Lauretta Drive residents, Fran Raucci and Madeline Labriola, made good on their promise to take action against the Lloyd Town Board for their approval of the proposed Highland Square project by hiring attorney David Gordon who filed an Article 78 lawsuit against the town last Friday.

Gordon contends the Planned Unit Development [PUD] zone change for Highland Square project is severely flawed in the way it was done. In 2009 the Town Board changed the acreage requirements of the PUD from 70 acres down to 20 acres, which allowed this project to proceed.

Gordon pointed out that the law the Town Board passed in March 2010 setting forth the PUD, lists the Highland Square project on Vineyard Avenue and not at its correct location on Route 299.

“This is a critical error because this is the identification of the property for the PUD,” he said. “The specification of the property is ambiguous. [When] you’re trying to put a PUD on ambiguous property, you’ve got rezoning that doesn’t work.”

In his petition Gordon wrote that Section 100-23 of the town zoning code governs PUDs.

“Among other standards the code specifies that the portion of the site area devoted to non-residential or non-recreational uses and their accessory uses shall not exceed 50% of the gross area of any Planned Unit Development District.” [Town Code § 100-23 J (A)].
He said the commercial lots B and C total 12 acres of the 22.19 acre parcel and thus exceeds the allowed threshold of a PUD. Gordon said the commercial portion of lot A pushes the total commercial activity on the site even higher.

“By themselves, lots B and C are more than 50 percent of the site and lot A is not entirely residential,” he said. “Lot A is a large assisted living facility, but it’s also got associated medical offices. So if you look at the [entire] subdivision, it is predominantly non-residential.”

Gordon said this project may also have issues with meeting the requirements of the NYS Coastal Zone law and the Town Waterfront Revitalization Plan due to its proximity to the Hudson River. A review of this was never done by the developer.

Gordon said the town also violated the visual impact section outlined in the State Environmental Quality Review [SEQR] act by assuming the residents on nearby Lauretta Drive would not see the project because their view would be blocked by trees. Gordon stated that is not true during a good portion of the year when leaves are off the trees.

“Part of Fran’s [Raucci’s] yard has no trees and she will be able to see the assisted living center, front and center,” he said.

Gordon also wrote that building heights allowed in the property’s original DB zoning, absent the PUD law, is 35 feet and the proposed assisted living center will be 77 feet, from grade to the top of the cupola. Gordon contends the Town Board failed to review the visual impacts of this or any other building proposed for this site, upon the homeowners of Lauretta Drive.
In the lawsuit Gordon is seeking judgment to void the Town Board’s environmental FEIS and SEQR findings, void the law establishing the PUD and stop the developer of Highland Square from proceeding with any construction.

In preparing his case, Gordon said he was prevented easy access to certain portions of the Draft and Final Environmental Impact Statements [DEIS/FEIS] that the Town Board did on the project. Gordon pointed out that these documents are not subject to the Freedom of Information Law [FOIL] and must be made readily available to the public upon request under the state’s SEQR regulations [617-12 (b) (3)]. Gordon further pointed out that Chapter 23 Article 1 sec. 2 in the Town Code states that “records shall be made available for inspection at the office of the town officer or employee charged with the custody and keeping thereof.” He contends this provision of the town’s own code permits the public to go to the department where the records are housed, receive the records they request and not have to go through the town clerk.

As uncertainty surrounded Gordon’s request for a map attached to the FEIS, Supervisor Ray Costantino was brought into the clerk’s office and he informed Gordon that the document he was looking for was available on the Internet and that the town did not have to provide him with a physical copy. Time constraints prevented Gordon from waiting at Town Hall while a large file was being downloaded and when he tried to access it at his office, an error message came up.

“As far as I’m concerned the supervisor prevented me from getting that document,” Gordon said. “I explained the rule to Ray [Costantino] and told him that the map was available in the file upstairs but instead he made me download it in the clerk’s office and it never did. I couldn’t download it in my office either. I spent over 45 minutes in Town Hall sorting through their public access process and never got the map. We are going to amend the petition in part to add a SEQR claim that they [documents] were not available to me under SEQR. It was supposed to be readily available and they [town] didn’t do so.”

By Mark Reynolds
mreynolds@tcnewspapers.com