<p>Gabriella Mirabelli stood at the microphone and reframed the entire hearing in a single sentence.</p> <p>"The residents here tonight are not the ones who need to make a case," she told the Zoning Board of Appeals on March 17. "A variance is a legal exception to existing zoning, and the burden of justifying that exception rests entirely with the applicant, not with the people who bought their homes relying on the rules as they exist."</p> <p>Then she asked the question that no one from the applicant's side could answer: "What is the hardship other than profit?"</p> <p>It was the climactic moment of a land-use fight that has consumed three ZBA hearings since January, drawn a 45-signature neighborhood petition, produced flooding videos and ecological testimony, and forced the board into a unanimous decision to punt the application to the Planning Board for further review.</p> <p>At the center of it all: a 1.14-acre property at 52 Mount Airy Road, a Dobbs Ferry developer named Andrew Cortese, and the 30-plus trees that have already been cut down.</p> <h2>The Property</h2> <p>The lot at 52 Mount Airy Road has been there since 1875 — a wooded colonial on a sloping hillside in one of Croton's quieter residential pockets. Its previous owners were Donald Holder, the Tony Award-winning lighting designer behind <em>The Lion King</em>, and Evan Yionoulis, an Obie Award-winning director who served as dean of Juilliard's drama division.</p> <p>Cortese, operating through 52 Mt Airy Rd LLC, purchased the property in April 2025 for $685,000. His plan: subdivide the lot in two and build a new single-family home on the back half. Both resulting lots would measure roughly 24,718 square feet — 281 square feet shy of the 25,000 minimum in the RA25 zone.</p> <p>A 1.1 percent shortfall. Two area variances. And a neighborhood that decided this was where they'd make their stand.</p> <h2>Thirty Trees and Counting</h2> <p>Nothing has inflamed the opposition like the tree removal.</p> <p>When the application first came before the ZBA in January, neighbors reported that mature trees had already been cleared from the site. At the February hearing, project engineer Michael Mastrogiacomo initially told the board about twelve trees would come down. Chair James Tuman examined the site plans and pushed back: "Certainly looks like a lot more than twelve." The engineer revised his count to 26 to 30.</p> <p>By March, the numbers were still shifting. Resident Vincent Cohan tracked the escalation across hearings: the count had "crept from six or seven at a prior meeting to 20, then to 30 — with potentially 30 more already cleared."</p> <p>The timing matters. Croton enacted Local Law No. 13 of 2025, a tree protection ordinance effective last October that requires permits for removing more than three trees per year. Much of the clearing at 52 Mount Airy appears to have happened before that law took effect.</p> <p>Orit Daly, a ceramic artist at 67 Mount Airy Road South, told the board her property now gets full sunlight where it never did before. "I wasn't going to speak tonight," she said, "but a couple things came up."</p> <p>Ruben Dahlia, also from 67 Mount Airy Road South, delivered testimony that read more like an environmental science lecture than a public comment: "Nature is chaotic, and once destroyed, it takes forever to rebuild. And what it does not look like is a lawn surrounded by Japanese azaleas."</p> <h2>The Walls</h2> <p>Beyond the trees, the retaining walls rattled the board.</p> <p>The steep terrain at the back of the lot requires significant grading to accommodate a new home, and the plans showed retaining walls reaching 10 to 14 feet in height. Chair Tuman pressed the engineering team on the structures, noting that what was initially presented as modest grade management had evolved into something substantially more imposing.</p> <p>The house itself is pushed deep into the lot by zoning setback requirements, which means a long driveway — which means more tree removal, more impervious surface, and more stormwater runoff directed downhill toward King Street.</p> <h2>The Flooding</h2> <p>Dan Cayer lives at the corner of King Street and Mount Airy Road with his wife and two daughters. He came to the March 17 hearing with video evidence of flooding on King Street during rainstorms.</p> <p>"These rainstorms were before the 29 large trees were taken down," he told the board. "So already, there would be flooding on King Street, this kind of river of water going across my lawn."</p> <p>Deborah Schupack, an author at 16 King Street, organized a petition. Forty-five residents signed, objecting on grounds of stormwater runoff, erosion, downhill flooding, and steep slope impacts. At the February hearing, she read the petition into the record.</p> <h2>The Legal Fight</h2> <p>Attorney Kory Salomone of Zarin & Steinmetz, a prominent White Plains land-use firm, represented Cortese. His approach was to narrow the discussion: the variance is about 281 square feet, not the driveway or the house placement or the trees. "The variance has nothing to do with the driveway nor does it have anything to do with the location of the house or the size of the house," he argued. "We're looking for a 250-square-foot variance of a garage."</p> <p>The neighbors' counterargument, articulated most sharply by Mirabelli, was that the ZBA is required to consider the totality of impacts under New York's five-factor test. The five factors: undesirable neighborhood change, feasible alternatives, substantiality of the variance, adverse environmental effects, and whether the difficulty is self-created.</p> <p>"A gap they bought" is how Mirabelli characterized the lot shortfall — not a hardship imposed by the village, but a known condition when Cortese signed the purchase agreement.</p> <p>Edward Wohl read a legal memo on behalf of Stuart and Karen Greenbaum of 48 Mount Airy Road, arguing that the project should not have been classified as a Type II action under SEQR — a classification that exempts it from environmental review. If they're right, the application may need a full environmental impact assessment.</p> <p>Chair Tuman had his own moment of clarity when Salomone's team argued that replanting would improve the habitat. "I find it hard to believe that asphalt is better for animals than what's there existing," he said. And when Salomone cited his professional experience to minimize environmental concerns, Tuman cut him off: "You're a lawyer. You're not environmental."</p> <h2>David Steele's Wall</h2> <p>David Steele's property at 56 Mount Airy Road directly abuts the development site. He submitted a letter to the board and spoke at multiple hearings. His wife Ashley also testified. Their home sits feet from where a 14-foot retaining wall could rise.</p> <p>"I submitted a letter to the board, and I spoke at the last meeting," he said at the March hearing. "And I wasn't intending on speaking again, but I just wanted to respond to a few things that were said earlier."</p> <p>That is the rhythm of this fight — neighbors who keep saying they weren't planning to speak, and then speak anyway, because something in the applicant's presentation compelled them to stand up.</p> <h2>The Referral</h2> <p>The ZBA voted unanimously on March 17 to refer the application to the Planning Board for review of stormwater, steep slopes, and retaining walls. Chair Tuman said the Planning Board was "better equipped" to evaluate the technical issues.</p> <p>Salomone took it in stride: "When we come back to you guys, it'll be a fully baked plan."</p> <p>The public hearing remains open. The Planning Board is expected to weigh in by May.</p> <h2>The Bigger Picture</h2> <p>Cortese is not new to this. In Dobbs Ferry, his attempt to build four homes adjacent to the Juhring Estate nature preserve generated a "Save the Knoll" campaign with 273 petition signatures before he donated the parcels to the village. He also co-owns property at 425 South Riverside Avenue in Croton, where a 49-unit apartment building is planned.</p> <p>But the Mount Airy fight isn't really about one developer. It's about a neighborhood watching its tree canopy disappear lot by lot, and a zoning board trying to decide whether 281 square feet of shortfall — barely more than the footprint of a parking space — is enough to justify what comes with it.</p> <p>As one board member put it near the end of the March hearing, when all five variance factors appeared unmet: "I'd advise that when zero are met, the proposal should maybe be rejected on principle alone."</p>