A Queens appellate court decided that a group of residents fighting noise pollution and traffic tied to concerts at Forest Hills Stadium will have a chance to take their case to trial.
The court ruled the residents have standing to pursue their claim that the stadium’s concerts cause a nuisance — but dismissed the argument that it is improperly zoned for music. That may make it harder for the residents to successfully argue that the venue should be barred from hosting shows.
The decision comes as part of a day of mixed verdicts in two distinct cases over Forest Hills Stadium that the appellate court decided on Wednesday.
The court sided in part with the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation in one decision, finding that neighbors sufficiently demonstrated their case that the venue is creating a public and private nuisance and trespassing on nearby streets. But it dismissed a second suit brought by a separate neighborhood group, The Concerned Citizens of Forest Hills, against the stadium on similar grounds.
The lawsuits concern the unique arrangement in the central Queens neighborhood. The Forest Hills Gardens Corporation, the entity representing homeowners of the picturesque planned community, owns the private streets, sidewalks and parks surrounding Forest Hills Stadium, but has to allow through-traffic for both pedestrians and vehicles.
The residents in the tight-knit neighborhood have soured on the concerts the stadium hosts, arguing that they cause irksome noise pollution and traffic gridlock and force the neighborhood to pay hefty security and cleanup bills.
They argued that since 2013, the Tennis Club, which owns the stadium, has increased the number of concerts by leasing it to Tiebreaker Productions, its concert operator.
In 2023, the Corporation filed a lawsuit to stop the West Side Tennis Club from holding concerts. It sued for an injunction based on nuisance, trespassing, and the claim that the stadium is not properly zoned to host shows.
A panel of Appellate Division, Second Department judges ruled Thursday that, while the Corporation cannot sue over zoning or historical rules, the case can go back to the lower court to proceed with the nuisance and trespassing claims.
But the Corporation’s appetite for continued litigation is now less certain than when the lawsuits were filed in 2023. Last year, a new slate of leaders took over the co-op on the platform of resolving the lawsuits against Forest Hills Stadium.
Since that election, the new leadership settled a separate lawsuit with the city over shutting down roads near the stadium during concerts. The Corporation declined to return amNewYork Law’s inquiry about whether it is planning to continue its lawsuit against the stadium.
Attorneys representing the stadium chalked up the dismissal of the claims over the venue’s zoning, which had existential stakes for its ability to host concerts, as a win.
“We were thrilled to receive two significant wins from the appellate court yesterday. One decision ends the so-called ‘Concerned Citizens’ group’s ceaseless attempts to shut down the Forest Hills Stadium, while the other affirms the West Side Tennis Club’s legal right to use the stadium to put on concerts,” said Akiva Shapiro of Holtzman Vogel, counsel to the West Side Tennis Club. “We look forward to thoroughly refuting the minor remaining claims at the appropriate time.”
A lower court had previously ruled that the Corporation could proceed only with the nuisance claims, not the trespassing or zoning violations. Both parties appealed the parts of the ruling, and the Corporation won back its right to sue for the trespassing in this week’s ruling.
On the trespassing claim, the appellate court found that while the tennis club and its attendees have a right to use the street, it exceeded that right by installing “a bag check station, barricades, and a ‘Stadium VIP area’ on the plaintiff’s property.”
“The holder of an easement ‘cannot materially increase the burden of the servient estate or impose new and additional burdens on the servient estate,’” the court wrote.
The court found that the lawsuit which the Concerned Citizens of Forest Hills launched against the stadium had been improperly argued.
In that case, a small group of local residents was seeking monetary damages from the stadium in addition to an order to stop the concerts. The appellate court threw out the case because it found the neighbors hadn’t done enough to show they suffered a “special injury beyond that suffered by the community at large.”