New Castle Hamlets

The major­i­ty of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty in New Cas­tle takes place in the Town’s ham­lets, Chap­paqua and Mill­wood. At the writ­ing of the TDP, it was well-known and accept­ed that the Town’s res­i­dents patron­ized the com­mer­cial areas of sur­round­ing munic­i­pal­i­ties, both because of con­ve­nience and to sup­ple­ment the goods and ser­vices offered with­in the Town’s ham­lets. For this rea­son, the TDP did not encour­age addi­tion­al com­mer­cial devel­op­ment in the ham­lets or an expan­sion of ham­let bound­aries. The TDP also rec­om­mend­ed against fur­ther com­mer­cial devel­op­ment in the ham­lets because it would cre­ate unman­age­able park­ing demand in the Chap­paqua ham­let and have the poten­tial to con­flict with the res­i­den­tial feel of the rest of the Town. This pol­i­cy has helped to shape the Chap­paqua and Mill­wood ham­lets as we know them today.

Chap­paqua and Mill­wood have served as hubs of com­mu­ni­ty and com­mer­cial activ­i­ty for decades. Long­time com­mu­ni­ty busi­ness­es such as the Chap­paqua Vil­lage Mar­ket, Lange’s, Fam­i­ly Britch­es, Susan Lawrence, Pet­ti­coat Lane, Drug Mart and Rocky’s serve loy­al cus­tomer bases. The Bagel Empo­ri­um, Chap­paqua Sta­tion, and Taz­za Café burst with activ­i­ty dur­ing morn­ing rush hours. Res­i­dents gath­er to par­tic­i­pate in com­mu­ni­ty movie nights and con­certs, sport­ing com­pe­ti­tions, camps and fundrais­ing events held at the Rec Field and Mill­wood Park dur­ing the spring, sum­mer and fall months. Annu­al side­walk sales and farmer’s mar­kets pro­vide time for com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to come togeth­er, get to know local mer­chants and sup­port local busi­ness­es. Dur­ing warm weath­er sea­sons, out­door seat­ing at Le Jardin Du Roi and Susan Lawrence quick­ly fill to capac­i­ty at meal times; the North Coun­ty Trail­way bus­tles with cyclists and jog­gers; and chil­dren can be seen play­ing on the Bell School and Ged­ney Park play­grounds and in Mill­wood Park.

While there is much that res­i­dents cher­ish about the ham­lets, there are many ways in which Chap­paqua and Mill­wood would ben­e­fit from eco­nom­ic revi­tal­iza­tion efforts. Over­all eco­nom­ic per­for­mance of the Town’s busi­ness­es is dif­fi­cult to assess because the Town does not have access to the finan­cial infor­ma­tion of pri­vate busi­ness own­ers. How­ev­er, focus group dis­cus­sions with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty sug­gest that a lim­it­ed cus­tomer base has made it chal­leng­ing for busi­ness­es to achieve their prof­it goals. Addi­tion­al­ly, recent eco­nom­ic stud­ies have indi­cat­ed that retail cap­ture rates for both ham­lets are low, and for most types of retail there is an ​“out­flow” of Town res­i­dents’ con­sumer spend­ing to the com­mer­cial areas of oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties ​“Out­flow” to inter­net shop­ping is also a con­sid­er­able fac­tor which is grow­ing at a rapid pace.

Poli­cies found with­in the TDP were sup­port­ive of this kind of pat­tern. Today, how­ev­er, this pol­i­cy has become an obsta­cle to the eco­nom­ic vital­i­ty of the Town’s ham­lets. Fur­ther­more, the advent of the Inter­net and the con­ve­nience of online shop­ping have rev­o­lu­tion­ized the con­sumer indus­try. To make any sort of retail pur­chase in 1989, one would almost def­i­nite­ly need to leave the house. Today, online mega-ven­dors like Ama­zon, Pea­pod and Zap­pos make it easy to pur­chase all types of goods, includ­ing per­ish­ables, with direct deliv­ery, elim­i­nat­ing the need to patron­ize busi­ness­es in per­son. E‑commerce has con­tributed great­ly to the ​“out­flow” of res­i­dent spend­ing, and has helped to trans­form the Amer­i­can ​“down­town”. New strate­gies need to be adopt­ed in order for local busi­ness­es to remain rel­e­vant and suc­cess­ful in this new market.

