Awards 2019

Founder’s Award

The Theodore W. Kheel Center on the Resolution of Environmental Interest Disputes was launched in April 2008 to train lawyers and local leaders in environmental and land use dispute resolution. Located at the Land Use Law Center on the Pace Law School campus in White Plains, New York, the Kheel Center aims to promote the use of non-traditional forums to resolve environmental and land disputes. To further this mission, the Kheel Center bestows an annual Founder’s Award upon an individual or municipality that has worked collaboratively with a community and reinvented democracy to make change happen.

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Lester d. Steinman, McCarthy Fingar LLP

Lester Steinman is a partner in our Municipal Law & Land Use group and concentrates his practice in the representation of local governments and their land use boards, including litigation and appeals in federal and state courts. Lester is one of the most respected authorities on municipal law matters in the Westchester/Lower Hudson Valley region. Throughout his career, he has resolved a myriad of organizational and operational problems for local governments and has guided municipal entities through the land use and environmental review for major commercial and residential development projects, the construction and expansion of educational and religious institutions and the updating of comprehensive plans and local waterfront revitalization programs. For twenty-seven years, Lester served as Director of the Edwin G. Michaelian Municipal Law Resource Center of Pace University, a multi-faceted legal reference center which provided research and consulting services to municipalities on all aspects of local government law. During that time Lester also served as the Editor of the Municipal Lawyer, a quarterly journal distributed to the bar, judiciary and municipal officials throughout New York State. He also serves as counsel to the Westchester Municipal Officials Association. Lester is a leading member of the bar, including being a past chair of the Municipal Law sections of the New York State Bar Association and Westchester County Bar Association. He is also a former Adjunct Professor at Pace University School of Law. Representing the Village of Pleasantville, Lester successfully briefed and argued a landmark zoning case before New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, in which the Court of Appeals affirmed the courts’ obligation to give due deference to findings and conclusions of local zoning boards of appeal.

Lester has also received a peer review rating of AV®Preeminent on Martindale-Hubbell®.

Distinguished Young Attorney Award

 

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Victoria L. Polidoro, Rodenhausen Chale & Polidoro LLP

Victoria L. Polidoro is a partner in the firm and concentrates her practice in environmental, land use and municipal law. Ms. Polidoro represents private developers, municipalities, homeowners, not-for-profit entities and public agencies. She currently serves as planning board attorney or zoning board attorney, or both, for the Towns of Dover and Hyde Park and the Villages of Fishkill and Red Hook. She has experience representing public and private clients in connection with a wide variety of matters including planning and zoning matters, contracts and grant agreements, environmental compliance, drafting and preparation of local laws, special district proceedings, intermunicipal agreements, easement and real estate matters, and historic preservation issues.

Ms. Polidoro was of counsel in Cooperstown Holstein Corp. v. Town of Middlefield, one of the first two decisions in the state defending the right of the Town to ban fracking for natural gas through the use of its zoning law, ultimately affirmed by the Court of Appeals. She was also of counsel in Gabrielli v. Town of New Paltz, which successfully defended the right of the Town of New Paltz to regulate its wetlands and vernal pools in the face of a constitutional and SEQRA challenge. This decision established that towns do not have to accurately map each wetland before enacting a wetlands law, nor do they have to forego regulating vernal pools, though they may exist for only two months a year.

Ms. Polidoro studied at the Pace Land Use Law Center throughout law school and was a senior associate on the Pace Environmental Law Review. She has participated in the Land Use Law Center's Land Use Leadership Alliance Training Program as a facilitator and lecturer during its training programs for local officials. Ms. Polidoro has also lectured on the topic of land use law at a continuing legal education course for attorneys. She was selected for the Upstate New York Super Lawyers Rising Star list in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Her publications on the topic of land use and municipal law include:

"Hydrofracking: Disturbances Both Geological and Political: Who Decides?" John R. Nolon and Victoria L. Polidoro, 44 Urb. Law. 507 (2012)

"Examining TDR in New York: Why Isn't It Working? What are the Obstacles? Can They be Overcome?" John R. Nolon and Victoria L. Polidoro, N.Y. Zoning Law and Practice Report (2006)

"The Planning and Zoning Clerk Municipal Planning Primer," Edward Buroughs & Victoria Polidoro, editors, Westchester County Department of Planning (2006)

Ms. Polidoro is a member of the Dutchess County Bar Association, Mid-Hudson Women's Bar Association, and the New York Bar Association (Environmental and Municipal Law Sections).

