The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed a decision by the Supreme Court, Rockland County, in favor of the village. After the owner commenced construction, a stop-work order was issued, and the owner went to court. Board of Trustees for Village of Pomona, a building inspector for the village of Pomona erroneously issued a property owner a building permit to construct an accessory building on his residential lot that exceeded the size permitted by the village’s zoning code and that was for a purpose not permitted by the code. Over the years, these general principles have been applied by courts to a broad range of local government actions. Of course, in those rare instances where a municipality has engaged in “fraud, misrepresentation, deception, or similar affirmative misconduct” upon which there was “reasonable reliance,” an estoppel defense may lie. That is because New York law is well settled that estoppel typically cannot be invoked against a municipality to preclude it from enforcing its zoning laws, to ratify administrative errors, or to prevent it from discharging its statutory duties. Generally speaking, however, a municipality does not have to suffer the consequences of its errors. Local government officials are no different from the rest of us – they can, and they do, make mistakes. Estoppel is rarely applied against a local government, which allows zoning and other kinds of errors to be corrected.
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