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A state appellate court has furthered a developer’s plans to build 17 homes off Twin Lakes Road by granting preliminary approval of the project, approval the Planning Board argued was not yet ready to be given. The decision upheld a 1993 state Supreme Court judgment which said that Twin Lakes Farms Associates, owners of the land, should rightfully receive preliminary approval of the project due to failure by the planning board to rule on their proposal within the 45 day period which is allotted for such actions.The roughly 100-acre, steeply-sloped plot on which the development is proposed was purchased by the Manhattan-based company in January of 1987,. Following submission of an Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and a public hearing on it in 1990, a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) was submitted in July of 1991. In October, the planning board accepted the Twin Lakes application for preliminary subdivision approval and held a public hearing on it the following month.
The Board refused to “close” the hearing. Thereafter, the owner, claiming the the Board had failed to issue a decision within the time limitations of Town Law Section 276(3) and Town Law Section 276(4), demanded certificates from the Town Clerk evincing approvals of both the preliminary and final subdivision plats. The Supreme Court ruled that the owner was entitled to the former, but not the latter; hence, this appeal and cross appeal have followed.
We agree with the owner that its application for preliminary subdivision plat approval was complete (see, Matter of Sun Beach Real Estate Dev. Corp. v. Anderson, 98 AD2d 367). Accordingly, the Board’s refusal to issue a decision on the application on the ground that the owner had not yet complied with the entire SEQRA process was in violation of the Town Law Section 276(3) in effect at the time. Thus, the Supreme Court properly found that the owner was entitled to preliminary approval (see, Matter of Helntz v. Edwards, 198 AD2d 778; see also, Matter of Sun Beach Real Estate Dev. Corp. v. Anderson, supra). (See: 628 NY2nd 310 (1995)) back to top
