Jobs Lane Courtyard Owner's Request To Reargue Case Against Southampton Village Is Rejected

A State Supreme Court Justice has rejected a motion from the owner of a Southampton Village courtyard to re-argue his case against the village.

To open up more enforcement options against the owner, the Village Board had voted in October 2021 to adopt a resolution making a formal determination that the courtyard at 38-42 Jobs Lane had fallen into a state of disrepair. The owner, John Vigna, filed a petition in State Supreme Court in November 2021 seeking to annul the board’s resolution.

But in February of this year, the court dismissed the petition as “not ripe for review,” because the village had not yet taken any “adverse action” against Vigna, and the Village Board resolution did not affect Vigna’s right, title or interest in the property.

Vigna then sought permission to renew the petition, but acting State Supreme Court Justice John H. Rouse turned him down in a decision dated May 24.

Vigna is “not aggrieved because no action has been taken upon the purported ‘findings’ of the Board of Trustees,” and the earlier court decision still stood, Rouse wrote.

Vigna also had asked the court to order the village to file a certified transcript of the proceedings that preceded the Village Board’s determination concerning the courtyard. Vigna had taken issue with not being given opportunities to speak at a hearing and to provide evidence before the Village Board voted.

That request was also denied, with Rouse writing: “There is no reason to resolve whether a record of a ‘hearing’ before the board of trustees was complete when the petitioner was not on notice of the hearing and had no opportunity to be heard to insure the record was complete in the first instance.”

The brick courtyard surrounded by small shops dates back to the 1970s. In 2017, Vigna sought to redevelop the property, but he withdrew the application a year and a half later after meeting resistance. He had left the storefronts vacant and the courtyard blocked off, and at one point he thumbed his nose at the village by removing a fountain, leaving the bricks half torn up and installing plastic lawn flamingos.

A village ordinance inspector had issued Vigna a number of citations stating that bricks had been removed without a certificate of appropriateness, and that maintenance and repair are required.