The Town of Harpersfield Planning Board granted site plan approval for Respondent New York Safety Track LLC to operate a motorcycle safety training facility at a converted former airport. In January 2013, Safety Track was advised by Respondent Town of Harpersfield Code Enforcement Officer (“CEO”) that the races and other large events occurring at the track were not authorized uses pursuant to the site plan. Safety Track and the Planning Board then executed an agreement that “purported to outline Safety Track's approved land uses for May 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013.” The agreement was challenged in a combined CPLR article 78 / declaratory judgment action. The Supreme Court “annulled it and made declarations regarding the scope of Safety Track's permissible land uses.” During the pendency of this appeal, the court reversed the part of the judgment that made declarations regarding the uses permitted under the site plan approval.

Safety Track then requested a determination by the CEO whether specified activities at the track would require further site plan approval. The CEO declined to rule whether the activities were permitted under the terms of the January 2014 judgment, and found most would not require further review. Petitioners, a group of concerned landowners, commenced the instant proceeding to challenge the CEO's determination. The Supreme Court granted the petition annulling certain portions of the CEO's determination. Safety Track, respondent Mountain Top Airfield LLC, and the CEO appealed.

Respondents argued the Supreme Court erred in concluding that the CEO irrationally refused to take a position on whether the specified uses ran afoul of the January 2014 judgment. However, as the court subsequently reversed that part of its judgment, the CEO could not be faulted for failing to adhere to or otherwise interpret judicial declarations that no longer existed. Absent the January 2014 judgment, the court found nothing irrational in the CEO’s determination that the bulk of the proposed activities did not constitute a “change in the use” of the property or otherwise constitute activity that would be subject to further site plan review.  The Second Department thus reversed to the extent the petition had been partially granted, and dismissed the petition in its entirety.

The case was Ballard v New York Safety Track, LLC, 134 A.D. 3d 1322 (2 Dep’t 2015).