IDA School Concerns Addressed

The VoPC IDA has a history of attentiveness to the concerns of the Port Chester Rye Union Free School District. Given the role the IDA has in redevelopment throughout the Village, the IDA has shared the concerns of the School District that new development not contribute a large number of new students into an already overcrowded school system, and ensure that any new students pay for themselves.

At its own expense the PCIDA commissioned a study, with full involvement of the School District, studying this important issue in a report that was published in January 2015 and fully updated in February 2019.

The findings of the February 2019 report were incorporated into the Village’s new Form Based Zoning Code SEQRA Findings Statement adopted in May 2020. You may read the key findings here.

And here are the full details of the mitigation of approximately $27,000 per student per year payable by the developer to the School District.

This report is scheduled to be updated in 2023 in collaboration with the Port Chester Schools.

It should be mentioned that the studies have been borne out in practice. To date there have been over 260 new Transit Oriented Development rental apartments built in the urban core. All of them were in service by 2016. According to school attendance records there have consistently been just 2 children attending the schools from all of these units, encompassing the years 2019 – 2022.