NYS Supreme Court Judge Charles Wood issued an order for a March 10 hearing between RC Recreation Development LLC, the developers of the Par 3, Yorktown course known as Valley Fields Golf Course, and the Town of Yorktown to argue the legal merits of the case and whether to appoint a receiver to oversee the course until all litigation is concluded, and whether Judge Wood should issue a preliminary injunction barring the town from appointing another company to finish the work at the course.
Judge Wood set the March 10 date for a hearing based upon reading the Affidavits of Larry Nussbaum, Patsy Costabile, and Joseph Rinaldi. Nussbaum is the President of RC Development.
Costabile, is an architect hired by RC to redesign the clubhouse at Valley Fields and acted as project consultant in 2019. He oversaw “The project’s mechanical (exhaust and fire suppression) and electrical contractors did the same soon thereafter, again after submitting their plans and specifications to the Town building department for approval. Subsequently, construction commenced as per drawings approved by the Town of Yorktown and per all applicable codes, rules, and regulations. Along the way, the contractors obtained all necessary interim inspections by the Town building department, including foundation, floor slab, framing, insulation, etc., and at each stage was approved by the Town to proceed further with the project.”
Costabile continues in his affidavit that the clubhouse remained incomplete and that he had not yet applied for a Certificate of Occupancy, CO, at which point the Town’s building inspector would come in for review. “I was puzzled when my client informed us that the Town had conducted a code compliance review. I was even more surprised when my client reported that the Town had identified six or seven different alleged violations of the state building and/or property maintenance code.
“It was my understanding that apart from the periodic inspections of work-in-progress, no other inspections would be done unless and until the landowner/contractor was ready to certify the job as complete and move on to the next phase of construction or if all complete, file for a certificate of occupancy. The Valley Fields project is just not ready for that, so no request was ever made for either a final inspection or a certificate of occupancy….when the job is done, these issues would obviously be resolved. Then at that point, and not before, we would request a final inspection and issuance of a certificate of occupancy. But we had not, and these alleged “violations” are just premature at this point. Besides, how can they be violations if the building is not in operation. As far as we know there was no called in a complaint for the building inspector to investigate. Usually you call for an inspection, the inspector comes out and observes the work to be inspected, he either approves it or disapproves it and always tells you what needs to be done to get an approval, this again was never requested and did not happen.
“As to the other alleged violations, the mechanical contractor informed me that the Town would not cooperate in his effort to gain a better understanding of the vague stop work order, making it impossible for him to identify the problem, much less cure it.
“It is also our professional recommendation to have the building inspected by an independent professional engineer, to be agreed upon by RC Recreation and the Town of Yorktown,” writes Costabile in his affidavit.
Joseph Rinaldi is the owner of Rinaldi Electric, who was contracted to perform the work at the clubhouse. In his affidavit, Rinaldi states, “Rinaldi Electric worked in the main building correcting and finishing the electrical work in 1 bathroom, 1 office, 1 common area, 1 utility room. We also corrected and finished work at the lower level of the main building, including the panel room, kitchen, bar area, dining room and 1 bathroom.
“Rinaldi Electric corrected all of the violations and completed the work so that it could be inspected by State Wide Inspection Service. On March 1, 2022, Frank Farina from State Wide Inspection Service conducted an inspection and passed all the electrical work completed by Rinaldi Electric and issued a certificate of completion.
“The certificate states as follows: “A visual inspection of the electrical system was conducted at the Commercial occupancy described below. The electrical system consisting of electrical devices and wiring is located in on the premises at: 795 Route 6, Shrub Oak, NY 10598. The First Floor and Second Floor were inspected in accordance with the NYS and NFPA 70-2017 and the detail of the installation, as set forth below, was found to be in compliance on the 1st day of March 2022.
Rinaldi later finds out that “In Nov. 2022, I saw legal documents that stated that the Town of Yorktown and State Wide Inspection Service decided to rescind the electrical certificate, as well as plumbing certificates as well as other trades….It is my belief that the certificate for the internal electrical work…should not have been rescinded.”
Why the change in the approvals? According to Nussbaum in his affidavit. “There was just one problem: Town Supervisor Matthew Slater. At some point between May 22, 2022, and June 5, 2022, Slater had a change of heart, and directed his Board not to authorize the Second Amendment his staff had negotiated and drafted. And when RC Recreation would not agree to Slater’s new and additional terms, which included unacceptable construction deadlines and a release of the Town from any liability for its past actions, Slater retaliated.
“On July 5, 2022, Slater directed the Town building department to issue a stop work order to RC Recreation based on a series of trumped-up alleged code violations, described more fully below. Until RC Recreation objected to Slater’s attempt to revise the Second Amendment after RC had signed it, there had never been a code compliance issue at the golf course in the prior five years of construction.
“At the same meeting, which was before the alleged violations and stop work order had been served, much less responded to, Slater called for the Town to issue a request for proposals seeking RC Recreation’s permanent replacement.
“After it issued the RFP seeking RC Recreation’s replacement, the Town declared those alleged code violations to be in “material breach” of the Concession Agreement and, after a short, purported cure period, where the Town did everything in its power to prevent timely cure, the Town terminated the Concession Agreement and evicted RC on December 1, 2022.”
