Kent appeals housing decision

By MICHAEL RISINIT
mrisinit@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: December 12, 2005)

KENT ­ The town is appealing a recent court decision allowing 303 townhomes to be built on former farmland, a move on which the outgoing and incoming Kent supervisors disagree, but one that has heartened neighbors opposed to the controversial project.

Jean Riccobon, who moved from Queens to the Hill and Dale community around Palmer Lake about two years ago, said the project's revival this year "tore the neighborhood apart." Hill and Dale sits downstream and across Route 52 from the project's site on Nichols Street.

"I think an appeal is an excellent idea. I think the neighborhood is very much behind it," she said.

The appeal stems from state Supreme Court Justice Andrew O'Rourke's Oct. 14 decision ordering that the Kent Manor townhome project be allowed to build a sewage-treatment plant. The plant was really the final obstacle keeping the almost-20-year-old project from construction. An appeal, some think, could derail any effort to build that plant in the limited time available.

The project was approved in 1988 and affirmed by one court decision two years later. Since then, it had been tied up in litigation and financial problems. Its resurrection this year spawned concern from residents, who worried that it would bring more traffic to clogged roads and more children to already crowded schools and endanger water supplies.

The latest lawsuit, from 1999, accused Kent and New York City of extortion by not approving the development's participation in a special sewage-treatment plant program. The site is in the city's watershed, and the city administers the plant program.

Charles Martabano, a Mount Kisco lawyer, contacted the town last spring on behalf of a group of investors, organized as a limited liability corporation called RFB, who wanted to purchase the property and build the development as it was originally approved. Out-of-court negotiations went nowhere, leaving the decision with O'Rourke. "We had every confidence we would obtain a decision like this from the court and we have every confidence it will withstand an appeal," Martabano said.

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