Justice Stephen Bucaria
Plaintiffs challenged a long term lease of underwater lands granted by Town of Oyster Bay claiming the leases were invalid under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, and the town's own regulations. The town leased a significant portion of the land to Frank M Flower & Son Inc., which was renewed for another 30 years in 1994 covering nearly 32 percent of the town-owned land. Plaintiffs argued that a condition precedent to granting of such lease required the town to make a finding there was not a sufficient quantity or quality of shellfish to allow manual harvesting. Plaintiffs sought a permanent injunction restraining Flower from taking shellfish from underwater land. A recent clam density survey for the area was prepared, except from Flower's land, concluding there was a significant increase in clam density in the surrounding area. As such, the court stated the town's failure to conduct such survey on land leased to Flower rendered the town's continuation of a long term lease to Flower arbitrary, and vacated the 30-year lease extension issued in 1994. It remanded the matter to the town for another density survey upon Flower's land to determine if there was an indicated presence of shellfish in sufficient quantity and quality to support manual harvesting.
