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Holmes v. Planning Board

78 A.D.2d 1, 433 N.Y.S.2d 587, 1980 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 13403
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedNovember 17, 1980
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 78 A.D.2d 1 (Holmes v. Planning Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Holmes v. Planning Board, 78 A.D.2d 1, 433 N.Y.S.2d 587, 1980 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 13403 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

Titone, J.

On appeal this court must determine the reasonableness of a condition which was imposed by the Planning Board of the Town of New Castle as a requisite of its approval of the site plan submitted by the petitioners. The condition is based on a limited goal plan, entitled the King Street Hill Area Site Plan. The plan is circumscribed in scope and area. Its goal is to provide a partial solution to the problem of traffic congestion on a small section of King Street, the main east-west artery of the Town of New Castle. This goal is to be achieved by using interconnected parking lots and common access drives as the relief mechanisms.

Since the condition is based on a plan, and has no meaning without reference to the plan, the reasonableness of the condition cannot be ascertained without correspondingly considering the reasonableness of the plan. Reasonableness in the context of this appeal requires a determination that neither the plan nor the condition is arbitrary, confiscatory, or discriminatory. The application of these tests has been complicated by the formless and ambivalent nature of what has been adopted by the board as a plan.

The King Street Hill Area Site Plan is in reality nothing more than a concept, a brilliant concept given the problem it was designed to cure, but a concept nonetheless. As such, [3]*3the plan is presently being implemented by the imposition of conditions, without full consideration of its final form and effects upon full execution, or the strategies necessary to achieve full execution.

Since the condition requires the petitioners to participate in an amorphous plan, the final over-all effects of the condition on petitioners’ property cannot be determined by this court from the record as now constituted. In effect, we are limited to considering the reasonableness of the condition based solely upon the concept and to this extent I find that the condition is constitutionally valid. But this finding does not fully resolve, the issues presented on this appeal. In my opinion, the matter must be remitted to the planning board for the articulation of an implementation plan so that the petitioners may discover the full extent of the participation required from them and the benefits and burdens they will incur under the plan.

A thorough recitation of the facts is necessary in order for one to understand the concept as presented and its unacknowledged limitations.

THE PROBLEM

The petitioners’ property is located on the north side of King Street in the Chappaqua business district of the Town of New Castle. The area was originally residential and, unfortunately, the present physical infrastructure of the district reflects the former low intensity use. Most businesses are conducted in what were once private homes. Clients and patrons of the businesses and professional offices park their cars within lots confined by property lines or adjacent to the premises. To reach these lots, they must use the same driveways which formerly serviced the residences.

As noted, the petitioners’ property fronts on the north side of King Street, the most heavily trafficked east-west artery in the Chappaqua hamlet. The property is situated just below the main business district intersection of King Street and North Greeley Avenue, and directly opposite the intersection of King Street and Senter Street. Although King Street is part of the State highway system, the grade and horizontal curvature of the road unfortunately exceeds the maximum standards for such factors. These design de[4]*4fects have greatly diminished the capacity of the road to handle the large volumes of traffic generated by the change in use. Its capacity has been further decreased by the frequent and closely spaced intersections and the placement of awkward driveways. Thus, New Castle suffers severe traffic congestion and a high accident rate in the area in which the petitioners’ property is located. The problem has been intensified by the rapid growth experienced in the area. As of 1977, 10 new buildings had been constructed in the preceding 6 years. This construction has added 22 stores and 15 offices to the business district.

Town authorities and the general public have been aware of this problem for a substantial period of time. Both the 1968 Town Comprehensive Plan and the 1969 Chappaqua Business District Plan highlighted the area for remedial action. Since the identification of the problem, certain mechanisms have been employed to obtain better flow and increased safety for vehicular and pedestrian traffic. For example, on-street parking has been banned along sections of the south side of King Street. The major approach, however, has involved the minimization of driveway curb cuts opening onto King Street. This objective has been achieved by means of site plan review. Site plans, submitted by the individual property owners, have been approved only if the traffic generated by the proposed use of the property could be accommodated by existing drives.

In addition, the planning board attempted to condition its approval of certain applications on the elimination of individual drives in situations where one curb cut was capable of servicing adjacent properties owned by a single developer.1 These devices, however, proved insufficient to achieve the stated goals and thus the board continued to seek better approaches to the problem of increasing congestion.

In 1975 Dr. Brosgol, owner of property adjacent to that of petitioners, applied for site plan approval of certain alterations which would increase the office space in his existing structure. The Brosgol application provided the board with an opportunity to effect a new solution for the elimina[5]*5tion of driveway curb cuts. The proposal suggested by the town’s planning consultant (hereinafter referred to as the consultant), required that the parking lots owned by Dr. Brosgol and the petitioners be interconnected and that a common access drive be utilized to service both properties.

However, the board felt the need for more concrete guidance before effecting the proposal. Accordingly, it commissioned a study to develop a co-ordinated solution for traffic circulation, access and parking problems. In response, the consultant prepared a sketch analysis or policy mapping of the planning relationships among the properties on the north side of King Street (which included the properties of petitioners and Dr. Brosgol) in an “end state” format, that is, a postexecution viewpoint.

For the purposes of this appeal, I have included a less detailed2 rendering of this sketch. The planning relationships have not been changed and are portayed as submitted. However, the rendering encompasses properties adjacent to the borders of the plan to illustrate our lack of comprehension concerning some of the unarticulated assumptions underlying the planning relationships.

Sketch appears on page 6.

[6]

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Bluebook (online)
78 A.D.2d 1, 433 N.Y.S.2d 587, 1980 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 13403, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/holmes-v-planning-board-nyappdiv-1980.