Approval nears for 1,600-home project in Tuxedo with last-minute conflict over school site

TUXEDO − It took more than 25 years to get approval, only for the massive housing project in the woods of southern Orange County to stall after the site was readied but before a single house had been built.

Now, more than 15 months after the developer revived the dormant plans, town officials are nearly set to sign off major design changes that would make Tuxedo Farms a more densely inhabited community, with 1,609 homes instead of 1,195 and many more townhouses and apartments than single-family houses. Manhattan-based Related Companies revamped the project to meet current housing interests and hopes to start construction early next year.

The Town Board could vote as soon as Oct. 12 on changes to the project's 2015 special permit to allow work to proceed according to the new design.

But Tuxedo School District officials have raised a strong objection as that approval nears. While supportive of the development, they say the 40-acre property Related offered to give the district is too steep and rocky to build a new school and sports field without spending an enormous amount just to clear and level the land. And without that new school, they argue, the tiny district's elementary school will reach capacity within five years as Tuxedo Farms kids enroll.

Revised:Developer scales back revamped Tuxedo Farms project to 1,609 proposed homes

Revived:Tuxedo Farms developer dusts off housing plans after four years in limbo

Stalled:Developer stops work on 1,195-home project because of dispute over high school

They sounded the alarm in a Sept. 23 letter to town residents, saying that preparing the donated "cliffside" for development would result in a net increase of $1.3 million in annual costs for local taxpayers. That was based on a nearly $24 million estimate for the pre-construction site work, which would undo the net gain in school tax revenue that Tuxedo Farms is expected to generate, district officials say.

"There's nothing more important than this," said Tuxedo schools Superintendent Jeffrey White, who began scrutinizing the potential costs with his administration after he began work on July 1.

School officials have suggested other pieces of land the developer or town could donate that could be more easily developed and would resolve their sole concern. Greg Gushee, executive vice president for Related Companies, told the Times Herald-Record on Friday that Related is discussing potential alternative sites with the district, while pointing out the net positive impact that the new homes are expected to have on district finances. The 40-acre parcel and $2.5 million Related has offered the district are added "gifts," he said.

"The project is overwhelmingly positive for the district," Gushee said.

White confirmed on Monday that Related had taken up the idea of donating part of an 89-acre property it owns at the intersection of Warwick Brook and Long Meadow roads in Tuxedo, though no agreement had been reached.

The big housing plans have hovered over the town for three decades and are expected to reshape it by more than doubling its small population, just under 3,800 in the 2020 census. Tuxedo Farms would add an estimated 3,900 residents, according to the developer's latest projection. Tuxedo covers 49 square miles but is sparsely populated because of rocky, hilly terrain of the Ramapo Mountains and large stretches of land taken up by Harriman State Park.

Tuxedo Farms, part of which will be restricted to people 55 and older, is expected to have about 377 school-aged children once completed. That represents a big enrollment increase for a district that currently has only 222, after losing more than 200 students in 2015 when neighboring Greenwood Lake School District stopped sending students to Tuxedo's George F. Baker High School.

Adding future Tuxedo Farms kids would still mean fewer students than Tuxedo's two schools used to have − 655 at their peak 15 years ago, according to state enrollment data. But White says the district still needs another school as Tuxedo Farms is built because its George Mason Elementary School, which can hold up to 247 students, would soon run out of space and has nowhere to expand.

A new elementary school would cost an estimated $38.6 million, and the price for new sports fields is $5.7 million, he said.

Tuxedo Farms, first proposed in 1989 and originally known as Tuxedo Reserve, would be built across nearly two square miles off Route 17 but would develop only a small portion, leaving much of the land in its current wooded state. Related Companies already had cleared land, buried water and sewer pipes and built a $10 million sewage treatment plant when work stopped five years ago. The company said at the time that builders were dubious about being able to sell expensive homes in a district with such a tiny high school − no more than 25 kids per grade last year.

Concerns about Baker High's size had subsided by the time Related revived the plans last year. Lennar, one of the country's biggest home builders, is now working with Related on the project. The developer had initially proposed hiking the number of housing units to 2,000 but then lowered the total to the current 1,609 figure.

One final design change is in the works for the revised plans: the developer plans to add 30 more single-family houses to the plans at the Town Board's request. With offsetting decreases in other units, the new breakdown for the project would be: 755 townhouses, 411 apartments, 269 single-family houses and 174 duplexes. The total number of bedrooms would be 3,574, about 8% more than in the plan approved in 2015.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for the Times Herald-Record and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@th-record.com.

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Tuxedo board nears approval of 1,600-home Tuxedo Farms plan changes