Judge sides with Suffolk homeowners in ongoing lawsuit over state roadwork

Dozens of Suffolk County homeowners who alleged the state Department of Transportation's roadway improvements would have displaced them have won a victory in their ongoing legal battle. A state Supreme Court justice ruled this month the DOT cannot suddenly disconnect the Nesconset condo community’s sewer main to continue the more than decade-long upgrades to Route 347.

The DOT in 2020 notified homeowners of Country Pointe at Smithtown North Condominiums, an 88-unit community just north of Route 347, that they needed to remove their sewer pipe to allow construction between Gibbs Pond Road and Hallock Road. The DOT said the pipe would interfere with drainage along the road and installation of a sound wall barrier.

The homeowners countered in a lawsuit filed in May that the project can be done without moving the pipe. If the DOT moves it, the agency should pay for the work, the homeowners said.

Their complex is not within a municipal sewer district, so waste is pumped through a private sewer pipe running under Route 347. The pipe connects to a sewage treatment plant in a separate nearby community.

“The costs associated with relocating the pipe are astronomical for a community of our size and could very well bankrupt us,” resident Patricia O’Connell wrote in an affidavit filed in the lawsuit. “Defendants have unlimited funds to spend and achieve their goals as well as comply with the terms of their contractual agreement with the condominium.”

DOT regional director Richard Causin said in court documents it would cost the agency $641,000 to move the pipe and that taxpayers shouldn't pay for it.

DOT earlier this year threatened to disconnect the pipe on June 6, which the lawsuit alleges would have essentially condemned all 88 homes. The court issued a temporary restraining order in September.

State Supreme Court Justice Frank Tinari on Dec. 18 issued an order that bars the DOT from capping the pipe, but allows the agency to move it so long as it doesn’t disrupt the pumping of wastewater. The order directs the condo association to cooperate with the agency as it conducts its work.

DOT spokesman Stephen Canzoneri said the agency is "reviewing the decision and considering our options.”

The lawsuit continues, and Tinari wrote the plaintiffs have shown “a probability of success on the merits” of their claim.

Initially the DOT said it had no record of the pipe and wanted the condo association to prove it had the right to install and maintain it, according to the homeowners’ attorney, Marc Schneider, managing partner of Garden City-based Schneider Buschel LLP. The lawsuit notes the pipe was installed under a DOT permit in 2002 and that a DOT representative supervised its installation.

“Our client tried really hard to work with the DOT to find a resolution,” Schneider said. “There really was no resolution forthcoming from the DOT, other than basically, ‘do what we're telling you to do or else.’ ”

The project, which began in 2010, aims to reconstruct 15 miles of roadway through Islip, Smithtown and Brookhaven towns used daily by 70,000 motorists. The $71 million, two-mile Gibbs Pond Road to Hallock Road section will add new travel lanes, signals, crosswalks and other improvements and is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. 

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.