CATSKILL — The owner of the former St. Patrick’s Academy filed an Article 78 lawsuit over a variance to convert the old Woodland Avenue Catholic high school into an apartment building.
Village President Peter Grasse III confirmed Monday that developer Dennis Frascello served the village with the papers last week.
The suit names the Village of Catskill and the Catskill Village Zoning Board of Appeals as defendants, Grasse said. The document, said to be an inch and a half thick, has been handed over to Village Attorney Wayne Thompson for review.
Frascello is being represented by the law firm of Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna of Albany. It was not immediately clear what attorney is representing Frascello.
On May 16, the Zoning Board of Appeals denied an application filed by Frascello requesting a variance to convert the building into 43 rental units. The Zoning Board rejected the application in a 3 to 1 vote. Frascello is asking for the decision to be overturned.
The question was one of hardship, Grasse said.
To prove hardship, Frascello had to meet four conditions: Deprivation of all economic use or benefit from the property established by competent financial evidence; the hardship is unique and does not apply to a substantial portion of the district or property; the requested variance if granted will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood; and that the alleged hardship has not been self-created.
In its May 17 resolution, the Zoning Board ruled a 43-unit apartment complex and the traffic it would create would alter the essential character of the neighborhood which is mostly single-family residential with a few lawful multi-family homes and that the hardship claimed by Frascello is self-created because the property was purchased by Frascello in 2017 when multi-family housing was prohibited in the zone and that Frascello knew or should have known of the prohibition.
“The way we see it, the Zoning Board had no choice but to make this decision,” Grasse said. The former Catholic school is situated in an area zoned Residential 1, which means it is solely for single-family homes, according to a Zoning Board statement in May.
Frascello did not ask for a zoning change in his application, but he requested only a variance for his project, according to the Zoning Board.
If the variance had been granted, it would have remained with the property, which would enable another owner to take over the variance and either complete the original project or propose a new project, according to the Zoning Board.
Granting the variance would have advanced the proposed project to the Village of Catskill Planning Board, which has the authority to request traffic and engineering studies and an asbestos removal plan.
Grasse said moving forward quickly with the project would not have been easy until the Planning Board was satisfied that all conditions were met.
“The project has to be in line with the village’s Comprehensive Plan, and the Zoning Board said the applicant didn’t show enough to prove hardship,” Grasse said.
At its April 24 meeting, the Planning Board wanted to know whether Frascello had fielded any offers to purchase the property, whether any asbestos had been removed from the property and whether a survey was conducted to determine the presence of asbestos.
Unauthorized construction on the property in 2019 stalled the project, but in 2020 Frascello submitted a proposal to the Planning Board for review calling for conversion of the former school into apartments.
The result was loud objections from neighbors that an apartment building of that size would cause chaos by adding unmanageable traffic conditions on Woodland Avenue, violate village zoning law and cause the entire area to be rezoned for multiple dwellings, something residents strongly opposed.