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Town wins restraining order against group home
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By Art Cusano
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The Town of Yorktown has won a temporary restraining order in state supreme court against a proposed group home on Marcy Street.
The home, proposed by Somers-based Opengate, became the center of controversy earlier this year when the town board revealed that it had misplaced a letter notifying them of the plan and had allowed a 40-day public comment period to lapse. At that point, Opengate officials said that state law allowed them to proceed with the plan.
The restraining order lasts until May 14, after which time the court will consider the next step.
Attorney Bob Marino of the law firm Grace and Grace, contracted by the town to work on the case, explained that the reasoning behind the town’s litigation was that it had been unfairly burdened by the group homes.
“There appears to be something of an unfair distribution of these group homes in the county,” he said. “Yorktown has, over time, come to bear more than its fair share.”
Marino said that Yorktown Supervisor Don Peters and the town board are still trying to work things out with Opengate outside the courts because, despite the restraining order, the town is still legally vulnerable.
“The law does not allow us to make the argument that the tax burden is unfair or we have more than a neighboring town,” Peters said. “That, in the end, is not a winning legal argument because the law is not written like that.”
The town will meet Wednesday morning with the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities concerning a second planned group home on Evergreen Street.
Jay Teitelbaum, an attorney representing residents of Marcy Street, told the town board he wants to go back to square one with Opengate in the decision making process.
“I just want to make it very clear that the position of the folks on Marcy is that if there is a resolution consensually with Opengate, the only thing that makes any sense to us is that the 40-day period be re-opened as if it was from the very beginning,” Teitelbaum said. “Anything that starts off with the premise that this house is going in as a group home and that Opengate will mitigate is entirely unacceptable.”
Teitelbaum also said he disagreed with Marino’s assessment of the town’s legal status.
“The law does provide for the opportunity to say this site is not the right site for a group home for a number of reasons,” he said. “It is not a foregone conclusion by any stretch of the imagination that Marcy is the right place for yet another group home.”
Attempts to contact Opengate for comment were unsuccessful at press time.
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