|
RCBJ-Audible (Listen For Free)
 |
Court Tosses Second Challenge To Millers Pond Development
A group of neighbors in close proximity to the Millers Pond Planned Unit Development suffered a second loss in Rockland County Supreme Court when Acting Justice Keith Cornell dismissed all five counts of their lawsuit against the Town of Ramapo. The suit sought to derail progress of the housing development and annul the Town’s land use approvals.
An earlier suit against the Town of Ramapo challenging the development was dismissed by Justice Sherri Eisenpress as “not being ripe,” meaning it was not sufficiently ready at that time for court intervention.
The neighbors were represented by attorney Susan Shapiro of the Nanuet-based Rockland Environmental Group. Shapiro has filed several court challenges against the Town of Ramapo and its land-use boards.
The Millers Pond Planned Unit Development (PUD), the first of its kind in the Ramapo’s Northeast Corner, is big. It encompasses 637 residential units with 67,000 square feet of non-residential, mixed use commercial space on 143 acres of land on the former Minisceongo Golf Course in Pomona.
The Millers Pond development plan calls for residential units to be clustered, and approximately 39 percent of the property will be preserved as open-space. The plan includes 118 buildings, made up of large manor houses, town houses, and interior roadways, pocket parks, swimming pools, and mixed-use residential and commercial buildings. Primary access will be through Pomona Road. Additional access may be through Camp Hill Road and Station Road.
In creating the zoning for PUDs, the Town sought to create walkable, less-traffic intensive, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods.
In this suit, plaintiffs claimed various procedural errors, mostly centered around whether the Town gave proper notice of its intended actions, and whether that notice adequately apprised residents within 500 feet of the proposed project of the Town’s plans for the property.
The suit also claimed that additional public hearings were necessitated by changes in the project and that the Town’s failure to hold subsequent hearings violated the neighbors’ rights.
Substantively, the plaintiffs charged that the Town should have undertaken an environmental study for the Millers Pond project, separate and distinct from the months of study and multitudes of reports it reviewed when it created the PUD zoning. Plaintiffs also claimed the Town didn’t take a sufficiently “hard look” at the project as required by New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
And, a fifth count alleged various violations of Town law, including failing to follow town procedures for approving the PUD and the project.
After affirming that at least two of the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the Town’s actions, Acting Justice Cornell rejected each of the plaintiffs’ claims, holding that there was sufficient evidence of proper notice and that residents were adequately, if not perfectly, informed of what the Town was proposing and that plaintiffs failed to show any defect in the Town’s notice.
On the substantive claims, the Court rejected plaintiffs arguments and declined to find deficiency in the Town’s environmental review or to substitute its judgment for the “well-reasoned” actions of the Town.
“This determination is predicated upon the Town having engaged in extensive and intensive analysis of the impacts of the project and necessary mitigation requirements. While the Petitioners and even a court might find fault with certain determinations, it is not for courts to second-guess the sound discretion of a town, so long as there has been a reasoned analysis. This Court’s function is to examine the review and legislative process, but not to impress its own judgment upon the town’s legitimate decision-making process.”
The Court acknowledged that, “The Project is by all accounts a major one and it will have significant impacts on the area. No one can deny that. It is no wonder that there are opponents of the Project. However, the record reveals that the Town has worked through the necessary approval steps and this Court cannot impose its own view as to the legitimate land use choices [made by the town].
The Court decision was entered on February 25th. Plaintiffs have not filed a Notice of Appeal and the project can now advance before the Town’s land use boards.
Haverstraw Police Department Dismissed In Brett Yagel’s Wrongful Arrest Suit Against Town of Haverstraw And Town Supervisor Howard Phillips
In a raucous 2023 public meeting, Haverstraw Town Supervisor Howard Phillips announced the town’s intention to settle a RLUIPA suit filed against the town by K’Hal Bnei Torah of Mount Ivy, that sought to convert a single-family home into a house of worship at 62 Riverglen Drive in Thiells. Residents, unhappy with the town’s capitulation and agreement to pay $235,000 in legal fees, spoke out, often disrupting the meeting.
At one point, like many other residents, former Pomona Mayor Brett Yagel, called out his opposition to the settlement. Phillips ordered Yagel ejected from the meeting. Haverstraw Police escorted him out, but Yagel remained in the doorway. He was arrested by Haverstraw Police, and charged with Disorderly Conduct.
The charges against Yagel were subsequently dismissed. But that is not where the story ended.
Yagel struck back by filing a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York last March against the Town of Haverstraw, Supervisor Howard Phillips, and the Town of Haverstraw Police Department. The five count complaint alleged violations of Yagel’s state and federal rights to free speech, malicious prosecution based on a personal vendetta, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful arrest. Yagel is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and asked for a jury trial.
The Court, at the request of the town defendants, dismissed the Haverstraw Police Department from the suit, saying the Police Department had no legal identity separate and apart from the Town of Haverstraw and could not be sued. The court also dismissed Yagel’s state law free speech claims, saying they were effectively subsumed in his federal claim for violation of his First Amendment rights. And, the Court dismissed the charge of intentional infliction of emotional distress, saying it was not “well plead.”
As part of Yagel’s complaint, he alleged that subsequent to his arrest, Phillips appeared on a local radio station and made false, negative comments about him, defaming and embarrassing him with regard to the nature of the arrest itself.
Defendants answered the Complaint, denying all the material allegations, raising procedural defects, and blaming Yagel for his own injuries, saying the town was justified in its actions and/or was immune from liability.
Discovery in the case is scheduled over the next few months.
Yagel is represented by Kevin Conway, Esq. The Town defendants are represented by Frank Foster, Esq. of New York City-based Morris Duffy.
