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Council approves lead‑agency status, sets Jan. 13 hearing for Hudson Country Montessori permit change
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Summary
The council voted to take lead agency status to amend a student‑cap condition on a 2010 special permit for Hudson Country Montessori School and set a public hearing for Jan. 13, 2026. The applicant described adding a second story with two classrooms, internal parking reconfiguration and a two‑lane drop‑off to ease circulation; council asked staff to confirm traffic impacts to the Quaker Ridge Road Complete Streets project.
The New Rochelle Committee of the Whole on Dec. 2 voted to take lead‑agency status on a proposed amendment to condition number 4 of City Council Resolution 129‑2010, which placed a cap on the Hudson Country Montessori School’s student population, and set a public hearing on the matter for Jan. 13, 2026.
Charles Mason, attorney for the school, introduced the project team. Architect Bob Stenziel said the project would add a second story to a rear building that would provide two additional classrooms and that the school would reconfigure internal parking and add queuing capacity and a two‑lane drop‑off to reduce on‑street queuing. Stenziel said the work stays within the existing property lines and “we’re gonna shift that down to maintain the 24 feet that we need, but that allows us to expand some additional space for the queuing in front of Building 1, to add some additional cars there to accommodate those 35 cars in the total.”
Council members and staff flagged a packet discrepancy in the site plan display: the existing and proposed drawings in the packet initially showed the same queuing number; staff and the applicant acknowledged the error and said a corrected drawing would be filed before the public hearing. Councilmember Kaye asked whether the Quaker Ridge Road Complete Streets Project had been based on current enrollment assumptions and whether the proposed enrollment change would warrant an updated traffic analysis; city staff said they would ask development staff to contact the project designers to evaluate potential impacts and to take staggered drop‑off times into account.
The council approved the motion to assume lead agency status (motion: Tarantino; second: Kaye) by voice vote and later approved a motion to set the public hearing for Jan. 13, 2026 (motion: Tarantino; second: Aisha Nui). The public hearing will allow residents and other stakeholders to comment before the council considers any final change to the 2010 resolution.
