A planned medical office and ambulatory surgery building on the Westchester Medical Center campus has been stalled for several months by a lawsuit filed by Mount Pleasant town officials seeking to make the hospital”™s project subject to town zoning and review.
Westchester Medical Center officials claimed the nearly $200 million construction project, which would add a seven-story, 260,000-square foot ambulatory care pavilion directly connected to the main hospital, is not subject to town zoning regulations and does not require town approvals and permits.
An attorney for the Westchester County Health Care Corp., the public benefit corporation that operates the medical center on county-owned land in Valhalla, in a counterclaim filed in state Supreme Court in White Plains invoked a “balancing of public interests” test established by state case law when arguing that the health care project was exempt from town authority and scrutiny.
There has been no court action on the lawsuit since last August.
“As of yet, from what I understand, the case is still pending,” Mount Pleasant Town Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi said recently. “It”™s unfortunate. We would like to work with them to get some resolution.”
A longtime town councilman, Fulgenzi was appointed supervisor last October following the resignation of Joan A. Maybury, who headed the town board when the lawsuit was filed last June.
The town brought its legal challenge after Westchester County Health Care Corp. officials last May notified the town that the hospital was proceeding with the proposed project as the only agency involved in it. Hospital officials withdrew a notice they had sent two weeks earlier to the town and 15 other interested agencies or parties that stated the hospital intended to act as lead agency in the required environmental review of the proposal.
Mount Pleasant officials claimed both the town board and the town planning board were eligible to serve as lead agency.
Westchester Medical Center officials at the same time declared the project would have no significant environmental impact, without preparing the voluminous environmental impact statement required of most development projects of that size in Westchester. The hospital instead prepared a shorter environmental assessment form for the project, for which Fareri Associates LP in Greenwich has been selected as developer.
Mount Pleasant town attorney Darius P. Chafizadeh in the court complaint said the hospital was moving on the project without any “meaningful” review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act and attempting an “end-run” around the town zoning code and the state environmental review law.
Chafizadeh did not respond to requests for comment from the Business Journal.
“The town feels that because it”™s a construction project in the town of Mount Pleasant,” said Fulgenzi, “the town has a right to review the project.”
WMC attorney Jordy Rabinowitz in court papers claimed the proposed project was exempt from town authority when a “balancing of public interests” test was applied to the dispute in Valhalla. He cited a 1988 ruling by the state Court of Appeals that sets certain factors to be weighed to determine whether local zoning laws apply “where a conflict arises between governmental entities.”
The hospital attorney claimed the coordination of health care services that the ambulatory care pavilion will bring to the Valhalla campus “is of such paramount importance that it completely overshadows all other factors” when weighing public interest. He also claimed the town”™s application of local law will “deny or delay” the “important public interest served by the construction” of the facility.
A Westchester Medical Center spokesman did not respond to a request for comment at press time.
