Citizens for St. Patrick's v. City of Watervliet City Council

• Decision Date: 12 March 2015
• Docket Number: 519271
• Parties: CITIZENS FOR ST. PATRICK'S et al., Appellants, v. CITY OF WATERVLIET CITY COUNCIL et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

126 A.D.3d 1159
5 N.Y.S.3d 582
2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 02034

CITIZENS FOR ST. PATRICK'S et al., Appellants
v.
CITY OF WATERVLIET CITY COUNCIL et al., Respondents.

519271

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York.

March 12, 2015.

5 N.Y.S.3d 583

McMahon, Kublick & Smith, P.C., Syracuse (Rosemary Nichols, Watervliet, of counsel), for appellants.

Goldman Attorneys, PLLC, Albany (Paul J. Goldman of counsel), for City of Watervliet City Council, respondent.

Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, LLP, Albany (Robert L. Sweeney of counsel), for Nigro Companies, Inc. and another, respondents.

Before: LAHTINEN, J.P., GARRY, ROSE and DEVINE, JJ.

Opinion

ROSE, J.

126 A.D.3d 1159

Appeal from an order of the Supreme Court (O'Connor, J.), entered July 22, 2013 in Albany County, which granted defendants' motions for summary judgment dismissing the amended complaint.

In 2012, defendant PCP Watervliet, LLC, a subsidiary of defendant Nigro Companies (hereinafter collectively referred to as Nigro), purchased a parcel of property in the City of Watervliet, Albany County from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany County. The parcel contained a church, school and rectory that were no longer in use and, as part of its plan to demolish the buildings and replace them with a 40,000 square-foot grocery store and two additional retail commercial buildings, Nigro petitioned defendant City of Watervliet City Council to rezone the parcel from residential to commercial. After a series of public meetings and an environmental review pursuant to the State Environmental Quality Review Act (see ECL art. 8 [hereinafter SEQRA] ), the City issued a negative declaration and amended its zoning map as requested. The individual plaintiffs, who reside in the City, and plaintiff Citizens for St. Patrick's, an unincorporated advocacy group opposed to the

5 N.Y.S.3d 584

demolition of the church buildings, commenced this action challenging the negative declaration and rezoning of the property by alleging that the City failed to comply with SEQRA requirements, engaged in illegal spot zoning and violated the Open Meetings Law. Supreme Court denied plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction in March 2013 and thereafter granted motions by the City and Nigro for summary judgment dismissing the action on the ground that none of the plaintiffs have standing. Eight of the individual plaintiffs and Citizens for St.

126 A.D.3d 1160

Patrick's (hereinafter collectively referred to as plaintiffs) appeal.¹

The burden is on plaintiffs to establish the threshold determination of standing (see Matter of Association for a Better Long Is., Inc. v. New York State Dept. of Envtl. Conservation, 23 N.Y.3d 1, 6, 988 N.Y.S.2d 115, 11 N.E.3d 188 [2014] ). In our view, plaintiffs Carol Falaro and Patrick Falaro have presumptively established their standing to challenge the City's determinations because their residence is located immediately across the street from Nigro's parcel and, accordingly, they will suffer direct harm different from the general public, even without allegations of individual harm (see Matter of Sun–Brite Car Wash v. Board of Zoning & Appeals of Town of N. Hempstead, 69 N.Y.2d 406, 413–414, 515 N.Y.S.2d 418, 508 N.E.2d 130 [1987] ; Matter of Cade v. Stapf, 91 A.D.3d 1229, 1230, 937 N.Y.S.2d 673 [2012] ; Matter of Center Sq. Assn., Inc. v. City of Albany Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 9 A.D.3d 651,...