Village of Port Chester

VILLAGE OF PORT CHESTER REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR CONSULTING SERVICES FOR CITY STATUS FEASIBILITY INITIATIVE RFP # 2019-03 City Status Committee Release Date: May 17, 2019 Submission Deadline: June 21, 2019 3:00 P.M._ 1 PUBLIC NOTICE REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR CONSULTING SERVICES FOR CITY STATUS FEASIBILITY INITIATIVE RFP # 2019-03 VILLAGE OF PORT CHESTER WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that proposals will be received by the Village of Port Chester (hereafter "Village") until 3:00 p.m. local time on June 21, 2019, at the Office of the Village Clerk, 222 Grace Church Street, Port Chester, New York for the following: CONSULTING SERVICES FOR CITY STATUS FEASIBILITY INITIATIVE No proposals will be received or considered after the time stated above. A copy of the Request for Proposals ("RFP") may be downloaded from the Village's website starting on May 17, 2019: http://www.portchesterny.com/bids All proposals must be submitted in a sealed envelope bearing the name and address of the bidder and clearly marked "RFP # 2019-03 REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR CONSULTING SERVICES FOR CITY STATUS FEASIBILITY INITIATIVE". The Village of Port Chester reserves the right to accept or reject any or all proposals and to waive any informalities at their discretion, and to award contracts in a manner deemed to be in the best interest of the Village of Port Chester even if such award is to other than the lowest bidder. The Village will NOT be responsible for any cost or losses incurred by any respondent at any time in preparing and submitting a proposal in response to this RFP. It is intended that, whenever possible, positive recommendations will be presented to the Board of Trustees so that an award can be made at the next scheduled meeting. Your cooperation in adhering to the procedures outlined above and contained within the specifications would be greatly appreciated. ls/Christopher D. Steers Christopher D. Steers Village Manager Village of Port Chester Dated: May 17, 2019 Table of Contents I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3 II. Scope of Services ...................................................................................................................... 7 III. Submittal Requirements ............................................................................................................ 9 IV. Evaluation ............................................................................................................................... I 0 V. Administrative Information; Additional Submittal Requirements ......................................... 11 VI. Appendices .............................................................................................................................. 13 2 I. INTRODUCTION The Village of Port Chester ("Village") is located in the southeastern comer of Westchester County along the Byram River and within one mile of the Long Island Sound. The Village has a total land area of 2.4 square miles and is home to approximately 29,000 residents, 60% of which are Latino or Spanish-speaking. The Village hereby requests proposals from qualified professionals to be retained as a consultant for the purpose of investigating the feasibility of the Village of Port Chester changing its form of government to a city. This Request for Proposals ("RFP") describes the project, the required scope of services, the consultant selection process, and the minimum information that must be included in a proposal. Background Port Chester is well situated, accessible to the rest of Westchester County, New York City and the entire metropolitan region. Adjacent municipalities include the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, located to the northeast across the Byram River, the village of Rye Brook to the north and west, and the City of Rye to the south. Incorporated as a village in 1868 from the Town of Rye by the State Legislature, Port Chester is generally governed by a charter issued by special act. In 1975, the Village changed its form of government to facilitate the retention of a professional manager as chief administrative officer (with some chief executive functions) to run day-to-day operations subject to policy set by a seven member elected Board of Trustees. The Mayor is an equal voting member of the Board. The Village is located within the Town of Rye which includes the Village of Rye Brook and the non-contiguous, unincorporated area of Rye Neck. The Town provides tax assessment and collection functions for the villages and the Rye Neck area. Port Chester is one of the densest municipalities (11,809 persons per square mile) in the county, served by commuter rail service by the MTA's Metro North Railroad New Haven