Mount Pleasant: If Westchester University ever gets built, it is hard to imagine that town residents will show up at football games, proudly singing the school fight song.
Dozens of them sang a different kind of fight song during a raucous town hall hearing on Dec. 6, making it clear that they would prefer it if the university never moves beyond the planning stage.
The Legion of Christ, an international order of Roman Catholic priests, is proposing to build a coeducational liberal arts university for about 3,000 students. The priests, also known as the Legionaries, submitted a draft environmental impact statement to the town planning board in September.
In 1996, the Legionaries bought 262 acres near Columbus Avenue in the hamlet of Thornwood from I.B.M., and it uses 97 acres for a conference center to train priests. In 2003, the order announced plans to use 165 acres to build a university, with academic buildings and dormitories, 24 town houses for faculty and staff, 755 parking spaces and a football field with bleacher seating for 250.
The announcement shocked town officials, but then, relations between the Legionaries and Mount Pleasant have never been warm. Shortly after buying the land, the order sought a religious tax exemption for the conference center, but the town said it was zoned for business only and rejected it. In June 2006, the state's highest court ruled against the town, granting the order's request.
The site had been generating more than $1 million a year in real estate taxes, and residents fear that the loss of revenue will be compounded if the university is also exempt from taxes.
About a hundred residents braved subfreezing temperatures to attend this month's town hall meeting, packing the benches in the hearing room (much as they did at a hearing on Oct. 15) to let the Legionaries and town officials know their concerns.
The chairman of the planning board, Michael McLaughlin, reminded the audience that nothing would be decided at the meeting and that more would be held. "The hearings could go on for months," he said. "They will go on for months."
(The town supervisor, Robert F. Meehan, in an interview from his office, said that the order had not applied for accreditation yet with the state education department, which he said could take years to complete.)
Fourteen residents voiced concerns over the college at the meeting. No one spoke in favor of it.
Concerns included the college's impact on traffic, the environment and public safety (a men's dormitory is planned close to Columbus Elementary School).
One resident, Joe Hart, brandished a book, "Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II" (Free Press, 2004), by Jason Berry and Gerald A. Renner, urging residents to read what it says about the order, which was founded in Mexico and claims about 700 priests and 2,500 seminarians in more than 20 countries. The book investigates longstanding accusations that the order's founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, molested teenage students for decades. Father Maciel, who has denied the accusations, was censured by the Vatican last year.
Mary Hegarty a member of the town's Conservation Advisory Committee, said she was worried that building on the planned site would harm watershed lands and the source of the Bronx River.
For the most part, residents of the hamlets of Thornwood, Valhalla and Hawthorne expressed anxiety that their way of life would be threatened by having 3,000 college students move into the quiet community.
"We don't need it here," said Natalie Maddalena, who argued that if the university were built, she would not be able to give her house away. "We don't need the Legionaries of Christ, with due respect to the Lord," she said.
Residents also had reservations about the preliminary environmental impact statement presented by the order (a final impact statement is to come).
"The statement says the university would have no appreciable impact on traffic, police, etc.," said Joe Martin of Valhalla. "I find that difficult to believe."
Mr. McLaughlin said the next hearing would be in January.
Representing the Legionaries at the meeting, Nat Parish, of Parish Weiner & Maffia, the planning consultants who prepared the environmental impact statement, said the order was committed to building the university. "The Legion has to follow the law, as any other developer has to, and the board will make a decision," he said.
Mr. Parish said construction was scheduled to begin in 2009.
In a phone interview, a spokesman for the Legionaries, Jim Fair, said the university would be "a great asset to the community."
Mr. Meehan, the town supervisor, said there were "legitimate concerns" about the university, among them the 45 acres on the Legionaries' land that he says are New York City watershed. He said the ideal scenario would be for the order to sell the property to the city for conservation purposes.
"It would remain undeveloped," Mr. Meehan said, "and they'd pay taxes."
