Judge Dismisses Suit Against Deerpark Planning Board Regarding New Century Project

Judge Dismisses Suit Against Deerpark Planning Board Regarding New Century Project
The Moon Festival at New Century off Route 209 in the town of Deerpark, N.Y., on Sept. 16, 2023. Larry Dye/The Epoch Times
Cara Ding
Updated:
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An Orange County Supreme Court judge has dismissed on technical grounds a lawsuit seeking to reverse decisions made by the Deerpark Planning Board regarding a proposed development at New Century, according to a court order filed on Sept. 4.

Known for hosting the annual Moon Festival, one of the largest cultural events in the tri-state region, the 40-acre event venue has an expansion plan that includes a theatre, a boutique hotel, and several restaurants, to further drive tourism growth.
Last August, the town of Deerpark’s planning board determined that the New Century development would have no significant adverse environmental impacts and subsequently greenlit a conditional site plan.

In January, William Smith, president of the unincorporated Lower Huguenot Neighborhood Alliance, took the town and New Century to court to reverse the environmental decision and subject the company to a more demanding review under the New York state Environmental Quality Review Act.

Judge Timothy McElduff, in his dismissal of the case, agreed that Smith filed the petition after the applicable statute of limitations had passed.

New Century is represented by counsel from law firm Blustein, Shapiro, Frank & Barone.

As the counsel noted, under state law, a challenge to a town planning board decision must be initiated within 30 days after the filing of such a decision with the town clerk’s office. That did not happen here.

Contrary to the plaintiffs’ arguments about inconsistencies in timestamps and potentially falsified documents, McElduff found the challenged board resolutions were filed with town clerk Florence Santini on Sept. 29, more than two months before the suit.

McElduff also found that Smith and his neighborhood alliance lacked standing to sue because petitioners failed to adequately “allege ... who these members were and/or where their property was located.”

What’s more, the court stated that the petitions failed to prove that Smith, its only identified member, owned property near or otherwise affected by New Century’s development.

Though Smith’s counsel later supplied more membership information in replies to the defendants’ dismissal motion, it was unable to cure the insufficiency of the petition itself. Instead, a cross-motion should have been filed to amend the petition, according to the judge.

New Century COO Peter Wei told The Epoch Times in a statement that he is pleased with the court decision, and that if everything goes as planned, the development will further revive the former equestrian site and boost the local economy in an environmentally responsible way.

Since it took ownership of the site seven years ago, the company has paid close to $600,000 in property taxes, according to public records on the Orange County government’s website.
John Barone, a partner of Rupp Pfalzgraf, told The Epoch Times in a statement that the Lower Huguenot Neighborhood Alliance is disappointed with the dismissal short of the requested fact-finding and that his firm continues to review options regarding the court decision.

Ties to NYenvironcom

Since the birth of the Lower Huguenot Neighborhood Alliance, the unincorporated group has maintained a close relationship with the New Paltz-based NYenvironcom.
The neighborhood alliance’s Facebook page shows the two share the same website. Not only that, but NYenvironcom’s quarterly newsletters regularly mention the alliance’s activities, and a fundraising webpage states that donations to the alliance are processed through NYenvironcom.
A previous Epoch Times investigation found that NYenvironcom exerted the bulk of its energy into campaigns against development projects along the Neversink Valley in the town of Deerpark. The organization financially sponsors a local group called Deerpark Rural Alliance to carry out much of its advocacy on the ground.

Many of the developments opposed by the groups have been put forth by members of the growing Chinese diaspora in the area, many of whom are Falun Gong practitioners who fled religious persecution in China.

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. By 1999, between 70 million and 100 million people had taken up the practice in China, according to official estimates at the time. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), fearing the practice’s membership outnumbered that of the Party, began a brutal campaign of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners that continues to this day.

Once in the United States, some practitioners still face transnational repression under the direction of the communist regime. According to a CCP directive document previously obtained by The Epoch Times, the regime frames the Dragon Springs campus in the town of Deerpark as the global “headquarters” of Falun Gong and has called for the perpetration of strategic and systematic attacks against it.

Recently, two men pleaded guilty in federal court for acting as illegal agents of the Chinese regime and trying to bribe an IRS official in Newburgh in an attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of an entity started by Falun Gong practitioners. At one defendant’s plea hearing in July, federal prosecutors unveiled that the targeted institution was Shen Yun Performing Arts, whose training facilities and programs are housed at Dragon Springs.
According to a court filing, in addition to the bribery scheme, the duo “surveilled Falun Gong residents in Orange County” and collected information for a “potential environmental lawsuit meant to inhibit the growth of Falun Gong community in Orange County.”

The Epoch Times’ previous investigation found that NYenvironcom’s founder and executive director, Alex Scilla, lived in China for more than a decade and still maintains business interests there.

The Epoch Times reached out to Smith, Scilla, and Grace Woodard, who heads the Deerpark Rural Alliance, for comment but received no reply by publication time.

As part of an environmental lawsuit against Dragon Springs, Scilla said in an affidavit dated last December that he had never been employed by the Chinese regime and that neither he nor Woodard had acted on its behalf.