NJ developer accuses Briarcliff Manor of exclusionary zoning
The village of Briarcliff Manor is fencing off the former Philips North America research center, according to a developer, to stop a proposed townhouse project on the 97-acre site.
“The village”™s fence is the type you cannot see,” Ridgewood Real Estate Partners claims. The barrier is zoning that excludes virtually all but those who can afford an “ultra-luxury, large-lot, single-family home.”
Ridgewood sued Briarcliff Manor on March 23 in Westchester Supreme Court, accusing the village of exclusionary zoning to achieve “socioeconomic, racial and age discrimination.”
Mayor Steven Vescio responded that new zoning laws were enacted in a long deliberative process to update 1960s laws.
“Our goal was to preserve a limited commercial tax base and encourage it to grow,” he said in a brief telephone interview.
Ridgewood Real Estate Partners of Florham Park, New Jersey, bought the Philips property in 2017 for $12.25 million. Philips, a Dutch company, left in 2015 when it moved operations to Massachusetts.
Ridgewood”™s intent, according to the lawsuit, is to build 180 townhouses for adults without children, recreational facilities and a 1.5-mile path ”“ connected to the Old Croton Aqueduct Park Trail ”“ that would be open to the public.
The zoning did not allow residential development. The property could be used only for offices and research facilities operated by a single tenant.
But the village was already studying alternatives, according to Ridgewood”™s petition, because corporations had already vacated several large properties in the village.
Consultants, engineers, planners and real estate experts concluded that the property could not be marketed for commercial use, according to the petition, but there was a demand for affordable housing.
In 2017, the village revised its comprehensive plan to support residential development, and officials began drafting zoning laws that would have permitted housing at the Philips site.
In 2018, the Briarcliff Preservation Committee opposed the project, the petition states, and by the fall efforts to rezone the Philips property “came to a sudden and grinding halt.”
Vescio was elected mayor, and Peter Chatzky and Edward Midgley were elected as trustees, in 2019. Ridgewood alleges that they ran on an “isolationist, anti-development platform.”
Last year, according to the complaint, the board of trustees proposed zoning amendments that would not allow residential uses on the Philips property.
The new zoning laws were approved in December.
Vescio said the new zoning applies to five properties that account for 60% of the village”™s commercial land. The new laws also offer tax incentives to encourage businesses to develop the properties.
The laws are not exclusionary, Briarcliff”™s legal counsel, Steven Barshoz added. “It”™s not crazy for the village to say we should have more liberal commercial uses and tax incentives.”
Ridgewood also claims that the village made procedural errors, such as failing to post notices about public hearings, that should nullify the new zoning laws.
Ridgewood charges the village with exclusionary zoning, reverse spot zoning, unlawful exercise of municipal authority and acting arbitrarily and capriciously.
It is asking the court to annul the new zoning laws.
Ridgewood is represented by White Plains attorneys David S. Steinmetz, Kate Roberts and Lee J. Lefkowitz.