Long Beach Strikes Tentative Settlement on $131M Suit

LONG BEACH, NY — The City of Long Beach and developer Sinclair Haberman on Tuesday tentatively settled a $131 million lawsuit that the Manhattan developer filed against the municipality, according to the Long Beach Herald.

The agreement would require the city to pay Sinclair Haberman $75 million, a 50 percent reduction in a court judgment against the city last year, while granting the developer permission to build two 13 ½-story apartment buildings on Shore Road, between Monroe and Lincoln Boulevards, the Herald reports. The buildings, featuring a collective 266 apartments, would be the tallest in the city. The developer previously had proposed constructing three buildings on the site.

According to Newsday, a Nassau County Supreme Court judge ordered the city to pay Sinclair Haberman $131 million in the case that has been in litigation since 1987. The judgment has also collected $1.1 million in interest each month the city failed to pay, which has accrued to $150 million, Newsday reports.

The city council must vote to approve the agreement within the next three months. City officials, including City Manager Donna Gayden and the city’s financial and legal consultants and the developer’s representative, will work on finalizing the agreement in the coming months, according to the Herald. City Council John Bendo said in a statement about the pending settlement:

“This issue has weighed on the city for more than 34 years. It posed a catastrophic impact to the city’s finances, its services and its residents. Our prospects for appeal were costly and risky. In sum, we have made this agreement with the plaintiff to work toward an end to an ugly chapter in the city’s history that was dropped in the lap of the current City Council.”

The city plans to fund the settlement by issuing long-term bonds, which the officials project could lead to a tax increase added to the city budget.

Newsday reports that Gayden said about the funding plan: "We would look at other revenue streams and can’t say what the tax increase would be. We will look at the budget and there may be some revenue streams coming in. The whole point was to avoid having to do that."