The New York State Supreme Court Justice who issued a temporary restraining order on May 16 blocking East Hampton Town from closing East Hampton Airport and reopening it as a private facility with new restrictions has ordered that three lawsuits challenging the town’s plan be combined.
Justice Paul Baisley Jr.’s Aug. 19 order combines the parallel lawsuits commenced on Feb. 15 by East End Hangars, Inc., and Hampton Hangars; the Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open, and Blade Air Mobility. Each entity is joined by several individuals as co-plaintiffs, and each names the town as respondent in seeking an order prohibiting the town board from following through on its plan to close the public airport and reopen it a private airport under what the Federal Aviation Administration calls a “prior-permissions-required” framework, with restrictions on aircraft operations.
The lawsuit by Blade Air Mobility, which allows users of its app to book seats on scheduled helicopter and airplane flights, also names the town board and Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc as respondents.
Justice Baisley issued the temporary restraining order hours after hearing oral arguments in the three lawsuits challenging the town’s plan. It remains in place, and — with the exception of a change in its aviation designation from KHTO to JPX — the airport operates as it had previously, confounding residents of the South and North Forks who have long complained about a quality of life ruined by incessant helicopter and airplane traffic over their residences, especially during the summer. Several of them wearily aired their frustration, for some 90 minutes, during Saturday’s meeting of the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee. That meeting is covered separately in this issue.
A four-judge panel of the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division denied the town’s motion to appeal Justice Baisley’s order, along with a separate motion to stay enforcement of the restraining order, on Aug. 24.
The town board voted unanimously on Jan. 20 to deactivate the airport, with an initial plan to do so on Feb. 28 and reopen the “new” airport on March 4. The dates were postponed to May following consultation with the F.A.A.
“The principal contention of the petitioners in the three proceedings is that the respondent Town of East Hampton violated the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) when it adopted the Jan. 20, 2022, resolution, acted in excess of its jurisdiction, and that its action was arbitrary and capricious,” Justice Baisley wrote.
Citing case law, he added that “The power to order consolidation rests in the sound discretion of the court and should be granted in the interest of judicial economy where common issues of law or fact exist” and “Consolidation or joinder for trial is favored to avoid unnecessary duplication of trials, save unnecessary cost and expense, and prevent an injustice which would result from divergent decisions based on the same facts. Here, the separate actions commenced by the petitioners clearly involve common issues of law and fact.”
Restrictions put on hold when Justice Baisley issued the temporary restraining order would have limited aircraft operators to one takeoff and one landing per day. Other restrictions based on the size and noise of aircraft would have been imposed, and aircraft operations would have been limited to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday and on federal holidays.
The restrictions and curfews were aimed at alleviating the complaints that have soared in recent years in tandem with aircraft operations, particularly helicopter travel to and from New York City. Consultants to the town board concluded that the curfews and restrictions outlined would have impacted around 40 percent of aircraft operations while addressing upward of 70 percent of complaints about them.
Attorneys for the three plaintiffs had argued that the town’s planned action prior to a full environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA, was illegal. They continually chided their adversaries, characterizing their arguments with words like “gibberish,” “brazen,” “scheming,” “audacity,” “horror,” and “havoc.”
“SEQRA isn’t supposed to be a check-the-box, after-the-fact exercise,” Steven Russo, representing the Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open, told Justice Baisley at the May 16 hearing. Rather, “it’s about injecting environmental impacts into the decision process. . . . They can’t do it after the fact,” he said, yet “that is exactly what the town is trying to do.”
William O’Connor, an attorney representing the town, countered that the town was finally in a position to implement reasonable restrictions at the airport, following the 2021 expiration of federal grant assurances that freed it to reassert control. “That authority is very much countenanced by the F.A.A.,” he said, calling the plaintiffs a “well-funded group that would prefer ever-increasing impacts to continue to grow.” It was ironic, he told Justice Baisley, that the plaintiffs were worried about adverse impact to their quality of life, the very reason the town was attempting to impose restrictions on aircraft operations.