It is with­in this con­text that this Plan estab­lish­es goals to help sup­port local busi­ness and cre­ate thriv­ing, 21^st cen­tu­ry ham­lets. A com­mu­ni­ty with a Resilient Econ­o­my has strong, depend­able local assets, which includes healthy local busi­ness­es. In Chap­paqua and Mill­wood, com­mer­cial, civic and com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ty are co-depen­dent. This Plan estab­lish­es poli­cies that will help ensure the ham­lets’ built envi­ron­ment and land use reg­u­la­tions encour­age a vibrant civic, cul­tur­al and com­mu­ni­ty atmos­phere that works in sym­bio­sis with local eco­nom­ic activity.

This Plan estab­lish­es the goal to cre­ate a sus­tain­able mix of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial uses with­in the ham­lets, or mixed-use infill devel­op­ment. Such devel­op­ment will help sat­is­fy the community’s var­ied hous­ing needs while also help­ing to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty. Care­ful­ly planned mixed-use devel­op­ment in the ham­lets includ­ing pro­vi­sions to address park­ing sup­ply will allow for fur­ther inte­gra­tion of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial uses, pro­vid­ing busi­ness estab­lish­ments with a con­sis­tent, built-in con­sumer base that does not require the use of a vehi­cle to do their shop­ping. In order to sup­port a sub­stan­tial res­i­den­tial pop­u­la­tion in the ham­lets, busi­ness­es should be tai­lored to serve the needs of and pro­vide for those pop­u­la­tions. In addi­tion, there must be oth­er retail, enter­tain­ment and civic oppor­tu­ni­ties and des­ti­na­tions with­in the Town to attract pop­u­la­tions from out­side the ham­lets. This Plan sets forth actions to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to diver­si­fy the retail, enter­tain­ment, and civic des­ti­na­tion mix in Chap­paqua and Mill­wood, as well as to stim­u­late patron­age and activ­i­ty. As iden­ti­fied in the pub­lic out­reach ses­sions park­ing sup­ply is of para­mount con­cern in the Chap­paqua ham­let. Park­ing should be locat­ed in prox­im­i­ty to busi­ness­es and oth­er ameni­ties to accom­mo­date patrons who dri­ve down­town and are a vital part of the cus­tomer base for local merchants.

This Plan also estab­lish­es poli­cies to cre­ate vibrant and walk­a­ble mixed-use areas in the ham­lets that are well con­nect­ed to pub­lic tran­sit. Pedes­tri­an-friend­ly cir­cu­la­tion net­works with­in ham­lets that con­nect busi­ness estab­lish­ments, hous­ing, insti­tu­tions, green spaces and pub­lic meet­ing places help to cre­ate an atmos­phere where patrons are able and like­ly to gath­er. As of ear­ly 2017, side­walks line Gree­ley Avenue and King Street in Chap­paqua, but they are under­sized and in dis­re­pair. Chap­paqua also would ben­e­fit from an increased num­ber of cross­walks to make it eas­i­er for pedes­tri­ans to nav­i­gate the ham­let. Millwood’s com­mer­cial clus­ters are dis­joint­ed and the Mill­wood Shop­ping Cen­ter is set­back from Sta­tion Road, mak­ing its park­ing lot the cen­ter­piece of the ham­let. While the Metro North Harlem Line runs through the Chap­paqua ham­let and Mill­wood boasts prime access to the North Coun­ty Trail­way, both of the ham­lets lack suf­fi­cient and wel­com­ing pedes­tri­an net­works to con­nect these invalu­able trans­porta­tion ameni­ties to the com­mer­cial cen­ters of each ham­let and the rest of the com­mu­ni­ty. Much more can be done to entice those com­ing off the train or using the bike path to patron­ize the busi­ness estab­lish­ments of the Chap­paqua and Mill­wood ham­lets. Addi­tion­al­ly, improv­ing pedes­tri­an ameni­ties and side­walk infra­struc­ture along Chappaqua’s mid-King Street area and Sta­tion Place in Mill­wood would help to strength­en com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial uses along these cor­ri­dors and con­nect retail nodes with­in each of the hamlets.

This Plan also estab­lish­es the goal to enhance the aes­thet­ic qual­i­ty of the ham­lets. Both the Mill­wood and Chap­paqua ham­lets lack a coor­di­nat­ed, attrac­tive aes­thet­ic. While design guide­lines for the Mill­wood Ham­let were devel­oped in 1993 and revised in 1999, design guide­lines were nev­er devel­oped for Chap­paqua. It is ques­tion­able as to whether Millwood’s design guide­lines can achieve their under­ly­ing goals giv­en the infra­struc­ture lim­i­ta­tions in the ham­let. This Plan rec­om­mends revis­ing Millwood’s exist­ing design guide­lines and cre­at­ing design guide­lines for Chap­paqua that are attain­able, pro­mote aes­thet­ic con­ti­nu­ity and incor­po­rate sus­tain­able plan­ning concepts.