NY Appellate Court Dismisses Challenge to Subdivision Buffer Requirement Based on Untimely Service

This post was authored by Amy Lavine, Esq.

 A New York appellate court held in July that dismissal was appropriate in an action challenging a zoning board’s interpretation of a buffer area requirement between the petitioners’ properties and a subdivision proposed on adjacent land. The petitioners conceded that they failed to timely serve the zoning board, and the court rejected their request for an extension of time because there was no evidence that they had made any attempt to serve the zoning board during the statutory appeals period. The court emphasized that the petitioners didn’t seek an extension until more than four months after appeals period had expired and more than three months after the respondents had moved to dismiss the case. “Those factors, considered as a whole,” the court concluded, “weigh against extending petitioners’ time for service in the interest of justice.”

Matter of Janiga v Town of W. Seneca Zoning Bd. of Appeals, 2019 NY Slip Op 05859 (N.Y. App. Div. 4th Dept. 7/31/19).