The Village of Pelham Board of Trustees worked for three hours March 29 on finalizing the draft generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) that covers the proposed Pelham House apartment complex, the new municipal center and the extension of the life of the Business Development Floating Zone by five years.

During the three-hour special meeting, the board made minor wording changes to the GEIS. At the end, all the board members said they were comfortable with the modifications made to the statement except Trustee Kim McGreal.

“This is not my forte, and I would say no because this is not my thing,” said McGreal. She said she would like to be able read the changes first before giving her okay.

The board set a public hearing on the GEIS for April 26. 

In sum, the GEIS is supposed to review the environmental impacts of the village government’s “downtown restoration initiatives” and fulfill the requirements laid out in the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

The 109-page document “looks at a range of uses to be considered for potentially significant adverse impacts,” said Nanette Bourne, a principal and director with Sam Schwartz LLC, which wrote the impact statement. “It’s slightly different from a DEIS, which looks at a specific project. The generic side of this looks at a range.”

Under a deal the village cut with Pelham House LLC, the developer is proposing to construct a five-story rental building at Fifth Avenue and Third Street (201 Fifth Ave.), as well as a new municipal center to house village hall and the police and fire stations. The municipal center would, in part, use village-owned land and its construction would be entirely funded by Pelham House LLC. Pelham House is being built under the regulations set by the BDFZ.

Residents who live in the neighborhood of the proposed Pelham House building voiced their concerns about the speed at which the board moved through the review and at issues that weren’t covered, including the height of the apartment building, which has been the subject of controversy. 

“They had less than a week to review over 100 pages of the draft generic environmental impact statement text plus 1,000 pages of supporting appendices,” said Nigel Scott-Williams, a village resident, in an email interview. “Not surprisingly, the marathon meeting finalizing this draft was dominated by copy editing rather than actual discussion of key issues such as height of new development, despite a 250-person petition addressing just this issue.”

Resident Michele Sierak said, “Highlighted throughout the DGEIS and the BDFZ, and stated in the current village plan, are the care both should take on concerns and impacts to the adjacent residential neighbors. But then there are conflicting items regarding this. Neighbors’ concerns over the location of the Third Street entrance to lot 3, additional unnecessary height of the double gables on Pelham House and not assuring that the extension of the BDFZ must continue with no aggregation of lots allowed (even if the same owners) all conflict with the stated and coded concerns.”