The Cazenovia Town Planning Board has the legal right to impose nearly all of the conditions it included in its site plan approval for Owera Vineyards’ proposed new event center on its East Lake Road property and, if the owners of Owera find these conditions too onerous, their best recourse may be to relocate their operations to a town parcel more appropriately zoned for the commercial activity in which the winery seeks to engage.
This was the opinion of Acting State Supreme Court Justice Dennis K. McDermott in his Aug. 26 decision on Owera’s Article 78 lawsuit against the town of Cazenovia. Attorneys for both sides, as well as for a group of the winery’s neighbors who were granted the right to be intervenors in the case, previously appeared in court on June 29 to argue their respective positions.
The suit, filed by Owera on March 10, sought annulment of 10 of the 33 conditions imposed by the town planning board in its February 2015 site plan approval of the winery event center — conditions the owners of Owera found to be “arbitrary and capricious” and also in excess of the planning board’s jurisdiction. The 10 conditions Owera challenged in its lawsuit included: noise limitations, hours of operations, size and number of events, requiring an off-duty police officer to direct traffic at events, proving compliance with state Department of Agriculture and Markets (DAM) policies, ongoing planning board scrutiny and authority to revoke site plan approval and requiring an immediate expansion of the amount of acreage under grape cultivation on Owera’s property.
In his decision, McDermott stated that the court’s authority was limited to determining whether the planning board “acted arbitrarily and capriciously, acted illegally or abused its considerable discretion” in its site plan approval conditions. “The court is not authorized to substitute its judgment for the board,” he wrote.
McDermott found that the planning board did not act arbitrary and capricious in eight of its 10 conditions, but he did annul two of the board’s conditions objected to by Owera: requiring an off-duty police officer to direct traffic at events and allowing ongoing planning board scrutiny and authority to revoke site plan approval. McDermott found nothing in the record to explain how requiring a police officer to direct traffic would lessen the noise or light coming from cars. He also found that allowing the planning board ongoing scrutiny and ability to revoke site plan approval was “unreasonably drastic.” He stated that there are already measures in place, through the authority of the town codes enforcement officer, to redress potential violations by the winery.
In upholding the other eight contested conditions in the lawsuit, McDermott stated that the record provided “ample support” for the conditions imposed by the planning board; he cited Owera’s history of neighbor complaints as well as DAM letters criticizing their agriculture-to-commercial activity ratio; and he found that the reality of the agricultural/residential district in which the winery resides — not a commercial district — and the “adjacent land uses” as residential property made the board’s conditions appropriate in that they were intended to promote the health, safety and welfare of the town.
McDermott stated twice in his opinion that if Owera found the town’s conditions to be a “burden” or to be “intolerable,” “nothing prevents it from seeking to engage in this type of enterprise within an appropriate zoning district elsewhere in the town.”
Cazenovia Town Supervisor Bill Zupan said, “I think it’s a fair decision. They sided with the planning board for 80 percent of it. I think it proved that the planning board did a thorough and thoughtful job. John Langey, our town lawyer, did an excellent job presenting our case.”
Owera Vineyards owner Nancy Muserlian said they were disappointed in the judge’s decision and will be “assessing our options in the days ahead.”
“We are pleased with the two restrictions that were dismissed, and believe that the construction and operation of our Farm Production and Marketing Facility offers the best solution for us to showcase our great products in a warm and welcoming environment,” she said.
Ken Moynihan, speaking on behalf of the winery’s East Lake Road neighbors who were intervenors in the case said, “The neighborhood at the north end of Cazenovia Lake is grateful that Mr. Zupan, the town board and the planning board heard our concerns, acted to protect our neighborhood and zealously defended those actions in court. Last week’s court decision is the result of countless hours of hard work and difficult sacrifice of thousands of dollars on the part of a group of neighbors, and the town of Cazenovia standing for what is right.”
Any of the three parties to the case may now appeal this decision to the appellate division of the state court.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].
