Mt. Pleasant to Sue Westchester Medical Center Over Project Review
The Mount Pleasant Town Board is scheduled to decide Tuesday whether to sue Westchester Medical Center because the hospital is refusing to appear before the town for approval of its expansion project.
Supervisor Joan Maybury said Tuesday the town will be seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction after the medical center informed officials that it intended to be lead agency for the environmental review under the authorization of the Westchester County Health Care Corp.
The board is expected to instruct its law firm, Harris Beach, to proceed with the suit, which would be filed in state Supreme Court in White Plains, Maybury said. Councilman Carl Fulgenzi said the board believe the hospital must come before the town for the project to be approved.
“There’s an impact on the community,” Fulgenzi said.
The town formally objected to the corporation’s position on May 14, concluding that the project is subject to all town zoning regulations.
In a May 1 letter to the town, the hospital reiterated the corporation’s position that because the new seven-story medical office building containing 260,000 square feet of space will be primarily used to relocate health care services that are currently provided on, or in close proximity to the medical center’s campus, potential impacts will be minimal.
Some of the required approvals include a zoning change from the town board and site plan and special permit approvals from the planning board, Maybury told hospital representatives in her letter to the medical center. Other administrative approvals are also needed.
“The town board currently intends to designate itself as the lead agency in view of the fact that the project falls entirely within the town’s border and its impacts are primarily of local significance,” Maybury stated in her correspondence.
She added SEQRA review cannot begin until lead agency status is determined.
The new structure would be located between the existing university hospital and the Taylor Pavilion buildings and would be used for ambulatory surgery and related services as well as office space for doctors.
In response to Maybury’s letter, Westchester Medical Center General Counsel Jordy Rabinowitz responded that the hospital was withdrawing its intent to be lead agency, but decided to proceed as the “only involved agency.”
The attorney contended the hospital was not subject to Mount Pleasant’s approval processes.
“WMC disagrees that it is subject to the Town of Mount Pleasant’s zoning, permitting or any other requirements for approval,” Rabinowitz stated. “The Town of Mount Pleasant did not, in connection with the medical center’s prior construction of the Children’s Hospital, claim to be an involved agency or seek to assert any control over or exercise any zoning or permitting approvals in connection with that project.”
Rabinowitz said Westchester Medical Center conducted an environmental review of its proposal and the information is included in an environmental assessment form it distributed on May 1.
“WMC has determined that the project will not have a significant adverse environmental impact,” he stated, adding the hospital’s board of directors was scheduled to adopt a negative declaration for the project on June 4.
For its part, the town informed the hospital about its intention to sue via a June 3 letter from Darius Chafizadeh, the attorney representing the municipality in the matter. He said the medical center’s claim is “unsupported” and that it has “no authority in support of your conclusion.”
