The owners of Hampshire Country Club are suing the village of Mamaroneck, accusing elected officials of blocking attempts to develop condominiums at the 121-acre harbor-front property on the Long Island Sound.
Hampshire Recreation L.L.C. is seeking $55 million in damages, according to a complaint filed Monday in state Supreme Court by Hampshire”™s attorneys, Michael D. Zarin and David J. Cooper of the White Plains firm Zarin & Steinmetz.
The owners, who filed two separate condominium plans with the village, said Mamaroneck”™s board of trustees “blunted” any discussion of the plans and held illegal executive sessions on the proposals behind closed doors in an effort to drive down the value of the club”™s property so that Mamaroneck could purchase it for itself.
Thomas Nappi, senior project manager for Hampshire, said the plans would have shored up the fiscal health of the club and generated new property taxes for the village and local public school district.
“Unfortunately, the Village Board has allowed itself to be improperly influenced by a small group of club neighbors, who have threatened a protracted and expensive lawsuit if the board even considered our plans,” Nappi said. “It seems to us that the Village Board would rather destroy the club, lose valuable open space and risk millions of dollars in legal damages than allow minimal residential development.”
The relationship between the village and the club has been strained since new owners purchased the 86-year-old club in 2010. Many expected residential development proposals from the new club owners, who bought the distressed property for $12.1 million. With rumors of condo developments in the air, the village and town of Mamaroneck combined to put in a $10.1 million bid on the property before ownership changed hands.
Since then, residents opposing development have also accused the club of illegally hosting nonmember events on its premises. Hampshire representatives claim Mamaroneck has paid $6.25 million in costs in fines for other, unrelated court zoning decisions and spent more than $60,000 this year alone fighting the club on zoning issues.
Hampshire sought to rezone several acres of its property to allow for the construction of 121 luxury condominiums under a plan that would have kept the 18-hole golf course in operation. That project would have built a 290,000-square-foot condo cluster and 200-space underground garage expanding upon the existing 35,000-square-foot club house. The club would give up development rights for 100 acres of the property as part of the deal.
That proposal was knocked down by the village at its Feb. 10 meeting, amid some opposition from members of the community who said the project would increase traffic in the surrounding coastal neighborhoods, add students to the public school district and come with environmental considerations in an area prone to flooding.
The Mamaroneck Coastal Environmental Coalition, a civic group that formed in opposition to the proposal, criticized the club”™s plan as well as a “Plan B,” which was to subdivide the golf course into 106 single-family homes sized between 6,000 and 7,000 square feet. That plan would not require any rezoning.
“We believe the subdivision plan is designed to threaten the board and community so Hampshire can move ahead with the much more lucrative condo development,” Celia Felsher, the coalition”™s president, told the board in February. “The board should not be taken in by the threat.”
Instead of the single-family alternative, though, Hampshire submitted a scaled-down condominium plan, which would have reduced the number of condo units to 97. The board of trustees did not look favorably on that plan either.
The condominium plan could generate as much as $2 million per year, more than half of which would go to the Mamaroneck Union Free School District. The plan would maintain 125 jobs, according to the club, and the ownership would pay for maintenance of roadways, sewers and snow removal at the development, which would be called The Residences at Hampshire.
Mamaroneck Mayor Norman Rosenblum said on Wednesday the village had not yet been served or seen the content of the complaint. Asked about the proposed condo plans, the mayor said the board decided not to consider the rezoning, which was in its legal authority.
“I think the village so far has acted prudently and within the guidelines of our legal counsel,” he said.
