An Article 78 lawsuit has been filed in State Supreme Court in Westchester to throw out the Mount Vernon City Council’s adoption of a new Comprehensive Plan for the city. The plan was adopted on Nov. 25 of last year and was titled “Envision Mount Vernon.”
The complaint was filed by Mount Vernon residents Kareen Bell, John Gasior, Steven Vazquez and Vince Ferrandino. Ferrandino is a professional planner who cites more than 40 years of experience in the field including serving as a former planning commissioner for the City of Mount Vernon.
The plaintiffs allege that the City Council failed to provide a full opportunity for citizen participation in preparation of the plan. They say that although the City Council conducted public hearings, the hearings were meaningless because of the city’s “lack of transparency, its failure to make the full proposed City Plan and supporting documentation available to the public in advance of the hearings, and the uncertainty surrounding what policies were actually being proposed for adoption.”
The plaintiffs allege that while the plan was being presented for public comment the city’s Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard publicly disavowed provisions contained in the very plan being presented to the public for comment.
The lawsuit points to a section of the plan that discussed allowing denser types of housing in areas historically characterized by single-family homes. It claims that while the mayor at first expressed opposition to eliminating single-family housing from the city she subsequently expressed support for the plan’s allowing duplexes and triplexes.
“Meaningful public participation is impossible when the municipality itself disavows the proposal under review, leaving residents without a clear understanding of the policies being considered for adoption,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also claims that the City Council’s adoption of the Comprehensive Plan must be annulled because the council failed to take a “hard look” at environmental aspects as required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
“The City Plan contains multiple mandatory directives — including parking, height, bulk, and density requirements that will govern future zoning and site-specific development decisions,” the lawsuit said. “Respondent City Council expressly declined to evaluate the environmental impacts of these directives.”
The plaintiffs argue that while the city may claim that the Comprehensive Plan is aspirational in nature the city already has relied on the plan when making zoning decisions.
The plaintiffs claim that they and the other residents of Mount Vernon were deprived “of a meaningful opportunity to review, understand, and comment upon the proposed City Plan. The hearings therefore failed to provide the ‘full opportunity for citizen participation in the preparation of’ the comprehensive plan required by General City Law § 28-a(7).”
