Hampshire Developers Sue Mamaroneck Village, Planning Board

MAMARONECK, NY — The Village of Mamaroneck planning board is being sued by a developer for its refusal to complete the environmental review of a proposed residential development. Lawyers for The Residences at Hampshire contend that the Village of Mamaroneck planning board violated clear statutory deadlines to file a final environmental impact statement and issue findings under the state Environmental Quality Review Act for the development.

David Cooper, of Zarin & Steinmetz, the law firm representing Hampshire, said the planning board closed the draft environmental impact statement in May 2018.

He said the board should have filed the final environmental impact statement within 45 days and then should have issued a written findings statement within 30 days of filing the final statement.

The board, Cooper said, has been reviewing a proposed FEIS since Oct. 10, 2018, and the board has convened 13 meetings over the last 14 months to review the document.

Cooper said that "the straw that broke the camel's back" happened at the planning board's Nov. 13 meeting at which Hampshire's legal team waited 2-1/2 hours only to be told that the board wasn't prepared to act on the proposed FEIS because board members said they hadn't read it.

"There's no urgency for them to complete the process," Cooper said.

"There is nothing unique about this application that would justify 13 work sessions over a 14-month period," he said.

When asked for statement about the lawsuit, Mamaroneck Mayor Thomas A. Murphy said in an email to Patch he fully supports the planning board and village staff "who have been giving the largest development project in village history the close and careful look it deserves."

He called the lawsuit "legal posturing of an outside developer more intent on publicity and scare tactics" than fully cooperating with the deliberative process.

"Mamaroneck, as a community, is not easily intimidated by legal bullying tactics," Murphy said.

Cooper said the board review of the Hampshire application has dragged on for more than four years — a process, he said, that typically takes 18 months from start to finish.

Hampshire's developers had originally proposed in 2014 that the village rezone the Hampshire Country Club property to allow for a condominium development on 2 acres.

That, the developers said, would have preserved 98 percent of the property's 116 acres as open space.

The current proposal is an alternative development that would not require any rezoning by the village: 61 carriage homes and 44 luxury colonial-style homes on the golf course, which would be redesigned into a nine-hole course.

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