murphy is a key stakeholder in the possible agreement. Even if the MOU is signed, he and municipal leaders still have the final say on whether Hampshire can begin development–– something he has, throughout his entire term, refused.
After years of litigation where the Village has defended their decision to prevent any development of Hampshire (something Murphy noted was at great cost to taxpayers), Murphy is disappointed in the “the school board [for] getting involved in land use decisions of another municipality,” calling it “imprudent” and “not their purview.” While many community members argue that the MOU is just an agreement that does not put the district in a position of advocating for development, a decision that ultimately rests with the Village, Murphy sees it differently. He says that the district “is voluntarily becoming pawns of a real estate developer,” by providing advantageous PR to garner public support, something Hampshire needs as they face concerns and objections from across the community. He remarked, “if you can follow this country’s history, you will learn that putting real estate developers in charge of the country doesn’t always work out very well,” and he does not intend to let Hampshire’s interests guide the future of the Village in a similar way.
Murphy’s concern principally is with protecting the Marine Recreation Zone, a type of zoning unique to the Village of Mamaroneck that was created to ensure that harbors, boat yards, and country club properties like Hampshire remain recreational spaces by strictly limiting development. The clubhouse area of Hampshire, where the condominium development will take place, is zoned for Marine Recreation, along with four other pieces of property in the Village of Mamaroneck. Murphy says “they have all had people approach them for housing over the course of time,” and if the Village were to rezone Hampshire, it is reasonable to assume that other clubs would request to “develop their properties into residential housing,” something that would “change the character of the community greatly.” He adds that “since [the developers behind Hampshire] are investors, they should understand that capitalism does not always provide the greatest return on investment” and that “it is not the job of the government to make sure they make a lot of money.”
Aside from preserving the Marine Recreation spaces, Murphy is skeptical that the district, who (according to the final MOU) looks to the donated land “as a potential location for [an] additional building and recreational space that it needs to accommodate its overcrowding and the expected increase in student population over the next several years,” should be focused on enrollment concerns. He says that he “remember(s) a time when schools were much more crowded then they are today,” and while he wants to avoid this reality, he acknowledges that “school populations fluctuate” and while “there might be a little upswing now…there might be a downswing in the future.” Hence, “to solve the schools [enrollment] problem by creating a…permanent detriment [to the character of the Village of Mamaroneck]” seems to Murphy to be illogical. After all, according to Murphy “the school has the responsibility to educate all students that are presented in the [school] district.” He believes that “[the district] seems to be reacting out of a place of fear” while they should be accepting that regardless of increase or decrease in enrollment, “this is [their] job and no matter what the job is [they] do it.”
Community members opposed to the plan also argue that by exchanging land for the rights to develop, the school district is looking to solve its enrollment concerns while also providing a place for more families to move into the district. The MOU states that the condominiums “will include age-restricted units to reduce any adverse impact upon the District’s schools.” It is still unclear the extent to which these restrictions will be imposed, and future developments that may come if Hampshire were to obtain zoning changes would not necessarily also be required to age restrict, which is why Murphy says he “offered to share all of [the Village’s] studies of what [a fully developed Mamaroneck would look like] to the school board.”
Murphy also highlighted a large portion of the Village of Mamaroneck that would reap no benefits from rezoning Hampshire in exchange for a gift of land: the “forty percent of the Village of Mamaroneck [who] does not belong to Mamaroneck Union Free School District.” For “those folks who live in Rye Neck,” Murphy says they “have no benefit out of this,” and the prospective development would only harm their part of the community. He added that “the people who really want this to happen the most are our friends in Larchmont,” and he “didn’t get elected to make them happy.”
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Murphy, who is expecting the board to vote to sign the MOU, says he will be “disappointed when the school board signs this,” that it is “a bad decision from the school board.”
Clear that the outcome of the vote will “not make [the board] malleable to any request” from Hampshire, Murphy says that “in essence [a vote to sign] change(s) nothing.” He is more concerned that, in principle, the school board is imparting on kids a lesson “that when you want something you pursue it no matter what the consequences to society as a whole are.”
When asked for anything else he wishes to say to the community, Murphy put it simply: “I hope we look for ways we can unite in this community and not be divided by our own fears and wants.”
The Mamaroneck Board of Education will vote Wednesday, July 26th, at 8:00AM in the Tiered Classroom at Mamaroneck High School. See mamkschools.org for continued updates.
