PUBLISHED BY MOSHOLU PRESERVATION CORPORATION

Can Mayor Override Zoning Process?

By JORDAN MOSS

If the city decides, as expected, that it prefers the Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park as the site to build the Croton filtration plant, officials will seek a "Mayoral Override" letter to make the project "exempt from Section 11-13 of the New York City Zoning Resolution," according to the draft scope of work for the supplemental environmental impact statement. That means the city won't have to go through ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure), a six-month process whereby several levels of city government -- from Community Board 7 up through the City Council -- would review and vote on the project.

Can the city really do this?

No one seems to know with any degree of certainty. But Howard Epstein, a lawyer for the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, an advocacy group, says there's no legal basis for it. "We do not believe that there's any legal support for what's been described to us as a mayoral override," Epstein said. "We don't see statutes, regulations, ordinances or cases that justify that concept."

He added: "There are emergency powers that all executives have but nobody has indicated that there is a need for that type of invoking an emergency power such as health, safety and welfare. Here, they could simply go through ULURP. They have plenty of time to do that."

Epstein said the Friends "will more likely than not bring a lawsuit," though he would not say when.

Asked for the legal basis of the "override," Inga Van Eysden of the New York City Law Department, which would represent the administration in court if it is sued, would only provide this prepared statement:

"At this time, the City is in the process of performing a supplemental environmental review of the three sites now under consideration for the Croton water filtration facility: the Mosholu Golf Course site, the Harlem River site, and the Eastview site in Westchester. When a preferred site is selected next year, any zoning issues that exist with respect to the selected site will be appropriately addressed at that time.