Open space on roofs of apartment buildings and municipal garages.

With just a little imagination we can substantially expand the amount of open space in urban downtown White Plains.

14 Nosband Avenue

The City of White Plains should require all new residential apartment buildings to have green and recreational roofs.  Any existing regulations that might inhibit such addition of this to existing buildings should be reviewed and reconsidered.

If there are no inhibiting regulations, the City should start a long term program to encourage decision makers for existing residential apartment buildings to make the necessary changes where possible and use all that open space for their own residents.

The Trump residential apartment condominium at the City Center has on its roof space atop the public parking garage: tennis and basketball courts and what appears to be a small golf hole.  Use Google Earth to check for yourself.

Renderings of the new residential apartment project at 60 South Broadway, the old Westchester Pavilion, suggest that the roof will contain multiple recreational items, including swimming pools.  The buildings will be 24 stories high and contain about 700 apartments.  Views from the roof should be spectacular.  Hopefully the City has plans to get the residents to the train station rather than have each of them drive.

The City has many municipal parking garages scattered around town to serve the many multiple lane roads that slash through downtown.  Obviously each garage has an open top level, which could be made into a green roof at the very least or more imaginatively into a public open space, some with recreational elements.

Yes, the City would lose parking spaces but it cannot sustain continual increase in cars driven and parked.  There can never be enough roads and never enough parking.  People need to move around in different ways.  And, no, the Bee Line is not the answer.  That county bus system is a ridiculous option for people moving around White Plains.  The City needs to step up its efforts on this.

Downtown White Plains will not magically have any real increase in ground level open space at this late stage of its irregular development.  It can, however, start to transform its abundant top level space from something forgotten into something to remember.