RSS Feed
 |
|
||||||
Town wins suit against LIRR for “illegal” garbage transfer station
The case was filed by the Town and Pinelawn Cemetery in 2004 after it learned that the site was being used by a private company, Coastal Distribution, as a transport station. The property is owned by Pinelawn Cemeteries, but was leased to the MTA, the parent company of the LIRR. New York and New York Atlantic Railway (NYAR), acquired all of the LIRR's freight operations, including its interest in the Farmingdale yard on New Highway, north of Conklin Avenue, in the 1990s. "The exemption for railroads and rail use should not be, and never was intended to serve as a means to circumvent local zoning and state and local envi- ronment laws, which enforce transfer stations," said Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone. "Not only would this (allowing the station to continue to operate) set a bad precedent since this is residentially zoned property, but it would force others who have played by the rules to bear the cost of operating a licensed transfer station and to be at a competitive disadvantage." "Pinelawn Cemetery officials are gratified by the decision and appreciate Supervisor Steve Bellone's assistance in this matter," said Mark Cuthsbertson, the attorney representing Pinelawn Cemetery. NYAR was unsuccessful in attracting additional businesses to the Farmingdale yard, and in March 22, 2002, it entered into a lease agreement with Coastal, with the goal of generating substantial additional transload traffic for the railroad. The lease gave Coastal exclusive use of the property for a term of five years in exchange for rent, and permitted Coastal to make improvements to the site at its own expense. Initially, NYAR and Coastal planned to use the site to unload aggregates, but when the aggregate market on Long Island did not support the venture, the company targeted the construction industry instead, and Coastal began constructing a three-sided structure for the purpose of transloading construction and demolition debris. According to legal documents, in March, 2004, the Town discovered that the site was owned by Pinelawn, not the federally exempt Long Island Railroad, and issued a stop work order on the construction. In August of 2004, NYAR and Coastal replaced their lease agreement with a Transload Facility Operations agreement, which they maintain did not change daily operations at the Farmingdale yard but made Coastal a "contractor" of NYAR with the NYAR controlling all aspects of the operations at the site. After unsuccessfully attempting to get theTown's Board of Appeals to rescind the stop work order, NYAR and Coastal sought a preliminary injunction from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, barring Babylon from enforcing the Stop Work Order. The district court granted the preliminary injunction, finding that NYAR and Coastal had shown a greater than 50 percent chance of prevailing in their claim that Coastal's transloading services are rail transportation entitled to Federal preemption. The decision is subject to appeal either in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals or in federal court in Washington D.C. Cuthsbertson said he believes the defendants in the case will be appealing the decision.
Attorneys representing the MTA and the Long Island Railroad were not available for comment at press time.
|
for larger version       |
|||||
)
