Village Settlement Sparks Concerns Over Risks to Neighbors
- Mamaroneck Observer
- Apr 15
- 6 min read
by Meg Yergin -
This is a story of tens of thousands of Village taxpayer dollars spent on legal fees, neighbors fighting to protect their property rights, and the lack of enforcement of subdivision requirements intended to protect Village residents.
Legal Settlement
Late last year, the Board of Trustees voted to settle protracted and expensive litigation with the developer AVC Properties (AVC). Included in this agreement are two separate AVC subdivision projects.
One subdivision was built on Grove Street. The other - on Henry Avenue - is yet to be developed. The Village’s handling of each of these projects has raised similar concerns over lack of enforcement of conditions imposed by the Planning Board (PB) to protect neighbors' properties.
Grove Street Subdivision
The Grove Street subdivision was approved by the Planning Board (PB) in May 2015 with 33 required conditions for the development of the project. Soon afterwards, AVC began building single-family homes on the new lots.
In 2017, a group of neighbors appealed the project’s building permits to the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) citing issues with the development. They argued that then-Building Inspector Dan Gray failed to provide proper oversight to ensure construction followed the approved plans.
The ZBA ruled in favor of the neighbors on several counts and in May 2018 gave AVC a 120-day deadline to bring the development into compliance with the approved plans or else the Village would rescind the Certificates of Occupancy (CO) for the new homes.
Grove Street Litigation
Rather than comply with the ZBA’s ruling, AVC sued the neighbors, the Building Inspector and the ZBA in April 2019.
After the developer failed to take the required corrective action within the 120-day period, the Village revoked the COs for the new homes and then sued AVC in July 2019 for allowing families to continue to live in these houses. Years of litigation followed along with mounting fines and legal fees.
Village Settles with Developer
Finally late last year, the Board of Trustees approved a settlement with AVC regarding the Grove Street case. See HERE. But the settlement did more than resolve the Grove Street dispute. It also revived the developer’s long-dormant subdivision project on Henry Avenue and gave AVC the green light to proceed with either developing or selling the newly created lots.
Henry Ave Project Included in Settlement
The settlement states that AVC agreed to make a payment of $104,000 and references outstanding recreation and escrow fees regarding the Henry Avenue subdivision review and approval. (It’s not clear why the Village allowed the hearings to move forward when the developer failed to keep up with the required escrow fees.)
The Village also agreed that the PB Chair would sign the plat – a map indicating the newly created lots - upon the execution of the settlement agreement. An officially signed plat must be recorded with the county to legalize a subdivision.
It seems that in an effort to settle old lawsuits, the Village may have overlooked the PB's extensive work in reviewing the Henry Avenue subdivision which resulted in 19 conditions designed to protect neighboring properties and may not have thoroughly understood the reason why the plat was not signed in 2019.
Conditions Designed to Protect the Neighborhood
The reason the PB Chair did not sign the subdivision plat when the PB voted on the resolution in 2019 was due to the multiple conditions in the resolution that the developer is required to satisfy before it can be legally executed.
Among those original conditions, the PB resolution requires AVC to record a Declaration in the County Clerk's office and provide bonds and other securities guaranteeing the performance and maintenance of a coordinated stormwater management system across the site. This system is intended to mitigate stormwater runoff onto neighboring properties. It includes the installation of an underdrain connecting all three lots to a new catch basin.
Other conditions in the PB’s resolution include protection against damage from rock blasting and the spacing of the homes to align with the neighborhood’s character.
Although the settlement agreement states that “AVC provided documentation and the Village confirmed that… AVC satisfied all conditions of approval other than conditions related to escrow fees and recreation fees…,” proof of AVC’s compliance with those requirements is not provided. A Declaration recorded by AVC Properties was not found in a search of Westchester County's online property records database. See HERE.
Village Relied on Developer for Documentation
It’s not clear if the Village was in receipt of the PB’s January 2019 resolution and was aware of all the required conditions before the plat was signed. At the time of publishing this article, the Village has not been able to provide a signed copy of the final resolution in response to residents' requests.
In addition, he settlement agreement incorrectly refers to “Henry Street” rather than Henry Avenue, increasing concerns regarding the Village’s due diligence.
According to the settlement, AVC provided the original plat that it submitted with its subdivision application for the PB chair to sign. The settlement agreement does not include verification that this copy of the plat matches the final version of the plat approved by the PB in 2019.
Henry Avenue Residents Concerned
Henry Avenue residents were surprised to learn a subdivision plat had been signed for the Henry Avenue parcel. Many had spent countless hours participating in public hearings to advocate for protections against stormwater runoff and other impacts during public hearings from 2016 - 2019.
The PB spent those three years reviewing the project and carefully crafting the coordinated stormwater management system across the multiple properties as part of the conditions. See HERE for a draft of the PB’s January 2019 resolution. Now that the plat has been signed, oversight of these conditions is unclear.
After learning about the settlement, two Henry Avenue residents sent an email to the Board of Trustees describing why the Planning Board review took three years:
“The process was lengthy because the Planning Board had serious environmental concerns… Residents in our neighborhood worked hard to mitigate the potential damage… We expect the Village to follow all applicable laws and regulations.” See HERE.
Enforcement Questions
With the plat signed and new lots created, responsibility for implementing the stormwater system across all three lots is uncertain. Since the lots can now be sold individually, practical enforcement questions include:
Ø If AVC has not provided the bonds and declarations required, what recourse will the Village have to ensure improvements are constructed correctly by future property owners?
Ø How will the Village ensure a multi-lot stormwater system is built if the lots are developed at different times? Has an easement for installation of the connecting underdrain been attached to these lots?
Ø Will the Building Department continue to track the outstanding subdivision conditions if development occurs years from now?
Expiration of Subdivision Approval
There is also the question as to whether the Henry Avenue subdivision approval had already expired at the time the settlement was signed, as well as doubts about the validity of the plat signed by the PB Chair.
The PB’s January 2019 decision constituted a conditional approval. In NYS, a planning board cannot sign a subdivision plat until all conditions of a conditional approval have been satisfied. See HERE. This raises the question whether the signed plat is valid if the conditions are not met.
Also in NYS, conditional approvals expire after 180 days, plus the option of two 90-day extensions. If the conditions are not satisfied within that period, the conditional approval is considered expired and a new application for preliminary subdivision plat review must be submitted to the Village according to the Subdivision Review in New York State which starts the entire process over. See HERE.
The Future of Henry Avenue
With the lots now approved and eligible for sale, Henry Avenue residents are left wondering whether the protections they fought for will be enforced — or whether the responsibility will fall to future homeowners and taxpayers.
The neighbors who emailed the Board of Trustees also submitted a FOIL request seeking documents related to the subdivision approval and conditions, including a signed copy of the PB’s final resolution. The Village has acknowledged this request but has not yet provided the documents.
A Note About the Confidentiality of the Agreement
The Village agreed not to file the confidential settlement agreement with the court, instead filing only a stipulation of discontinuance. Although the terms of the agreement were intended to remain confidential, the parties acknowledged in the settlement that it was subject to FOIL. The Mamaroneck Observer obtained a copy through a resident’s FOIL request.
Editor’s Note: Author Meg Yergin was a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals in 2018 and reviewed and voted in the matter of the appeal of the Grove Street subdivision building permits. TMO Editors Kathy Savolt and Cindy Goldstein were members of the Planning Board and participated in the Grove Street subdivision review.
