NY Appellate Court Upholds Denial of Area Variance Based on New Evidence Considered by the ZBA

This post was authored by Tyler Doan of Vermont Law School

Petitioners, owners of a gravel mine, appealed a denial of an area variance by the Zoning Board of Appeals. The Court said that although a previous variance and previously amended variance for the same issue of access roads to the mine through a local residential area had been granted, the Board’s denial here should be upheld. In prior hearings, evidence was shown that the trucks would not generate much more noise than farming equipment, typical to the area, would generate. Upon the new hearing, the intervenor’s engineers considered the frequency which trucks would pass nearby residences. The engineer opined that the information previously given was not provided by a qualified person, nor was it up to accepted standards. The respondents denied the application due to the engineer’s new evidence that the trucks’ noise, estimated at every 6 minutes during the fifty-eight-hour work week, would interrupt the “quiet and serene neighborhood.” The Court determined that the respondents were within their discretion to do so as their prior determinations were vacated and thus have no precedential power and the new conclusion being supported by substantial evidence.

Circle T. Sterling, LLC v. Town of Sterling Zoning Board of Appeals, 2020 WL 5867650 (NYAD 4 Dept. 10/2/2020).