Harrison Mayor Richard Dioniso
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. We publish it with their permission. Sign up for their newsletter at https://nysfocus.com/newsletter?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=website
Richard Dionisio participated in multiple votes related to a controversial rezoning effort without publicly disclosing his financial interest.
Chris Bragg · May 21, 2025
A Westchester County town’s top elected official helped advance a rezoning law that significantly increased the value of land he owned — then sold that land to a developer for nearly $3 million, reaping a substantial personal profit.
Records reviewed by New York Focus show Harrison Supervisor and Mayor Richard Dionisio participated in multiple votes related to a controversial rezoning effort without publicly disclosing his financial interest. He stepped aside from one key vote, but other actions potentially violate town ethics rules and raise conflict of interest concerns that have galvanized public opposition to the project.
Even before this revelation, a proposed housing project in the rezoned area had sparked pushback in Harrison, an affluent suburban town and village of about 30,000 that lies roughly 30 minutes northeast of the Bronx, with residents questioning the plan to build a six-story, 140-apartment tower in the middle of a floodplain.
Dionisio won election in 2021 on a platform that included transparency.
An electrician and real estate investor by trade, he bought the 15,000-square-foot property in downtown Harrison in 2012 for $500,000 through an LLC he manages with a partner; its assessed value last year was $1.09 million. The holding has in recent years been the site of a home and a business facing Oakland Avenue, a main downtown thoroughfare.
Just days before Dionisio’s first term began in 2022, a developer — The Stagg Group, a significant builder of housing in the Bronx and Westchester County — purchased more than two acres directly next to his land.
| Map: Harrison Town Planner
During the second year of Dionisio’s tenure, the Town of Harrison moved to rezone seven adjoining parcels, including the ones owned by Stagg Group and the Dionisio company.
In early 2023, Town Planner Pat Cleary was given an “assignment” to study whether to rezone the land, according to public comments by the village’s attorney. It’s not clear who gave the assignment, though the town planner works under Dionisio.
The 18 acres are primarily a business district covered with pavement, and frequent floods afflict streets and basements in the area. In the memo, Cleary found that changing the land’s use could “tangibly improve” flooding, and he recommended a rezoning allowing for multifamily development that accounted for the hazard of a floodplain.
Dionisio declined to tell New York Focus whether he’d directed Cleary to write the memo, say when he first discussed a possible land sale with the developer, or answer other questions.
According to a town board resolution, Dionisio controls the board’s agendas. Throughout 2023, the rezoning issue appeared on them multiple times.
Dionisio voted on the topic on several occasions that year, according to board meeting minutes. He voted to send the zoning proposal to the town planning board; to declare the town board the lead agency for environmental review; and to schedule a public hearing. He also later voted to adopt amendments.
Once, at an August 2023 hearing to consider the proposal, Dionisio recused himself and left without explanation. Minutes later, the first resident to speak noted that, based on her research, Dionisio owned property in the proposed rezoning.
When the town board voted 3–0 to adopt the rezoning that day, Dionisio was not present.
While he did not answer questions from New York Focus, Dionisio did email constituents in March denouncing the “inaccuracies and half-truths” being disseminated online about his actions.
He argued that Cleary is a “Renown” [sic] town planner, who had served in approximately five different administrations, and said that the entire five-person town board — not just him — had voted to refer the rezoning matter to the planning board. And he noted his recusal.
That one recusal may not have gone far enough.
The town code requires any board member who has a financial interest in a matter before the body — and takes certain actions related to it — to publicly disclose “the nature and extent of such interest” to the official record. When Dionisio recused himself from one meeting, and voted during others, he did not make that disclosure.
“Recusal means having nothing to do with the matter.”
—Steven Leventhal, attorney
The code also prohibits a town official from taking action where a person has a financial interest that might “reasonably” be deemed to create a conflict of interest.
A similar situation presented itself three years ago. A town supervisor in Putnam County held a financial interest leading to her recusal from voting on the adoption of a local law. Still, she voted on certain motions related to that law. As a result, a state appellate court ruled, the supervisor’s “conflict of interest” tainted the enactment of the law, which was overturned.
Mark Davies, the former executive director of New York City’s government ethics board, told New York Focus that “recusal” should mean that a person doesn’t participate in a matter “in any way.”
Steven Leventhal, a New York-based attorney who specializes in municipal ethics issues, agreed.
“Recusal means having nothing to do with the matter,” Leventhal said. “You can’t influence the outcome. And if you do, it’s not a legitimate recusal.”
In January, the Stagg Group bought the Oakland Avenue property from the Dionisio company for $2.9 million — more than two and a half times the assessed value.
The price was “far higher than any buyer would have paid for the property in the absence of the zoning change,” said Harrison resident Sara Benson at a town board meeting this month.
“This novel zoning change — defining an entirely new set of standards — appears to have been purpose-built to deliver an economic windfall for Mayor Dionisio,” Benson said.
Dionisio, who was seated across the hearing room at the meeting, did not respond.
Two months after purchasing Dionisio’s land, the Stagg Group submitted plans detailing its proposed 140-unit apartment tower — the first project in the newly rezoned area to come before the Harrison government.
The purchase of the supervisor’s land had been a boon to the developer’s proposal. The Stagg Group now held property adjoining a main street in downtown Harrison, one not in a floodplain. Previously, only a small side road — which was in the floodplain — had access to the potential major housing development.
The Stagg Group expected strong demand for the market-rate apartments in a region that sorely needed them, and all living space was to be at least two feet above the 500-year base flood elevation. For the project to go forward, however, the town government still needed to sign off.
Many residents argued that adding a large-scale housing development would make flooding more severe, not less. Jen Maurer, who lives on Oakland Avenue, said during a town meeting in 2023 that flooding in the area had gotten “much, much, much worse.”
Beaver Swamp Brook, directly east of the proposed development, often floods nearby streets.
“Those houses over there, they’re flooded anytime it rains,” Maurer said. “It’s going to take a situation that’s already gotten so much worse over the years and make it unbearable.”
Opposition gained traction. An online group denouncing the project and Dionisio garnered social media attention. Petitions circulated door-to-door received hundreds of signatures.
At a meeting this Thursday, the town board was expected to adopt a six-month moratorium on new downtown development. With Dionisio and two town board members up for reelection this November, the pause would have pushed this charged issue past Election Day.
Then, amid this increasing uproar, the divisive development was suddenly no more.
Last week, New York Focus sent the Stagg Group detailed questions about the rezoning and its dealings with Dionisio. The company did not respond, but its attorney sent a letter to Dionisio and the town board on Tuesday withdrawing its application for the housing project.
The letter did not address the alleged conflict of interest but said that the company had owned its downtown property for a “considerable period of time” — about a year and a half — before the rezoning vote. Dionisio recused himself from the unanimous vote, the letter noted.
Explaining the abrupt decision, the attorney wrote that the developer had “heard the concern of both the Town Board and the area residents.”
The company had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars related to the development — and Supervisor Dionisio had already cashed out.
