Neighbor of Montrose Contractor’s Yard Continues Opposition
The neighbor of a contractor’s yard and concrete plant near the Cortlandt Train Station in Montrose is continuing his full-court pressure on the town’s handling of the property.
Ralph Mastromonaco, a well-known licensed engineer who has worked with many clients who have appeared before the Cortlandt Planning Board, has set his sights on Dakota Supply Corporation since moving into a townhouse 700 feet away from the 10-acre site in 2016.
Mastromonaco said his eyebrows were raised when one day at 3:30 a.m. he was suddenly awakened by a large truck making deliveries to the property from Long Island.
“I thought it was an earthquake,” Mastromonaco said.
Since that time. Mastromonaco has filed four lawsuits in seven years challenging three separate approvals by the Planning Board for various uses on the property. So far, he is 0-3 in his legal challenges, but he has appealed two of the decisions.
“This site plan never got proper review,” Mastromonaco contended. “This applicant is like a magic carpet. They don’t have to do everything like everybody does. It also points to how people are treated differently.”
Mastromonaco has hinted that the Planning Board is giving preferential treatment to the application since the property at 2099 Albany Post Rd. is owned by Bilotta Realty of Westchester, Inc., with its principal being Jay Bilotta, a former member of the Planning Board.
“It’s so wrong. I really wish someone would see the light and see what’s going on,” Mastromonaco remarked at an Oct. 9 public hearing on an amended site plan for the construction of a storage shed on the property that was approved on Feb. 10 and has already been built.
Dakota Supply is back before the Planning Board because the board failed to file a required environmental assessment report to the Westchester County Planning Department for review since it’s located on a state roadway.
During the Oct. 9 hearing and a subsequent hearing on Nov. 7, Mastromonaco and David Steinmetz, attorney for Dakota Supply, have verbally duked it out before the board on the application. Steinmetz and Mastromonaco have worked together on many developments over the years.
“He has a vendetta against my client and the town,” Steinmetz said at last week’s hearing. “He knew exactly where he was moving. You have been over backward for a guy who has sued the town three times and now a fourth case. Don’t get bullied by Ralph. We’re here largely on a do-over on a building that’s already been constructed. Enough already. Let’s move on.”
Mastromonaco argued the Planning Board can’t rule on the amended site plan for the storage building without taking into account the entire property. He said a special permit is required for the concrete manufacturing plant that scatters “cancer-causing dust” throughout the area.
“The application in 2003 started this nightmare,” Mastromonaco said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. This site is a disaster. It’s an environmental problem.”
Bilotta addressed the board at the October hearing, saying, “We are monitored by the Board of Health and the DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation). We have done everything to make it safe for our workers and safe for our community.”
The next public hearing is scheduled to be held at Town Hall on Dec. 3.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/