NEW CITY – State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Zugibe has granted the County of Rockland’s request for a preliminary injunction against the City of New York and Mayor Eric Adams and the Armoni Hotel, prohibiting the city from proceeding with their plan to turn the Armoni Inn and Suites in Orangeburg into a shelter for 340 migrants.
In May, County Executive Ed Day filed a lawsuit against the City of New York citing its lack of authority to establish a shelter outside of its boundaries without cooperation of the County and local municipalities.
The lawsuit argues that the City of New York lacks communication and planning and failed to follow New York State rules and regulations required for setting up a shelter.
“The City of New York’s attempts at unilateral action are disrespectful of the people and local governments in Rockland County. The city government can do what it likes within its own borders, but it must show some regard for the people, governments, and laws of this County if it wants to open operations here, whether it is a shelter or its new voucher plan,” said Rockland County Attorney Thomas Humbach. “The court also found that the county opponents’ unresponsive, repetitive, and needlessly combative claims that the County acted with ‘racist motivation’ failed to provide any persuasive argument.
Humbach said that ultimately the preliminary injunction prohibits New York City from bringing people to Rockland County to house them in shelters.”
“This county has a severe housing crisis subjecting many low-income families in Rockland to overcrowded and unsafe living conditions,” said County Executive Ed Day. “Quadrupling the number of homeless in this county overnight, as the city is intending to do, will only compound our housing crisis and lead to more people living in these dangerously inhumane conditions that we are fighting to fix.”
“That includes going to site plans, approvals, inspections; it’s a lengthy process. The mayor knows this because he issued his own executive order in his boroughs to accelerate that process,” said Rockland County Social Services Commissioner Joan Silvestri. “He has no authority to attempt to move homeless individuals outside of his city and certainly not if he hasn’t followed the state regulations for shelters for homeless individuals.”
