Lake Luzerne residents sue over approved housing development

By Wendy Liberatore, Times Union

Approvals for a controversial 18-home subdivision in Lake Luzerne has provoked a lawsuit that residents hope will stop its construction.

Filed on April 24 in state Supreme Court in Warren County, the Article 78 suit seeks to reverse the town Planning Board’s blessing of single-family houses on 33 acres, claiming that the town didn’t take “a hard look” at many aspects of the design — including construction on steep slopes atop the town’s principal aquifer.

Residents are also concerned that the town approved the project, known as Luzerne Woods, as a conservation subdivision. However, the suit brought by residents Kevin Boyd and Rosa Ortiz, alleges the approved subdivision does not meet the legal requirements for a conservation subdivision as it conserves a patchwork of areas in the development and not a contiguous swathe of land. 

“We have raised a number of areas of concerns … that we feel were not sufficiently reviewed,” William Demarest III, the attorney for the petitioners, said. “The biggest issue is the area they selected is a bowl-shaped area where there are steep slopes. The town has a provision in its code for subdivisions that calls for very steep slopes to be included in non-developable areas. … But to build the project as they want … they have to include development on those slopes, which causes its own problems,” including threatening the stability of the properties above the development, Demarest said.

Town supervisor Gene Merlino did not immediately respond to the Times Union request for comment.  Planning Board Chair John Kurimski said he couldn’t comment on the subdivision, and noted all discussions on Luzerne Woods, LLC are preserved in Planning Board minutes. 

Developer Eric Moses, however, said that residents in the vicinity are NIMBYs and that everything was investigated by the town in an eight-month process.

“We had a public hearing every month where we let everyone exercise their constitutional right to complain about it being in their backyard,” Moses said. “We entertained every single question and comment from the town. Everything has been addressed. You just can’t make people happy. I tell people, ‘I know you are unhappy, but have all your concerns been addressed,’ because they have.”

That includes the slopes, which he said groups houses on flattest areas to avoid erosion and the need for extensive retaining walls.

Photo above: Land at the southern end of Lake Luzerne along Sagamore St. where an 18-home development is planned. Photo by Will Waldron, Times Union