Tale of the Last Village Comprehensive Plan in Orange County

Too late for a historic district but just in time for a historic house donation

By Jessica Cohen and Frances Ruth Harris

The house at 93 Brookside Ave., built in 1857, was donated recently to the Village of Chester Historical Society.

The only Orange County villages without a comprehensive plan in 2015 were the Village of ­­Chester and Kiryas Joel. That was when the Chester Historical Society preservationist Leslie Smith began speaking during public comment at Chester Village Board meetings, requesting that design of a comprehensive plan begin. The plan would be necessary to designate a historic district and prevent the Village from being subsumed by malls and anything else zoning evolution allowed.

 “I wrote to the Village Board that we needed a comprehensive plan, or everything’s unprotected, subject only to zoning,” said Smith. “With a comprehensive plan, that vision can’t be violated.”

As evidence of the need, in 2015, she showed the village board an ad for property on Brookside Ave., formerly foreclosed on, now being promoted for development. Included was 99 Brookside Ave., the house occupied in the late 1800’s by W.A. Lawrence, the first Village of Chester “president,” a role later called mayor.  Also on the sale property was the house at 93 Brookside Ave, built around 1857, that Lawrence had owned.

He had also owned a cheese factory close by that no longer existed, but Smith hoped to make 93 and 99 Brookside and other formerly Lawrence-owned nearby buildings part of a historic district designated by a comprehensive plan.

In 2017, Smith wrote to the village board about proposals to buy the Lawrence  property and raze his former house  for a Verizon venture and raze another of his houses for an Advance Auto Parts store.

“Is our purpose economic development above all else? Or should our purpose be to protect quality of life and preserve our historic places for future generations?” Smith wrote. “We need a comprehensive plan! Please act before all of our historic properties are lost.”  

Mayor Tom Bell then launched a comprehensive plan committee that included village board members, the building inspector, Smith and Patricia Salerno, an energetic participant, doing public outreach and education for the plan, Smith said. Smith also had a Historic Preservation, Community Character Aesthetics and Design Guidelines subcommittee of 12 people who had collaborated with her on a previous community project. Meanwhile, Kiryas Joel completed their comprehensive plan, leaving the Village of Chester as the last village in Orange County without one.

Plan completion coincides with commercial development

By the time the Village of Chester completed their plan, in June of 2022, a group of attorneys had taken 99 Brookside Ave. But Mark Shattuck, of Westlake Development and Brookside Avenue Development, LLC, was in the process of buying the other      foreclosed Brookside Ave. properties on 1.29 acres and putting an Advance Auto store between 93 and 99 Brookside Ave. He planned to demolish 93 Brookside, but he had a second thought, knowing that Smith and the Historical Society wanted the house to remain. He donated the house to them, now worth about $250,000. It has long had business tenants on one side of the first floor and a residence on the other side and second floor.

From 1971 to 2003, 93 Brookside Ave. belonged to the Conservo family. It was foreclosed on after being bought by Gary Greenwald.

 However, when a representative from the New York State Office of Historic Preservation evaluated the group of old buildings, he declared them “lacking in context,” Smith said. “Too much commercial development around them.”

 Advance Auto had been built between 93 and 99 Brookside Ave. Across the street was a mall. What had been Lawrence’s barn now had big storefront windows.

 “It didn’t look barnish enough,” said Smith.

 Another building was a nail salon. Only Lawrence’s former house, occupied by the attorneys, Cohen, LaBarbera and Landrigan Llp, was sufficiently intact to be eligible for a historic registry.

“I saw the former Lawrence property as like an island, which was why I thought it should be preserved, but SHPO didn’t see that,” said Smith.

The historical society is now making use of 93 Brookside Ave. for month-long traveling exhibits--a women’s suffrage exhibit in February, immigration in  March, and the Erie Canal in April.