Opinion
May 18, 1971
Appeal by the Board of Water Supply from so much of an order of the Supreme Court at Special Term, entered August 22, 1963 in Delaware County, as confirmed a report of Commissioners of Appraisal awarding $12,500 for indirect real estate and business damages by reason of the execution of plans and the acquisition of lands by the City of New York for the Pepacton Reservoir. On June 9, 1949 claimant purchased a girls summer camp on a parcel of 150 to 160 acres at Perch Lake in the Town of Andes, Delaware County, same being about one and a half miles distant from the East Branch of the Delaware River. Thereafter, he built seven cabins, made certain improvements and converted it into a camp for children of both sexes. In October of 1947 the city had acquired Delaware Sections 14 and 15 covering an area from Downsville to Pepacton for the Pepacton Reservoir and construction of the dam on the East Branch of the Delaware River, one mile upstream from Downsville, began in November, 1947. At said times, subdivision a of section K41-44.0 (now K51-44.0) of the Administrative Code of the City of New York, so far as pertinent, provided: "The owner of any real estate, not taken, situate in any one or more of the counties of Ulster, Delaware, Orange or Sullivan, or of any established business, directly or indirectly decreased in value by reason of the execution of any plans for or by the acquisition of land by the city for a water supply from the Rondout and Delaware watersheds * * * shall have a right to damages for such decrease in value". Claimant, having purchased the real estate and acquired the business after the statutory cut-off date of "the execution of any plans or * * * the acquisition of land", had no indirect real estate or business damage claim based on the construction of the Pepacton Reservoir, regardless of whether or not he knew of the project at the time of purchase ( Matter of Ford [ Arens], 26 A.D.2d 408; Matter of Ford [ Tompkins], 25 A.D.2d 694, affd. 20 N.Y.2d 887). That portion of the order confirming the award to respondent reversed, on the law and the facts, and claim dismissed, without costs. Herlihy, P.J., Staley, Jr., Cooke, Sweeney and Simons, JJ., concur.