By Doug La Rocque
Following more than 90 minutes of oral arguments before the Stephentown Zoning Board of Appeals last Thursday, December 7, the Board decided attorney Brian Baker’s appeal concerning the expansion of an existing trailer park is timely. The Board will hear that appeal at a date to be determined. Mr. Baker is challenging the town’s permitting of the addition of 7 mobile homes on land adjoining an existing park at the corner of NY Route 22 and Brown’s Road. The land also adjoins Mr. Baker’s property.
Back in October Mr. Baker filed an Article 78 proceeding with the New York State Su- preme Court, claiming the building permit given Tom Hanson to expand the park was not properly issued by Stephentown’s Building Inspector Dean Herrick. Judge Patrick McGrath denied the motion, noting that Mr. Baker had not yet exhausted all his remedies with the town, in particular an appeal to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Judge McGrath also noted that Mr. Baker had not received official notice of the permit until the time of his hearing on the matter and gave Mr. Baker leave to appeal. That left the ZBA with the question if that appeal, filed on November 8, was still timely.
According to the ZBA’s attorney, Christopher Langlois, there were two questions to be decided that night. The first was whether the time period for an appeal after notice of a project was 30 days as stated in town regulations or 60 days as listed in New York State regulations. Mr. Langlois advised the ZBA that after careful consideration he believed the 60 days time frame was applicable. He based this on the fact the town regulation was adopted prior to the state’s guidelines, which were put in place in 1992. Mr. Hanson’s attorney Bill Better argued, eventually to no avail, that the 30 day statute was the proper time frame. The ZBA agreed to follow the recommendation of its attorney.
The second question than came into play concerned the actual date of notification. Again, according to Mr. Langlois, there were two options to be considered. One is formal notification, which was given to Mr. Baker at the time of the hearing, or what is called constructional notification, where a person becomes aware of a project by noticing work being conducted on the site. Mr. Langlois informed the Board, the timetable for the appeal begins with the earliest notification. Since construction at the site began before Mr. Baker’s court action, this would be the form of notification applicable to the appeal. The ZBA was then tasked with deciding when Mr. Baker actually knew a trailer park expansion was underway. Mr. Hanson and his attorney argued it was obvious what as going on in late August when truckloads of fill were brought in, and most certainly so September 1, when survey stakes were placed on the property boundaries and where the seven concrete pads were to be poured. Mr. Baker contended the fill and survey could have been for any project, and it was not until he wrote a letter to all town officials, dated September 20, that he was positive what was being built.
According to ZBA Attorney Langlois, in order for a ZBA to deny an appeal, it takes a majority of the full Board to vote to deny, not just a simple majority of those present. In this case, since the Stephentown ZBA consists of five members, three votes would be needed. There were four members present that night, and one, Bruce Fairweather, openly disclosed he uses Mr. Baker for some legal concerns and recused himself at the request of Mr. Hanson. That left three members, Richard Sime, Arthur Karis and Chairman Roland Barth to pick a date of notification. Mr. Sime agreed with Mr. Hanson, that he felt Mr. Baker knew by September 1, which would be outside the 60 days window. Mr. Karis and Mr. Barth however, went along with Mr. Baker’s argument that he only knew when he wrote the letter. They said it probably took a couple of days to construct that letter, so they picked September 18 as the notification date, which would be inside the 60 days window. Mr. Sime made a motion to deny the appeal, but it did not receive a second.
Following the meeting, Mr. Baker told The Eastwick Press, “I take one step at a time, and I’ll just keep connecting all the dots here as I see them.” Mr. Hanson politely said, “I choose not to comment at this time.”