Judge puts work on new Yesterdays Restaurant's Elm Street site on hold

By Linda Smith Hancharick
WARWICK — A state Supreme Court Judge has granted a temporary restraining order to halt any site preparation work at 16 Elm St., the proposed new site of Yesterdays Restaurant, pending responses from the defendants.
A group of 10 neighbors has filed suit against the Village of Warwick Planning Board and 16 Elm Street LLC, the owners of Yesterdays Restaurant, over the board’s recent approval allowing Yesterdays to build a new restaurant at the site.
In addition, the group seeks the court to negate the site plan approval and the negative declaration made under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The neighbors are represented by attorney David K. Gordon of Poughkeepsie.
Supreme Court Judge Elaine Slobod issued the three-week temporary restraining order against the owners on March 5, halting any prep work at the site until responses are made by the planning board and the LLC. Responses by the defendants were due on March 22; the applicant then has until March 28 to reply. They are due back in court on March 29.
The village planning board made a negative declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act back in September and confirmed it in January. By doing so, the board declared that the project would have no significant impact on the surrounding area.
Neighbors on Elm, West and Van Buren Streets counter that the project will have a huge impact on them by violating the sound code, increasing traffic in their neighborhood, causing light pollution and irreparably changing their quiet neighborhood.
Neighbors had the soil testedThe neighbors also claim that soil testing by the applicant was not done correctly. In this suit, the plaintiffs state they have done a test of the site themselves on Feb. 15, after the approval was granted, and found “extraordinarily high” levels of lead close by to where the defendants had dug trenches for their own samples.
The site was once a rail yard decades ago. There was a paint house there and, according to West Street resident Patrick Gallagher, many paint cans were found strewn about the site. The group took their own samples and tested them using the same environmental group used by the applicant, he said.
“They say there’s no impact; there is plenty of impact,” said Gallagher. “They say there’s no lead; there is plenty of lead.”
Gallagher and the other plaintiffs fear that by excavating the ground, the lead content will become airborne
In addition to the 10 plaintiffs, local activist and environmental consultant Steven Gross and scientist Dr. Caroline Bisla also are included as plaintiffs on the suit.
'Nothing was taken lightly'On Tuesday, attorney for the defendants John Cappello said his response was complete and being sent over to the group’s attorney, as well as the village. The village planning board attorney, Rob Dickover, is responding on behalf of the planning board.
“We are responding and confident in the work done for us by our experts,” said Cappello. “Nothing was taken lightly.”
This project has been in the works for more than a year. John Christison, owner of Yesterdays Restaurant on Main Street for 34 years, says he has outgrown his current location and wants to build a new Yesterdays at the 3.6-acre Elm Street site, which is part of the light industrial zone.
A restaurant is an allowable use in the zone but, as Gallagher and his allies counter, if it violates so many portions within the zoning, it is not an allowable use.