Cold Spring Country Club sues Huntington, Oheka Castle over condominium plan
A rendering of condominiums proposed for Oheka Castle. Credit: Beatty Harvey Coco Architects LLP
A lawsuit against the Town of Huntington and the administrators of Oheka Castle alleges that the town unlawfully approved the construction of luxury condominiums on the grounds of the property.
The Cold Spring Country Club and its development partner, Cold Spring Development Partners LLC, filed a lawsuit known as an Article 78 in State Supreme Court on April 18. The suit cites a March 14 town board vote, later amended on March 20, that allowed Kahn Property Owner LLC, the Huntington-based administrators of the castle, to move forward on the construction of Residences at Oheka II, a four-story building with 95 units of housing on the west side of East Gate Drive. The country club is next to Oheka Castle.
The suit alleges the Huntington Town Board “abused its authority” when it granted Melius an additional use permit, which he needed because the castle is in the town's historic building overlay district. Town code allows the town board to consider uses for historic buildings in the district other than what's allowed under the overlay district zoning.
“The lawsuit is absolutely frivolous,” Melius said Friday. “They are just trying to stop me, but I’m not worried about it.”
The suit alleges the board “perverted” the interpretation of the code when it granted the additional use permit to allow Kahn to file a site plan application for the condominium complex. The suit seeks to annul the town board's approval.
The suit also questions why the town board approved the project, which requires the country club to allow access to East Gate Drive. It also says the approval was granted without an environmental review of the project.
Also named as defendants in the suit are Kahn Property Owner, LLC, Jeffrey Kolessar and David Rosenberg.
Town of Huntington spokeswoman Chris Geed said the town does not comment on pending litigation.
Calls for comment to attorneys representing the country club and its Manhattan-based development partner were not returned Friday.
The castle was placed into a receivership in 2019 to manage its finances.
In 2012, Melius had an agreement with the country club to build 190 condominiums on both the castle and country club properties but the deal fell through.
According to the lawsuit, Cold Spring Development Partners LLC is in contract with the country club to buy 13 acres of its property to build a 175-unit condominium project.
