A group of Legoland opponents has filed a court challenge to the Town of Goshen’s proceedings dealing with Merlin Entertainment’s proposed Legoland theme park. They will ask the court to cancel the town’s public hearing on the project order another lead agency in the environmental process.
Attorney Michael Sussman and the 19 petitioners making up Concerned Citizens for the Hudson Valley, a group of individuals who live within the impact zone of the proposed park, announced Friday that they have filed proceedings under Article 78 against the Town of Goshen Planning Board, Merlin, and the land owners of the proposed Legoland parcel.
They are scheduled to go to the State Supreme Court for a hearing on the matter December 14, one day before the Town of Goshen’s scheduled public meeting regarding local zoning law changes that would be necessary to accommodate the Legoland project.
Sussman and the petitioners argue that the town hasn’t been objective in their decision regarding the Legoland proposed master plan, having apparently increased their designated acreage by approximately 12 acres, that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement presented by Merlin was inadequate compared to existing studies of the area, that another agency, Sussman argues should be the DEC or town board, should become lead agency in conducting a Generic Environmental Impact Statement and that adequate time was not given for a public hearing on the matter.
“These are very serious issues because the public, as we all know, has diminished faith and trust in government,” said Sussman. “When things like this go on, and projects seem rushed and major corporate interests come to a community and seem to be able to push aside years of study, years of memorialized documents which reflect the spirit of that community, its well that people are cynical about their government,” he said.
An attorney for Merlin, Dominic Cordisco, said the opponents “seek to delay the project and deprive all members of the public from expressing their opinion.” The attorney said they have done this by “resorting to the courts, solely in an attempt to stop the hearing and the town’s ongoing review.”
Cordisco said their claims “are contrary to well established law and procedure, as courts defer to local agencies in the processing of applications when all legal requirements have been met – as they have been met here by the Town of Goshen.”
Sussman added that this legal action is procedural in nature, that he and the petitioners are arguing that Merlin and the Town of Goshen did not do their due diligence in regard to their requisite, mandated impact studies.
“That’s why we’re not here today to discuss the substance of it,” said Sussman. “It, may be, end up being a wonderful project. I doubt it, but it’s possible. We keep an open mind, but let the studies be done. Let the studies be done and let people have time to review them and digest them when you’re making such a radical change in a community,” he said.
Concerned Citizens for the Hudson Valley, represented by Sussman, will appear in court at 9:30 a.m. on the 14th with the intention of having the public hearing scheduled for the next day cancelled and a new lead agency take over for the impact studies.
