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Exact Compliance with SEQRA Architectural Conditions Are Enforceable

Recently in BMG Monroe I, LLC v. Village of Monroe Zoning Board of Appeals, the Second Department reinforced strict compliance with all State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA”) visual impact findings and mitigation...more

“Grandfathering” By Issuance of Building Permits

Last month, in Cuffaro v Zoning Board of Appeals of the Village of Bellport (Index # 620453/2021), the Suffolk Supreme Court reinforced the existing and binding case law that a municipality’s issuance of a building permit to...more

NYSDEC Mining Law Appears Further Undermined by the Court of Appeals

Last month, the State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, upheld the Appellate Division’s decision annulling the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issuance of permits to Sand Land Corporation...more

Is Prior Precedent Dead in the Village of Southampton? Depends on Who You Ask.

Recently, the Suffolk County Supreme Court affirmed the Southampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) denial of a special permit to subdivide the subject property into two residential lots in the Village’s Office...more

Zoning – Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act.

Typically, zoning variances “run with the land”, and absent a specific time limitation, they continue until properly revoked. See, St. Onge v. Donovan, 71 NY2d 507, [1988]. As a result, variances cannot be made to apply only...more

Single and Separate Exemptions For Substandard Lots

Zoning codes are constantly evolving in response to perceived or real threats of overdevelopment.  Generally, a municipality may in the reasonable exercise of its police power, amend its zoning code to be more restrictive in...more

Town Of East Hampton Runs Aground At Truck Beach

Last week, in The Seaview at Amagansett, Ltd. v. Town of East Hampton Justice Paul J. Baisely, Jr. found the Town of East Hampton and several of its officials in civil and criminal contempt of the Appellate Division, Second...more

What’s So Special About Special Use Permits?

The “Special Use Permit” is a zoning term and process used by a municipality to encourage, but still regulate, land use in a zoning district by making it subject to a special review and criteria detailed in the zoning...more

Court of Appeals Affirms Appellate Division Decision Invalidating Town's Discharge Ordinance

In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeals upheld the Second Department’s decision in Hunters For Deer v Town of Smithtown that the Town may not regulate discharge setbacks for bow and arrow in a manner inconsistent with...more

Slings and Arrows At The Court Of Appeals

On January 4, 2022, the New York Court of Appeals heard oral argument in the case of Hunters For Deer, Inc. v Town of Smithtown, where conflicting provisions of a Town of Smithtown firearm ordinance and the Environmental...more

Single and Separate and the Doctrine of Merger

Generally, many property owners assume that where a lot is held in single and separate ownership they are entitled to an area variance “as of right.”  That is not entirely true.  An exception to the single and separate...more

Right-Of-Way Width – Not Set In Stone

Determining the width of a right-of-way may be more difficult than you think, even when the dimensions are specifically defined.  New York courts take the approach that elevates the right of passage over full use an easement...more

New York’s General Municipal Law §239-m “An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth A Pound of Cure”

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” -Benjamin Franklin.  This pithy logic from Benjamin Franklin to prevent fires in colonial Philadelphia should serve as a reminder to municipal boards of the strict compliance...more

Apartments Over Stores Are No More – In Oyster Bay

Surprise! During the summer of Covid-19, the Town Board of Oyster Bay passed Local Law 4 of 2020, amending Chapter 246, the Town’s zoning code, to eliminate apartments over stores or offices as a permitted principal use in...more

Truck Beach – Drawing Lines In The Sands of East Hampton

The tide seems to have turned against the Town and the Trustees of the Freeholders and Commonalty of the Town of East Hampton (Trustees) in a recent decision by the Second Department....more

Second Department Scraps North Hempstead Board of Zoning Appeals’ Denial for Lack of Evidence

In D.P.R Scrap Metal. Inc., v Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of North Hempstead, __AD3d__, [2d Dept 2020], the Appellate Division affirmed the grant of the Article 78 Petition of D.P.R. Scrap Metal Inc. (DPR) annulling...more

Oyster Bay Emergency Homeless Shelter Loses State Preemption Argument

On September 21, 2020, the Supreme Court, Nassau County in Town of Oyster Bay v. 120 Westend LLC, Supreme Court, Suffolk County, Index No. 608065/2020 granted a preliminary injunction to the Town of Oyster Bay (“Town”)...more

New York State Environmental Conservation Law Preempts Local Municipality Hunting Restrictions in New York

This week, a not-for-profit hunters advocacy group, Hunters For Deer, Inc. (HFD), won a decisive victory in the Second Department based on New York’s preemption doctrine.  In Hunters for Deer, Inc. v Town of Smithtown,...more

Long Island Sand Mining Further Undermined By State Legislature Bill

Last week, New York’s State Legislature passed a bill (A10001) seeking to amend NYS Environmental Conservation Law (“ECL”) §23-2703 in order to protect Long Island’s sole source aquifer.  ...more

Municipal Development Agreement: Found To Be Illegal Contract Zoning

In the Matter of Giora Neeman v Town of Warwick, __AD3d__, 2020 NY Slip Op 03112, the Second Department recently declared that a development agreement entered into between the respondent/defendant Black Bear Family...more

Long Island Farmland Protection and the COVID-19 pandemic

As many of us continue to cocoon inside our homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, avoiding supermarkets and anyone else for that matter, Long Island farms are seeing a resurgence in interest for locally grown produce and...more

Coronavirus & The Open Meetings Law: How To Hold Public Meetings During The COVID-19 Pandemic

The public health crisis created by COVID-19 has forced municipal officials statewide to cancel, suspend or postpone previously scheduled public hearings and meetings.  How do public bodies conduct their necessary business...more

Suffolk County Trap And Skeet Range May Be Silenced By Town Noise Ordinance

BANG! Yaphank, New York.  In November 2019, after years of protracted ligation, Hunter Sports Shooting Grounds, Inc., (“HSSG”) the operator of the Suffolk County Skeet, Trap & Sporting Clays Range (“Range”), was dealt another...more

Nonconforming Uses – Don’t Abandon Them

Legal pre-existing nonconforming uses (aka grandfathered uses) have a tenuous existence in New York.  Although protected by vested property rights in the Constitution, many local zoning ordinances seek to eliminate these...more

Pine Barrens Credits-A Matter of Interpretation

The Long Island Central Pine Barrens Protection Act (“Act”), enacted in 1993, created the Central Pine Barrens  Joint Planning & Policy Commission (“Commission”) which implements the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (“Plan”). ...more

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