Public hearing Thursday on project at Main and Cedar Streets
By Liz Schevtchuk Armstrong
A long-vacant corner lot on an historic Main Street block could soon have occupants, if no obstacles arise during an unfolding approval process. An Orange County resident says he plans to install a three-bedroom modular house and accompanying garage on the lot, at 230 Main St., located across Cedar Street from Philipstown’s 1867 Town Hall. The Bounous Montessori School borders the parcel to the west.
Plans for the house, prepared by Westchester Modular Homes for Sarah DeFranco, are the subject of a public hearing by the Cold Spring Zoning Board of Appeals at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 17, at Village Hall, 85 Main St.
DeFranco, of Cornwall, needs a variance from the village zoning law to proceed. Village law requires a 25-foot front-yard setback (a home’s distance into a lot). The setback to the front porch of the house DeFranco proposes would be 15.7 feet. The side-yard setbacks are required to be 10 feet, and the rear-yard setback would be 24.2 feet, exceeding the 20 feet required.
According to the filing, the 2,342-square foot house would be two stories and contain three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, with a back deck as well as the front porch. It would have a separate 576-square foot garage and a driveway.
The land, zoned R-1, for single-family housing, is in the village’s National Register historic district and the project is subject to oversight of the Historic District Review Board as well as by the Zoning Board.
Maps of Cold Spring from the 19th century show the lot lying vacant, as it does today.
You may say that this piece of property is “long vacant.” I remember it as having belonged to Dr. Ralph Hall for many years and as a place where his family had many enjoyable volleyball and other games during the summer, while also enjoying the swimming pool in the back of what is now the Montessori School. Granted, it is a prime piece of real estate, and I wish the new owners well. But to ignore the home of one of the two doctors who served most of Cold Spring, Nelsonville and Philipstown and who were the keys to the now-razed Butterfield Hospital is a disservice to a not-insignificant part of local history.