GRAMERCY — A lawsuit against a controversial plan to renovate a Gramercy private school is moving to trial after a judge ordered a hearing to look into how the Landmarks Preservation Commission made its decision to approve the plans last May, according to court documents.
New York Supreme Court Justice Lucy Billings ruled June 15 that representatives of the LPC and Friends Seminary, a Quaker day school, will have to testify in an evidentiary hearing to explore whether LPC violated the city's open meetings law when it approved a plan to renovate the school’s East 16th Street campus.
Billings said the trial will deal with whether or not the commissioners adequately deliberated on the revised plan at its May 19, 2015 hearing, or whether that hearing was merely a "rubber stamp" to approve the plans, as neighbors alleged in their petition, according to a transcript of the June 15 hearing.
The lawsuit and the upcoming trial do not deal with a set of eight letters sent to LPC from people pretending to be pro-renovation neighbors, a controversy that is the subject of a separate probe by the Department of Investigation.
Neighbors of the school filed the lawsuit in August in a last-ditch effort to block the renovations, which they have fought against for more than a year out of concerns about the impact of construction and added height to buildings in a historic district.
The petitioners are hoping a judge will annul LPC’s approval of the project and halt construction, according to their lawyer Jack Lester.
The lawsuit centers around the process by which LPC approved the plan to renovate several buildings in the school’s campus on East 16th Street between Rutherford Place and Third Avenue — which involves adding stories to the school’s main hall and to three adjacent townhouses.
After a series of contentious community meetings last year, LPC sent the school back to the drawing board on April 21, 2015 and requested several changes to make the plans more in line with the character of the Stuyvesant Square Historic District in which it resides.
Friends Seminary submitted revised plans for the proposal, which were made public on May 15, 2015. Representatives of the school then presented the plans to the LPC on May 19, 2015, when commissioners were supposed to hear their presentation and publicly debate on the plans before making its final decision.
The trial will explore whether the commissioners discussed the plans publicly or behind closed doors, and will decide whether the LPC has violated the open meetings law, as the petitioners have alleged.
Construction on the first phase of the project, which involves work on the school’s main building, Hunter Hall, began in April.
John Galayda, a spokesman for Friends Seminary said the school is confident in the LPC's decision to approve its plans.
"The school respects the process of the court in this matter," Galayda said. "The design was approved by LPC after a rigorous public review and reflects revisions based on the thoughtful feedback of the LPC Commissioners and members of the community."
A spokeswoman for the LPC declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
