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Land Use—Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Violated Term Limits Rule and Prohibition Against Contract Zoning—MOU Purported To Bind Successor Town Boards—Each Board “Must Maintain Its Autonomy and Must Be Imbued With Full Discretion When Exercising Its Legislative Functions...Concerning a Zoning Change, Including Its Right Not To Continue the Review Process Until a Final Determination...Is Reached”—Fact That MOU Committed a Town Board To Follow a Process and Did Not Require the Board To Reach Any Particular “Final Determination,” Did Not Render the MOU Legal

A plaintiff real estate developer appealed a trial court decision in an action, inter alia, to recover damages for breach of contract. The trial court had granted the municipal defendants’ motion, pursuant to CPLR 3211(a), to dismiss the complaint.

The appeal involved “issues of whether the term limits rule and/or the prohibition against contract zoning are violated by a MOU” which had been entered into by a real estate developer and a Town Board, and a Town Planning Board (Planning Board) that purports to be “binding on their successors, and wherein the Town Board agreed, inter alia, not to ‘terminate its review of the developer’s zoning petition, and the project..., until it reaches a final determination on the merits in its legislative judgment regarding the best interests of the Town based upon empirical data and other objective factual bases.’”