Yorktown sued over zoning; supervisor defends town’s actions

Yorktown Town Supervisor Matt Slater on May 11 defended actions the town has taken to apply an Overlay Zoning District to property in the hamlet of Yorktown Heights and was highly critical of an Article 78 lawsuit filed to block the new zoning.

The action was filed in State Supreme Court in Westchester County by William A. Hurst of the Albany-based law firm Young/Sommer LLC on behalf of five petitioners: Protecting Yorktown”™s Quality of Life Foundation, Inc.; Martha Dodenhoff; Susan and Steve Dolled; and Louise Fang. The named respondents are: The Town Board of the Town of Yorktown, NY; and Underhill Soundview LLC, [and Unicorn Contracting Inc.].

The petition describes Protecting Yorktown”™s Quality of Life Foundation Inc., as a not-for-profit corporation that has a diverse membership of local citizens and residents. It says that the members have “a shared interest and purpose of studying, documenting, protecting, and preserving Yorktown Height”™s existing community and neighborhood character and its important aesthetic resources and historic built environment.”

The individuals named as petitioners are all described as living close to the proposed Underhill Farms development and potentially being affected by it.

The petitioners are asking the court to annul, vacate and set aside the “Planned Design District Overlay Zones” that Yorktown created as Local Law No. 1 of 2021, and which can be applied to many properties. In addition, the court is asked to knock out the February 22, 2022, decision by the town that prequalified the proposed Underhill Farms development for the overlay zoning.

The court filing alleges that the developer would be able to “dramatically alter and develop the 13.8 (acre) Underhill Farm ”“ a known and valuable historic resource and direct contributor to existing community and neighborhood character ”“ into a sprawling, 148 residential unit mixed-use complex of buildings with 11,000 sq. ft. of new commercial/retail space.”

Slater said, “Unfortunately, this latest move follows a pattern of one step forward, two steps back that has hampered economic revitalization in our community for far too long.”

Slater characterized the court action as “extremely frustrating,” and said that the town will now have to spend time and money defending the zoning.

“That is not only a waste of resources, but it hurts economic redevelopment efforts that the vast majority of our residents want,” Slater said, expressing concern that many projects in the pipeline could be put on hold or lost during the time it takes to resolve the lawsuit. “It”™s extremely disappointing, to put it mildly.”

Among numerous allegations in the petition is that the town ignored “potentially significant environmental impacts” of the proposed Underhill Farm project. It alleges that the Town Board should have issued a Positive Declaration with respect to environmental impacts and required the preparation of a Generic Environmental Impact Statement in accordance with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). The petition alleges that the Town Board was “arbitrary and capricious” when it issued a Negative Declaration and that Yorktown failed to consider cumulative impacts of the rezoning before making the determination of significance.

Slater said that the SEQRA review conducted by the town prior to adoption was thorough and complete and followed a path set forth by the town”™s planning staff and outside planning consultants.

“We will vigorously defend ourselves and are confident that the court will confirm that we handled the process correctly, but that will take time,” Slater said. “If our residents wonder why progress on revitalizing the Heights hamlet seems to crawl at a snail”™s pace, they need look no further than tactics like this one for the answer.”

Slater said that creation of the Overlay District gives Yorktown the ability to have a boutique hotel that is proposed in the heart of the downtown, to create plans for a complete transformation of the Yorktown Green shopping center, preservation of the historic Underhill House and much more.