DEVELOPMENT: Zoning suit against McDonald’s reinstated

Local News

May 4, 2009

Anonymous The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Mon May 04, 2009, 06:48 PM EDT

TOWN OF LOCKPORT — A Hamm Road homeowner’s lawsuit against the town and McDonald’s restaurant has been reinstated.

The appellate division of State Supreme Court ruled last week the suit by Brian and Bruce Yaeger, challenging the planning and zoning approvals granted McDonald’s to site a new restaurant on South Transit Road at Hamm Road, was dismissed erroneously by Justice Frank Caruso in October 2007.

The ruling means the suit “just comes back,” Town Attorney Daniel E. Seaman said Monday. “It’s essentially like starting over.”

The Yaeger brothers, owners of residential-commercial lot 6220 Hamm Road, just east of the McDonald’s lot, claimed the McDonald’s site plan effectively ruined the future commercial appeal of their property. In public hearings preceding the planning and zoning approvals, Brian Yaeger said he wanted the option of his lot and McDonalds’ lot being connected but the approved site plan made that impossible.

Zoning laws require internal, off-street access between adjoining commercial properties but the town did not require McDonald’s to facilitate connectivity. The Yaegers’ suit thus sought to have the town approvals nullified.

Caruso dismissed the suit on a technicality argued by McDonald’s: the Yaegers did not name Dave Licata, the then-owner of the McDonald’s lot, as a defendant.

The four-judge appellate panel ruled unanimously that Caruso should have summoned Licata to proceedings, not dismissed the suit without hearing the Yaegers’ complaints. McDonald’s has since acquired the property so Licata no longer is a party to the suit, the panel noted. The restaurant was built and is operating on the site.

The Yaeger brothers declined to comment on the ruling Monday.

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