The Builders Institute The Building & Realty Institute of Westchester & the Mid-Hudson Region

The Building & Realty Institute (BRI), a trade association whose membership includes homebuilders and multifamily developers, as well as existing multifamily residential apartment building owners, members of the boards of directors for housing cooperatives and condominium associations, and property managing agents across Westchester County, writes this letter to express our support in concept for the application for Renaissance Harrison, the mixed-use community proposed by Rose Equities and Garden Homes to replace the old Renaissance Hotel at 80 West Red Oak Ave.

Although we anticipate there will be a thorough examination by the Planning Board around particular details and issues whereby the application may be improved, and some of the specifics of the current application can and will change through this iterative process, we believe the fundamental concept is one that is particularly sound and beneficial to the Town and Village of Harrison, to the needs of the larger community of Westchester County, and to our local economy. We urge a careful but swift review of any issues and a predictable but smooth approval process, as this is the type of housing development so urgently needed in Westchester County, and from which the Town and Village of Harrison will reap enormous benefits.

Adaptive reuse of under-utilized spaces into much-needed housing has been demonstrated to achieve public policy goals critical to our success as region. New York State and New York City has devoted considerable financial resources to the redevelopment of former hotel sites within the five boroughs for this very reason.

Particularly in communities like Harrison that could be considered to be "built out" and where undeveloped land is relatively scarce, redeveloping sites that have already closed or are well below their best-use into much-needed housing has always yielded a boost to the local economy, an increase in both short-term construction a long-term service jobs, an ameliorative effect f our regional housing shortage, and property tax benefits for the local community and school district that would far exceed what is currently being collected on the site or the cost of any additional services or capital expenses needed to accommodate new residents.

Adaptive reuse in a shuttered hotel, as envisioned by the application, is one of the classic examples of this type of adaptive reuse development. It is development that is quite literally not in anyone's back yard. It creates housing where there was already sufficient infrastructure to comfortable and safely provide for hundreds of guests when the site was a hotel and conference center. Our organization can attest not just from analysis but from our own personal history as an entity that rented out the ballroom and conference rooms of the Renaissance Westchester for past events. Specifically, our own experience has been that the traffic flow to and from the site is already well-designed and unobtrusive to Harrison residents.

Certainly, recent commercial development on some of the neighboring sites has been beneficial to Harrison, but the more dire need for the region as a whole 1S for housing. The 2019 Westchester County Housing Needs Assessment found that we needed 11,706 new units of housing just to meet present-day demand. This need is particularly acute among seniors who, according to the same Housing Needs Assessment, represents the fastest-growing age demographic for the County. Both anecdotally and statistically, young professionals, who are typically either people who have grown up in Westchester and wish to live or work in the communities they grew up in or to become the future young families who have always replenished our communities and given them the neighborhood character that makes life in Westchester so desirable, also face considerable obstacles to find affordable or suitable options within their price range due to an acute lack of supply. Both in design and in marketing, the Renaissance Harrison project is squarely focused on having the biggest impact on home-seekers within these demographics, who would benefit from having an attractive and walkable community SO close to shopping options.

We believe the Renaissance Harrison project would be a win-win and a superb example of adaptive reuse. We hope the Planning Board will thoughtfully review the merits of the Renaissance Harrison community and appreciate you giving this application your full consideration.

Respectfully yours,

Timothy Foley
CEO and Executive Vice President