The Planning Board voted 5-0 on Dec. 9 to approve retaining walls at 23 Nordica Drive that were built closer to a property line than the drawings the board approved in 2023 — one week after a law firm representing the next-door neighbor demanded that the village halt the job and withhold the house's certificate of occupancy. The application was an after-the-fact one. Property owner Mark Franzoso had already built the walls, and he told the board he had done what he does at the end of any build. "When you build a house and you finish off especially the outside, you know, you deal with the property and you mold it to, you know, to look as presentable and nice as possible," Read 3:16▶ Franzoso said.

What changed on the site

A Dec. 2 memo from the village engineering department to the board says Franzoso constructed new retaining walls and steps along the south side of the property and enclosed the retaining wall on the north side, producing deviations from the minor site plan the board approved on June 20, 2023. The north-side wall was built closer to the property line than originally approved, the memo says, but remains compliant with applicable zoning requirements. The landscaping plan approved in 2023 was unchanged. Asked from the table whether any of the walls as built were not zoning compliant, Village Engineer Vincent Salanitro said they were compliant, and the minutes record the same answer. He described his office's decision to send the application back to the board as a cautious one. "Kind of like in a gray area, I would say, where it's not the biggest change, but it's definitely not what was approved by this board in the past," Read 34:34▶ Salanitro said. "So we took a conservative approach and sent the applicant back for you guys to take a look and get comfortable with the new plan." Read 34:34▶ That left the board arguing less about the walls than about where the line sits between a field adjustment and a change that has to come back for a vote. Chairman Rob Luntz said the question came down to "whether or not they felt like this was substantial enough modification to come back to us," Read 9:48▶ referring to the engineering department. Geoffrey Haynes put the practice to Franzoso directly: small changes get worked out with the village engineer, "But if it's something substantial, it comes back to the planning board." Read 7:05▶ Franzoso did not think his walls cleared that bar. Building the wall as drawn, he said, "It would be like suffocating the house, the one that was approved." Read 7:37▶ Pressed on a recent project on Riverside that did return to the board for a site plan modification, he said "there's a big difference between what they did over on Riverside and what I'm doing." Read 10:20▶

The demand letter

The board took up the application with a demand letter already in hand. Levin Law Group, writing on Dec. 2 for Russell H. Davies, who lives next door at 27 Nordica Drive, told the village engineer, the Planning Board chair, the zoning board chair, the village manager and the mayor that the retaining wall was never shown on the approved site plan and sits closer than the 12-foot side-yard setback the village code requires in the RA-9 district. The firm asked the village, within 10 days, to inspect the property, issue a stop-work order, revoke or suspend the building permit, impose penalties and withhold the certificate of occupancy until the wall was removed or brought into compliance. None of that happened. According to the minutes, the chairman turned to Village Attorney Dan Pozin, who told the board that the application then in front of it addressed the issues the letter raised — if the amended plan were approved, the letter's concerns would have been met. Pozin also noted, the minutes say, that a final inspection is required as a matter of normal procedure and that a certificate of occupancy would not be issued if the work was not done according to the plans and the village code. Franzoso, who read none of the letter, said the neighbors it affects most are the ones across the street and that they like the walls. Before the discussion began, Steve Krisky disclosed an unsolicited conversation he had had with Davies at the Black Cow coffee shop several weeks earlier, and said he did not feel the need to recuse himself because everything discussed was already part of the public record. The minutes record the same disclosure.

The approval and the conditions

Haynes moved to approve the amended minor site plan with the original 2023 conditions intact and with a new requirement that an as-built survey be submitted before a certificate of occupancy is issued. John Ghegan seconded. The vote was 5-0. The board classified the application as a Type II action under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, so no negative declaration was required. Housekeeping took up the rest of the item. The minutes record that Ghegan asked the applicant to move a port-a-potty away from the fire hydrant. Franzoso said he was clearing the site that week and was waiting on two back-ordered windows, and that the plantings would be finished in the spring. The house, built all-electric, still had no power. "It's 37 degrees in the house today," Read 20:25▶ Franzoso said, adding that he was still waiting on Con Edison and regretted not running gas to the house when the line was open.

New meeting nights, new comment deadline

The board then adopted revised Rules and Procedures, last set in August 2024 and revised that December. Regular meetings move to the second and fourth Tuesday of each month. In the chairperson's absence, the deputy chairperson steps in as acting chairperson. Written communications for a public hearing or any agenda item must be submitted by noon the day before a meeting to be included in the backup material, with anything later included only as staff time allows. Applicants will have no time limit to speak. The board also added standing time on its agendas for reports from members who serve as liaisons to other village boards and for updates from the village engineer. Krisky argued the noon deadline cut both ways, noting that some materials are due ten or twelve days ahead while others can land at the last minute: "it's weird that on one hand, we have it's twelve days ahead of time or ten days ahead of time. But, yeah, right up to the eleventh hour, other stuff can be submitted that you need to review and that we should review." Read 41:05▶ Krisky moved to adopt the revised rules with those changes; Ghegan seconded, and the board approved them 5-0. For 23 Nordica Drive, the next checkpoint is the certificate of occupancy: the as-built survey has to be filed with that application, and the 2023 conditions — including the approved landscaping — still bind the property. The enforcement demands in the neighbor's letter were not acted on by the Planning Board, which does not handle code enforcement; they sit with the engineering department. Planning Board meetings move to the second and fourth Tuesday of the month in 2026.