The long, winding Orange Avenue road came to a dead end Tuesday when developer Orange Avenue Associates withdrew its request for a zone change from the Village of Suffern.
Orange Avenue Associates, led by Joshua Goldstein (right), has withdrawn its request to the Village of Suffern for a zone change, essentially shelving any development plans for Orange Avenue.
Suffern Mayor Trish Abato announced at Tuesday evening’s board meeting that the village had received notice at 3 p.m. that day that the developer wanted to end its effort to build 91 luxury apartments in a specially created Transit Development District (TDD) in the village on a 1.48 acre site currently that would have included the Lafayette Hotel.
Mayor Abato said from her center stage board seat that Suffern is certainly still interested in marketing a project out again. She added that the economy is “very gloomy out there” from a development perspective.
The Mayor said she is supportive of the original idea for a condominium development in the downtown area of the village, preferably with no HUD dimension attached.
Suffern had negotiated a PILOT agreement with Orange Avenue but maintained that the board would not consider a zone change for the project without a payment in lieu of taxes agreement with the Ramapo Central School District.
The whole project appeared to go off-road when Orange Avenue Associates made one stop too many at the PILOT station. Joshua Goldstein, who has led the negotiations for Orange Avenue, put the project’s budget at some $23 million. But the developer also aggressively negotiated tax concessions from Suffern and the Ramapo Central School District. When Orange Avenue negotiated a separate PILOT agreement with the Town of Ramapo that set the school district’s yearly payment, many appeared to sour on the project.
“Frankly, I was annoyed when they went to the school board,” Suffern Trustee John Meehan said from his seat at the board dais Tuesday.
LoHud reporter Laura Incalcaterra has a succinct write up on the Orange Avenue project that put the PILOT figure offered through Ramapo’s PILOT to the school district at approximately $3.6 million over 40 years, which comes out to $90,000 per year. Currently, Suffern receives approximately $26,000 per year in taxes from the Lafayette Hotel property.
In the LoHud article, RCSD Superintendent Douglas Adams stated that the presented agreement would cost the school district $16.6 million in school taxes over 40-years life of the agreement. That figure puts RCSD projected taxes from the project at some $415,000 per year.
Suffern’s tax bill would have been separate and was set through the PILOT agreement at a total of some $42,500 for the first five years, with a $10,000 increase every five years that eventually would net the village $108,000 over the last five years of the 40 year agreement.
