Livable Built Environment

The ​“built envi­ron­ment” is com­prised of a community’s devel­oped spaces, the trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture that con­nects these spaces, and the util­i­ty infra­struc­ture that enables these spaces to be used and occu­pied. Neigh­bor­hoods, com­mer­cial cen­ters, insti­tu­tions, civic facil­i­ties and the sup­port­ing trans­porta­tion, ener­gy, and infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture are all ele­ments of the built envi­ron­ment. The way in which these ele­ments have been planned for, designed, devel­oped and sit­u­at­ed with­in a par­tic­u­lar land­scape gives a place its unique char­ac­ter and helps to estab­lish a cer­tain qual­i­ty of life for res­i­dents. A Liv­able Built Envi­ron­ment is sus­tain­able and ensures a high qual­i­ty of life for all.

New Castle’s built envi­ron­ment is com­prised large­ly of sin­gle-fam­i­ly res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods set among wood­ed hill­sides. These res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods are inter­spersed with land­marks that give the Town its strong his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter. Wind­ing coun­try roads con­nect these neigh­bor­hoods with the Chap­paqua and Mill­wood ham­lets, Chap­paqua Cross­ing, and the Town’s parks and pre­serves, as well as the Chap­paqua Train Sta­tion and the Tacon­ic and Saw Mill Riv­er Park­ways. Care­ful­ly designed drink­ing, waste and storm water sys­tems pro­vide cru­cial ser­vices that enable the use of res­i­den­tial and com­mu­ni­ty facil­i­ties. These aspects of the Town’s built envi­ron­ment work har­mo­nious­ly to make New Cas­tle a desir­able place to live.

Main­tain­ing a liv­able built envi­ron­ment in New Cas­tle requires pre­serv­ing the Town’s bucol­ic, res­i­den­tial char­ac­ter and its his­toric resources, while pro­mot­ing new mixed-use devel­op­ment in the ham­lets to meet the community’s hous­ing needs and fos­ter­ing thriv­ing com­mer­cial and civic spaces. A liv­able built envi­ron­ment for the res­i­dents of New Cas­tle includes effi­cient trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture that facil­i­tates con­nec­tions between the Town’s ham­lets, pro­vides access to and park­ing for the train sta­tion and down­town busi­ness­es, and estab­lish­es safe spaces for dri­vers, pedes­tri­ans, and cyclists. Final­ly, a liv­able built envi­ron­ment is a sus­tain­able envi­ron­ment, one which pro­vides and main­tains the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture and ser­vices to sup­port the Town’s needs.