Owners of Chappaqua Crossing recently welcomed a new office tenant to the Westchester landmark vacated by Reader”™s Digest while still locked in legal fights with town officials over long-stalled efforts to develop multifamily housing on their property.
Summit Greenfield, the Connecticut-based partnership that eight years ago paid $59 million for the 114-acre site in the town of New Castle, claims in a state Supreme Court petition that the town has blocked all “economically viable use” of the property by making residential development and the repositioning of commercial space vacated by Reader”™s Digest “economically unfeasible.” The owner last fall asked the court to reduce its assessed real property value to zero and order the town to refund all excess taxes.
That would leave the town liable for a refund that about equals Summit Greenfield”™s expenditure of more than $10 million since 2004 to plan and shepherd its mixed-use redevelopment proposal through the town approval process. The process was called a “sham” by the developer”™s attorneys in two lawsuits filed last year.
According to the New Castle town clerk”™s office, Summit Greenfield in 2011 paid about $10.59 million in town, county and school district taxes on its main Chappaqua Crossing campus and an additional $90,900 on five smaller parcels.
The town in 2011 assessed the Chappaqua Crossing property at $11,503,000, the same assessment as in 2010. Applying the state”™s property tax equalization rate for 2011, the property”™s full value amounted to $57,371,571.
Summit Greenfield also petitioned the state court in 2010 to lower its property tax assessment at Chappaqua Crossing. The partners claimed their property”™s actual full vale was $30 million that year, far below the state”™s calculated full value of about $65.92 million on the property.
“We are actively pursuing those (tax) certiorari cases now,” said Summit Greenfield spokesman Geoffrey Thompson.
The frustrated landlord last year filed lawsuits in state and federal courts seeking compensation from the town for effectively taking the property by resorting to delays and stalling tactics in the town board’s review of the mixed-use project and approval last April of a much scaled-down housing development. Attorneys claimed the town wanted to maintain a “park-like campus setting” for wealthy residential neighbors at the expense of Chappaqua Crossing”™s owners. They also claimed officials in the affluent town sought to block construction of below-market-rate housing for racial minorities, the elderly and socially disadvantaged persons.
“We’re vigorously pursuing the litigation,” Thompson said.
New Castle Supervisor Susan E. Carpenter declined to comment on the legal standoff.
Town officials and Summit Greenfield representatives were said to have met recently to resume talks. Neither side in the dispute would confirm that they met.
