Opinion ID: 2674691
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Further Obstruction

Text: In November and December of 2008, Sherman resubmitted his MareBrook application and Supplemental DEIS. By this point, over eight years had passed since Sherman first applied for subdivision approval. ‐10‐ SHERMAN V. TOWN OF CHESTER
In January 2009, the Town Engineer gave Sherman a list of corrections to the 2008 Supplemental DEIS. As part of that list, the Town Engineer demanded final designs for water and sewer plants. But Sherman could not submit the final water and sewer designs until other aspects of the plan – like the number and location of the homes – were finalized. That, in turn, required preliminary approval, which is the very thing he was trying to obtain from the Town Engineer. A few months later, the Town appointed a new Town Engineer. The new appointee needed time to get up to speed on MareBrook. The Town billed Sherman for the expense of having the new Town Engineer review the entire MareBrook project, even though Sherman already paid for the first engineer to conduct that same review. The new Town Engineer had an entirely new set of questions, concerns, and items for Sherman to address. Despite that, ‐11‐ SHERMAN V. TOWN OF CHESTER for two years the new Town Engineer maintained his predecessor’s requirement regarding sewer and water plant designs.
In September 2009, Sherman submitted two different versions of his subdivision proposal. By now, the proposals had become much more conventional than his first application, and they did not include the recreational facilities initially envisioned. Soon after submitting the proposals, Sherman discovered that the Planning Board Chairman had been replaced. The new Chairman, Don Serotta, was “openly hostile” towards the MareBrook application and had written letters to the Town in 2001 against the project. For three months, the Planning Board refused without explanation to put Sherman’s proposals on the agenda. Then in December 2009, Serotta explained that Sherman needed to pay $25,000 in consultants’ fees. Yet Sherman did not receive an invoice ‐12‐ SHERMAN V. TOWN OF CHESTER for those fees as required by the Town Code for approximately two months. Serotta had other demands as well. He required an additional “cluster plan,” which would lead to another reworking of Sherman’s DEIS. Serotta also insisted that all roads must be twenty‐four feet wide instead of thirty feet. This required Sherman to redraw his plans to relocate curbs, drainage, water and sewer mains, and grading. Later, Serotta canceled Sherman’s appearance at the Planning Board’s monthly meeting and demanded $40,000 more in consultants’ fees. The Planning Board also insisted that Sherman respond to a questionnaire, which required Sherman to provide, among other things, an evaluation of a traffic intersection in the Town of Monroe (located miles away) and the details of a wetlands walking trail crossing that did not cross any wetlands. ‐13‐ SHERMAN V. TOWN OF CHESTER Sherman was also required to answer all inquiries by local residents. Some answers to these questions needed to be repeated twenty to forty times because the Planning Board did not permit him to quote a previous answer.
In September 2010, the Planning Board voted to accept Sherman’s DEIS as complete, seven years after his original DEIS was “deemed complete” in October 2003. A few months later, Ted Fink replaced Garling Associates as the Town Planner. Fink requested an additional study regarding traffic on the other side of town, even though Sherman had long before completed that study. Fink also sent monthly lists of demands to Sherman, which included a “wetland study,” a “concerted species study,” and a “constraints study.” The new studies concluded that there were no changes since those same studies were completed in 2003. Fink also required Sherman to redo the DEIS that had just been deemed complete. ‐14‐ SHERMAN V. TOWN OF CHESTER