Rye Town Officials to Sell Garage to Rye Brook

This is one part of a summary of updates from the June 18 Town Board meeting that Rye Town volunteer media coordinator Dick Hubert has submitted to the media.

 In a long planned downsizing move, the Town Board voted unanimously to sell the Town garage, which it has owned since the 1930’s, to the Village of Rye Brook, for $685,000 at its June 18 Town Board meeting. The garage was last appraised at $762,000.

 Rye Brook will take ownership with the responsibility for any necessary environmental clean up of the site, thus assuming potential future clean up costs – a commitment which the Town felt was well worth the settled on price. For years the Town has been renting the garage (the property is zoned as R2F - residential 2 family) to Rye Brook for $1.00 a year in an arrangement that far precedes the Carvin administration, which took office in January 2008.

The garage has existed as a “pre-existing non-conforming use DPW facility.” Rye Brook will take the garage as is – but Rye Brook Mayor Paul Rosenberg, whose Board has approved the purchase and who expects the Village will close on the sale within two months, said at the meeting that the Village plans to demolish the building and put up a new garage in its stead.

 In commenting on the sale, Deputy Town Supervisor Bill Villanova said: “This action compliments the right sizing of Rye Town Government and eliminates a property that the Town of Rye has not occupied for years. I see no scenario where keeping this property would have helped the Town.”