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Developers pitch 9-townhouse cluster on Livingston Avenue; board presses for alternatives to protect gateway views
Summary
Architects and developers presented a staggered nine‑unit townhouse plan that they say creates multiple view corridors to the Hudson; Planning Board members asked for alternative layouts, clearer view‑corridor mapping, and engineering and zoning clarifications before advancing the project.
Christina Griffin, principal of CGA Studio Architects, and partners from the Livingston Development Group presented a proposal for a nine‑unit townhouse cluster on Livingston Avenue, saying the staggered townhouse layout preserves multiple view corridors toward the Hudson River while keeping most parking and retaining walls out of sight.
"We decided on a 2‑story townhouse unit that has about 1,000 square feet per floor," Griffin told the board, describing units with gable roofs and staggered massing intended to read as individual houses rather than one large building. She said the scheme used the village's cluster development provisions to concentrate buildings and protect steep slopes at the rear of the lot.
Adam Sokolik, a partner with the Livingston group, said the project represents "a distillation of almost 14 years now of ongoing refinement and redesign," and argued the team had incorporated prior board feedback and detailed engineering work to make the plan feasible.
Board members and village staff pushed back on the presentation's level of finality. One member said, "We need to do our job here," and urged the board to ensure it had seen alternatives before recommending any variances or approvals. Another member pressed: "We need to be able to show the board of trustees that we looked at every option to try and reduce the impact of blocking this gateway view to the village and to the river."
Village staff and consultants highlighted several technical follow‑ups the applicant must provide: grading plans with contours, sky‑exposure/visibility diagrams, exact locations and widths of public view corridors and vantage points from the public right‑of‑way, and detailed retaining‑wall engineering. Village engineer Anthony Oliveri also asked applicants to clarify whether existing building runoff had been included in the proposed drainage calculations.
The board set a site visit for the coming weekend and asked the applicants to return with (a) visual analyses from identified public vantage points, (b) schematic alternative layouts showing tradeoffs and any variances that would be sought, and (c) a consolidated submission packet that includes final engineering and topographic information.
Next steps: applicants will host the site visit and resubmit a consolidated packet and visual analyses; the Planning Board indicated it may seek a joint workshop with the Board of Trustees to address the project's gateway & view concerns before making formal recommendations.
