Another Senior Assisted Living Project Proposed for Pleasantville

A new application to develop a small senior assisted living residence on the 3+ acres of undeveloped land at 70 Bedford Road will soon be presented to the Pleasantville village board.

The previous proposal from Benchmark Senior Living for an assisted living facility on the land owned by the United Methodist Church of Pleasantville was strongly opposed by neighbors, organized as United Homeowners of Pleasantville, and did not win approval from the trustees.

Sy Gruza, a land use attorney representing the new project investor, Bedford Road Partners, said in a prepared statement that a recent poll of the village and school district “verifies the investors’ belief that a senior assisted living residence at that site is broadly supported by seniors, taxpayers and the school district.”

The poll, conducted by Strategic Planning Systems, Inc., a nationally recognized public opinion firm, was conducted from June 29 through July 1, and focused on questions related to Pleasantville villagers’ attitudes towards local real estate taxes, the need for senior assisted living housing in Pleasantville and the suitability of the proposed site for a senior assisted living facility in Pleasantville, according to Bedford Road Partners.

Key findings of the poll include:

• 72% of respondents believe that it is important to provide affordable housing options for seniors, so that they can continue to live in Pleasantville with their families and friends, and do not need to move away when they retire.
• 69% of the respondents believe that taxes are too high in Pleasantville.
• 72% of respondents would have been more likely to support a previous effort to build senior assisted living housing on the site if they had known that it would have generated approximately $500,000 in tax revenue and significant additional tax revenue from local business transactions.
• 58% of respondents support construction of senior assisted living housing on the Church’s property.
• 65% support construction of senior assisted living housing in Pleasantville.
• 65% of respondents of respondents believe that the village board should approve senior housing if the majority of the village supports it.

“The goal of this poll was to determine whether or not the belief of many longtime residents that the village had been denied a valuable social and economic asset in the board’s denial of Benchmark’s application was commonly held, and the answer to that was resoundingly positive,” said Gruza.

It is just over a year since Benchmark Senior Living, a senior assisted living facility development company unaffiliated with the new effort, failed to obtain the necessary supermajority of board votes required for approvals at the same site.

Benchmark wanted to bring an 87-unit building to the 3½ wooded acres owned by the United Methodist Church, across the street from Foxwood’s condominiums. The church land, zoned now for residential and professional-office uses, would have to be reclassified by the village board to accommodate an assisted-living complex.

Gruza added, “We gleaned that many residents are already in favor of a senior assisted living housing development at the Church site, and believe, as we do, that this facility will be a huge benefit to retirees and the elderly, who want to remain in Pleasantville. It will also transform a property that currently generates zero tax revenue into one that generates half a million dollars in revenue, which will help support the village budget and make current residents’ continued residency here more affordable.

“Given the long standing and officially expressed intention of Pleasantville to achieve a multigenerational village, this is a rare opportunity to be able to fulfill a social goal by gaining a major taxpayer which adds virtually no expense to the community.”