Butch Doran has been building houses in Croton-on-Hudson since 1985. On Nov. 4 he stood in front of the Planning Board, got the approval he came for, and then spent several minutes explaining why he thinks the village's fee schedule has gone wrong. The bill on his new four-bedroom house at 73 Melrose Avenue, as he laid it out: $750 to appear before the board in 2023, a 40 percent higher application fee this year, $4,000 for a water tap, $4,000 for a sewer tap, "$7,199 for a building permit for a 2,400 square foot house," Read 36:24▶ and a $12,000 parkland fee on top. "I'm into this for $28,000 in permits and fees before I post bonds," Read 36:24▶ Doran said — "over $11 a square foot." Read 36:24▶ His objection was not the total so much as who pays it. The parkland fee exists because the village code treats a new house as contributing to population growth with no suitable land on site for a park. Doran argued that the growth actually driving the village's park and recreation needs is coming from the rezoning that allows accessory dwelling units and larger multi-unit buildings — and that those projects, when they are affordable housing, get the fee waived. One four-bedroom house built to the scale the Harmon subdivision was designed for pays a $12,000 fee, Doran said, while a 100-unit all-affordable building on Parking Lot A — a project he was careful to note is not approved — could hold 200 bedrooms and pay nothing. "It's out of scale. It's excessive." Read 36:14▶ "I'm paying into a future thing that I take no part in," Read 36:24▶ Doran said. "I feel punished by it." Read 36:24▶

The board agreed, and said it was not their call

Chairman Rob Luntz did not dispute the arithmetic. "You have a legitimate gripe," Read 38:13▶ Luntz told him. "But you're griping honestly to the wrong people." Read 38:13▶ The fee schedule is set by the Village Board of Trustees, which meets in the same room; the minutes record that the Planning Board pointed Doran there. "I'm not sure that those fees are where they should be either, but they're they're not something that we set," Read 42:12▶ Luntz said. Doran took the answer. "I felt for the record it needed to be said," Read 38:47▶ he said, adding that his father sat on the village's Zoning Board of Appeals for twenty years, ten of them as chairman, and that this is his fortieth year building in Croton.

The house itself

The lot at 73 Melrose Avenue already had an approved minor site plan under a previous owner, who decided not to build and sold it. Doran bought the lot and brought back a house with a similar footprint, the main change being a driveway and attached garage at the front instead of pavement running around to the back. That front driveway was the board's main technical concern: as drawn, two cars parked in it encroach on the village right of way. Doran said the encroachment is "hard to avoid with a 15 foot front yard setback," Read 14:44▶ that the street is a dead end wide enough for a fire truck to get by with his cars off the road, and that he did not believe children use it as a cut-through to the school because the grade is too steep. The board approved the minor site plan, excavation and fill permit, and stormwater pollution prevention plan 5-0. According to the minutes, Steve Krisky moved the approval with three added conditions — that Doran's engineer supply calculations showing no net increase in runoff for the 100-year storm, that the off-street parking requirement be waived because the driveway may not hold two cars without intruding on the right of way, and that the architectural plans be updated to show the height of the house — and Geoff Haynes seconded. The minutes credit John Ghegan with asking how tall the house is; the board estimated 27 feet and asked for a real dimension on the drawings. Doran's design drew no objection. "I just couldn't bear to do another white and black house," Read 21:53▶ he said.

Two signs on Grand Street

The Grand, at 130 Grand Street, got final signage approval, 5-0 on a motion by Geoff Haynes seconded by Steve Krisky. The one complaint had nothing to do with the sign. Krisky pointed to "two, like, flower beds right in front of the building there, right and left, that in the times I've passed by, they've got promotions for" Read 0:53▶ — advertising where plantings should be. The minutes record that the owner had pulled the old plants out and would add mulch and see whether vines could grow there. Sean Fuller, who owns The Grand, also floated a pair of small marquees above the windows in the building's dark blue, "almost like a church sign in the country," Read 4:17▶ carrying what was happening that weekend. Luntz stopped that one: "that would constitute additional signage that would need approval." Read 4:38▶ The minutes record that a marquee has not been approved and that adding one may require another application. Eva Thaddeus used the item to note that The Grand was already functioning as a community space, hosting a high school talent show that Sunday. "My daughter is in it," Read 5:05▶ Thaddeus said. Monday's Gift Shop at 125 Grand Street then won final signage approval, 5-0 on a motion by Eva Thaddeus seconded by Steve Krisky, after the board worked out that the rendering was misleading: the windows will be clear glass with white vinyl lettering, not frosted. Cody Eichelberger, there for the application, said the drawing was simply his designer's choice: "this is just her choice of rendering. It's just clear window" Read 7:31▶ with white vinyl lettering.

No thanks on an alternate member

The trustees had referred draft Local Law Introductory No. 14 of 2025 to the Planning Board. It would let the Village Board appoint an alternate member to both the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals for a one-year term. The board's answer, per the minutes, was that it does not see the need: the Planning Board has always had a quorum and functions with three or four members. Board members worked through the awkward cases aloud — an alternate seated for one session of an application and then displaced when the regular member returns, and whether anyone would take a job that mostly means watching from the audience. Village Attorney Dan Pozin pushed back. He had "never heard this kind of discussion about alternate member for a planning board," Read 64:58▶ he said, and it is "typical more typical than not, I think, to have an alternate provided." Read 64:58▶ Pozin said alternates elsewhere often become full members when someone retires or moves, and asked what the board does about a tie with four members sitting.

Rebuilding after a fire on Newton Court

The board also approved, 5-0, a modification to the building envelope at 8 Newton Court, where a fire earlier this year badly damaged the house of Matthew and Ilana Robinson. John Ghegan moved the approval and Eva Thaddeus seconded, according to the minutes. Lots in the Baltic Estates subdivision, approved in 1995, are governed by building limit lines rather than ordinary setbacks, and the rebuilt house's proposed front porch, rear deck and an existing gazebo all fall outside those lines. Architect Justin Kacur told the board the plan keeps the original foundation: "we designed a new single family dwelling that's to rest on the existing foundation." Read 44:16▶ The footprint is otherwise unchanged. The gazebo is a separate problem. The Robinsons were told they will have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance on it, and the approval is conditioned on that. Luntz also advised them that because the village follows the New York State stretch energy code, the rebuilt house has to be solar ready, the minutes say. Matthew Robinson said the fire started in a car in the garage. "I get a lot of questions if I'm gonna fireproof the garage because it was the car that started the fire in the garage," Read 50:53▶ Robinson said. Kacur told the board the rebuild will have fire-rated ceilings, walls and doors between the garage and the house. Work at 73 Melrose Avenue cannot begin until the stormwater calculations satisfy the village engineer and the revised plans are signed; the fee argument Doran made now belongs to the Village Board of Trustees, which sets the schedule he was objecting to.