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N.Y. Court of Appeals Broadens Test For Vested Right to Non-Conforming Use

By Steven Silverberg and Katherine Zalantis

In a decision issued today, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and found that a non-conforming mining operation had attained vested rights in that use. In Glacial Aggregates LLC v. Town of Yorkshire, the Court concluded that the expense of the permitting process, coupled with taking forty truck loads of material for testing, removal of timber and surveying a road and mining areas was sufficient to establish a vested right to the use and manifest an intent to mine the area. At the time that the property owner began the process of obtaining a DEC permit for mining the Town had no zoning ordinance. It was only after the DEC permit was issued that the Town enacted zoning which prohibited the use. The property owner then claimed it had obtained vested rights to the non-conforming use...continue to full post

Full post as published by New York Zoning and Municipal Law Blog on February 18, 2010 (boomark / email).