line, multiple local and regional bus routes, and an urban fabric that is naturally scaled and catered to walking and biking. Principal arterials serving Port Chester include the New England Thruway (Interstate 95), the Cross Westchester Expressway (Interstate 287) and U.S. Route 1 (Boston Post Road). As the Village continues to establish itself into the 21st century, its greatest assets are its downtown retail and restaurant district, waterfront and location along the Byram River to the harbor on Long Island Sound, close proximity to New York City, its diverse population, and its surging retail economy. Port Chester is popularly known as the restaurant and entertainment capital of Westchester County. However, the Village's surging retail sector should be viewed more broadly as a dynamic and powerful engine in the County economy. By any Metric, a City The Village of Port Chester is a city in almost every sense of the word. It has a $45 million operating budget (not including an $11 million capital budget), a staff of 163 full-time and 60 part time employees, a police department with a current staffing level of 62 sworn members, a fire 3 department consisting of seven incorporated volunteer fire companies with over 328 volunteers serving not only Port Chester but the neighboring village of Rye Brook on a contract basis, and a justice court with three judges and one of the highest dockets and fines/forfeitures in New York State. The Village has an active industrial development agency and local development corporation to promote economic development. It is in the midst of an economic rebirth with many new high end residential developments and has adopted the necessary zoning changes to the redevelopment of the former United Hospital property for mixed residential/commercial use, one of the largest properties in the County on the market for redevelopment. More broadly, the Board of Trustees is considering an expert-recommended new Zoning Regulation that would establish form-based code throughout the Village. Last codified in 1975, the new Zoning Regulation would emphasize "best practices" in urban design, foster predictable built-results and facilitate a high quality public realm. To confirm the Village's close resemblance to a city, reference is made to the Peer City Identification Tool (PCIT). This tool was developed by the Community Development and Policy Studies division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. It uses city-level indicators from the American Community Survey and historical decennial census records to analyze groups of similar cities across the United States. Four cities in Westchester County are profiled: Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, White Plains and Yonkers. The tables below compare these cities with Port Chester: Comnarison of Selected Economic Measures % Median Change in Median % Owner Households Monthly Median Family Gini Index of Westchester Family Occupied that are rent- Housing Household Income Economic Countv Citv Income Housini, burdened Costs Income since 2000 Ineaualitv Mount Vernon $65,578 39.76% 58.75% $1,380 $51,886 -9.38% 0.3840 New Rochelle $95,447 49.66% 55.51% $1,672 $73,178 -10.09% 0.3840 Port Chester $61,944 43.50% 56.50% $1,626 $56,524 -15.12% 0.4745 White Plains $104,383 52.12% 55.08% $1,737 $82,460 -0.54% 0.3657 Yonkers $75,111 47.59% 55.33% $1,365 $61,272 -3.35% 0.3337 Comoarison of Selected Pooulation Measures Westchester Total Foreign Hispanic-White Population Change Countv Citv Ponulation White Born Povertv Dissimilarity Index since 2000 Mount Vernon 68,217 16.02% 34.39% 13.57% 40.841 -0.24% New Rochelle 79,299 46.49% 28.75% 7.82% 48.446 9.86% Port Chester 29,417 28.6% 45.6% 12.9% 46.700 5.56% White Plains 57,925 44.62% 32.97% 7.88% 41.826 9.13% Yonkers 199,725 40.04% 30.91% 13.26% 51.258 1.86% 4 Historical Efforts to Become a City May Now be Realized The Village of Port Chester's quest to become a city is not new. In 1931, then Governor Franklin Roosevelt vetoed a bill that would have made Port Chester a city. Since that time, the Village has commissioned experts to study the issue. In 1970, the Village obtained a study from the State University ofNew York. (Pettengill, Robert S. On Changing Port Chester from a Village to a City: Analysis and Recommendations: State University of New York at Albany, October 12, 1970). In 1981, the Village secured the first of two studies from Pace University. (An Examination & Study of Forms of Government for the Village of Port Chester, Pace University Institute for Sub/Urban Governance, January, 1981). In 1996, the second study was provided to the Village. (Edwin G. Michaelian Institute for Public Policy and Management of the Dyson College, An Examination of the Service, Legal, Fiscal and Structural Impacts of the

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