Letter to the Editor: Opposed to the Reckson Ice Rink

 Patch readers were recently treated to a lengthy Letter to the Editor urging construction of a giant 4-rink MEGARINK Hockey complex in Rye Brook, New York. It was written by a marketing specialist in Stamford. Now why oh why would that be appearing in Rye Patch?

An explanation is in order.

The proposed four rink MEGARINK, which would include a stadium for 1,500 hockey fans, would be built in the relatively bucolic Reckson Office Center off King Street in the Village of Rye Brook. The Reckson complex is bordered to the North by the Belle Fair residential complex, to the south by the Doral Greens residential complex, and to the East by estate homes in the Town of Greenwich. Parts of King Street run entirely through the Town of Greenwich, and for a good part of its roadway King Street serves as the border between New York and Connecticut.

Connecting Doral, Reckson, Belle Fair, and a large slice of western Greenwich, King Street, a two lane suburban road, is the sole lifeline for a wide swath of Western Greenwich homeowners whose critical fire and EMS protection is provided by the Glenville branch of the Greenwich Fire Department. The same two lane suburban road is also the EMS and fire protection corridor for the Belle Fair and Doral homes, whose fire protection comes from the Rye Brook/Port Chester Fire Department on King Street, with additional support from engines based in Port Chester.

King Street also serves as a key school bus route for the Greenwich and Blind Brook (NY) School Districts, as well as private schools like Brunswick and Sacred Heart Academy.  It is also a major local access road to Westchester County Airport for all those in the area. And, of course, there are several assisted living facilities and senior citizen residences on King Street whose need for emergency services, let alone quick and easy access to Greenwich Hospital, is crucial.

King Street is, in short, jammed up right now.

So when the first inkling that Reckson, which has a permit from Rye Brook to build an additional office building on this land, but can’t find tenants for it, wanted to put in a 4 rink hockey MEGARINK instead, the local residents who would be affected by what we term “this monstrosity” went appropriately up the wall. An initial public hearing at the Rye Brook Village Hall saw not just a plethora of Greenwich residents show up to protest, but Greenwich’s Planning and Zoning Director Diane Fox came to the podium to express her deep concern about the project, and to apologize that Greenwich First Selectman Peter Tesei couldn’t show up that evening.

Needless to say, this huge Greenwich opposition to the 4-rink MEGARINK rattled the rink’s backers, and they mounted what has been, for those of us in the area, an annoying and deceptive campaign to try to persuade Greenwich residents that this MEGARINK monstrosity would be “good” for the community. For good measure they are making the same arguments in Rye Brook.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The fact that complexes of this kind are usually sited in industrial parks with easy access to interstate and multi-lane highways has been obfuscated. Nor that no residential community in the country would tolerate this kind of invasive construction next door to condominiums and  elegant Greenwich country homes.

Now, the bulk of Patch readers may not care about this threat, but believe me, the Greenwich residents (let alone the New York residents) along the King Street corridor are up in arms and need all the help they can get in fighting well financed real estate operators.

All of us  need First Selectman Peter Tesei and every Greenwich and Rye Brook homeowner with a stake in the outcome of this fight to show up at a crucial meeting of the Rye Brook Village Board on Tuesday, April 23, at 7:30PM at the Rye Brook Village Hall at  938 King Street. The five member Rye Brook Board will, at that meeting, be making a build/no-build decision on the MEGARINK.

We urge everyone in Greenwich and Rye Brook who cares about keeping residential areas residential to show up and make their voices heard.

The Rye Brook Mayor and Board needs to understand that the MEGARINK proposal is an affront not only to its Rye Brook voting citizens, but to its King Street neighbors in Greenwich.

Dick Hubert is a Doral Greens resident and a member of the King Street Coalition.