Montefiore Medical Center has petitioned Westchester Supreme Court to reverse Tarrytown officials who denied a proposal to build a research laboratory that would produce custom-made drugs for patients.
Montefiore’s MMC Corporation claims that the village’s zoning board of appeals erred when it ruled on Oct. 13 that plans to renovate a former General Foods lab did not qualify as a research lab.
The application complies with the zoning code, Montefiore maintains in the Nov. 9 petition. “The facility is exclusively for research of pharmaceutical projects studied for specific patient needs.”
But the zoning board has expressed skepticism about the medical center’s claims.
“While the board finds this use to be a favorable and beneficial use to the applicants, its patients and the community,” the denial resolution states, the board “is bound by what is permitted by the code. And the code does not permit this use.”
Montefiore bought the General Foods property on Broadway, between Interstate 278 and the Lyndhurst Mansion, for $33 million in 2013. The property has several structures with 2.4 million square feet of space. The plans call for renovating Building D, where Kraft Foods and then General Foods had operated a research lab and packaging facility since 1933.
Montefiore wants to prepare medicines in the strengths and dosages that match patients’ weights and conditions, to combat diseases such AIDS, cancer, diabetes, infections, and multiple sclerosis.
Last year, Montefiore applied for a permit to build a pharmacy distribution center. The building department and zoning board ruled that the proposed use was not permitted under the zoning code.
The code defines a research lab as a facility devoted exclusively to the pursuit of science or technology or experimentation, and does not allow commercial manufacturing.
This year, Montefiore submitted a new application depicting plans for a research facility. Nothing would be manufactured, displayed or sold at the site, according to the petition. Pharmaceuticals and materials would be brought to the facility, remixed in small batches, and repackaged.
Each day five trucks would pick up the medicines and take them to Montefiore’s Bronx campus to be redistributed to hospitals.
Once again, the building department and zoning board rejected the application, ruling that it was essentially the same as the original and was not permitted.
Mount Vernon attorney Jack A. Addesso argues in Montefiore’s petition that the zoning board erred in its belief that the new application was substantially the same.
The new plans call for a research facility that complies with the zoning code, the petition states. No one, Montefiore points out, opposed or objected to the plans at the zoning board meetings and public hearings.
The zoning board noted that part of its duty is assessing an applicant’s credibility.
Throughout the process, Montefiore’s representations “varied considerably,” the board found, and were inconsistent.
“The lack of a clear and consistent proposal makes it challenging,” the board ruled, in assessing how the property will be used.
“It is not a research laboratory, the board concluded, “but a facility for the manufacturing of medication for sale and distribution,” and that is not permitted under the zoning code.
The board warned Montefiore that it will not consider another application unless the plans change materially.