She received her J.D. magna cum laude from Pace University School of Law in 2007 and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Arizona in 2003.

Groundbreaker’s Award

 

Kenneth Kearney and Sean Kearney, The Kearney Realty & Development Group, Inc.

The Land Use Law Center is happy to announce that this year’s recipients of the Groundbreaker’s Award are Ken and Sean Kearney. The Groundbreaker’s Award is given to a graduate or a group of graduates of the Center’s Land Use Leadership Alliance (LULA) Training Program who have done exemplary work in a community or a region using the types of land use and decision-making tools and techniques taught in the LULA program. Ken and Sean and their firm, The Kearney Realty & Development Group, Inc., were selected from a prestigious group of other past LULA graduates nominated for this award.

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Kenneth Kearney, The Kearney Realty & Development Group, Inc.

Kenneth Kearney is the founder and president of The Kearney Realty & Development Group, a diversified real estate development and property management firm based in Carmel, New York. 

Mr. Kearney’s nearly twenty-three years in real estate development includes many accomplishments of completed and successful projects located throughout the Hudson Valley in New York State.  To date KRDG has built commercial and residential projects valued at more than $200 million and is currently involved with several projects at various stages of development.

Known by friends and associates as “a businessman with a big heart,” Mr. Kearney brings experience, tenacity, a strong work ethic, and solid professional relationships to any project he undertakes.  He has been recognized by many for achievements in developing successful projects.

KRDG has been recognized as a regional leader in its field for both innovation and quality.  In 2014, KRDG committed to requiring all future buildings be LEED certified.  Since 2002, The KRDG has successfully developed over 900 units in the Hudson Valley region that include senior, workforce, veteran, supportive, market-rate, middle income, and artist housing.

In Kenneth’s free time he is a board member on two non-for-profit organizations, Patterns for Progress and Hudson Valley Community Foundations.  Kenneth and his family are involved in numerous philanthropic ventures in the areas in which he works.   A native of Mahopac, Kenneth and his wife Jean, continue to reside there.

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Sean Kearney, The Kearney Realty & Development Group, Inc.

Sean Kearney currently serves as the Vice President of The Kearney Realty & Development Group (KRDG), the Vice President of Tern Construction & Development (TDC) and is a managing member of Parkview Development & Construction (PDC).

At his roles with KRDG and PDC, he has overseen the development of over 900 units throughout New York State and oversees the management of over 1,300 units of a diverse housing stock including senior, workforce, veteran, supportive, middle-income, and artist housing. As Vice President of TDC, he is responsible for all contracting and purchasing of roughly $35 million of construction contracts annually. Recently, his focus has been on downtown revitalization projects utilizing New York State Homes and Community Renewal’s new middle-income housing program. 

He is an active member in the communities where he works and has been on the Board of Directors for the Bardavon 1869 Opera House, Board of Directors for the Walkway over the Hudson, and  Board of Directors for Peekskill’s Business Improvement District.

Sean and his wife Adriana reside in the Village of Cold Spring, New York.

The Kearney Realty & Development Group, Inc.

The Kearney Realty & Development Group, Inc., a diversified real estate development and property management firm located at 34 Clayton Boulevard, Suite A, Baldwin Place, New York, was founded by Kenneth Kearney in 1996.  Mr. Kearney’s career of over thirty (30) years in real estate development features a consistent string of accomplishments resulting in completed, successful projects located throughout the Hudson Valley region in New York State. In 2009, Mr. Kearney’s son, Sean K. Kearney, began working full time for the Kearney Group. To date, Kearney Group has built commercial and residential projects valued at more than $200 million, is currently under construction on over $100 million of development, and is currently involved in developments valued at $90 million. Kearney Group is a corporation and is qualified to do business.

Kearney Group has been successfully developing communities since the 1990s. Kearney Group began by renovating historic, vacant, single family homes in the City of Beacon, and the City of Newburgh. In each case, Mr. Kearney forged public and private partnerships with city and county government agencies.  This methodology ultimately became a recurring theme of his development strategy in addressing the challenges of adaptive re-use and new construction in urban areas. Similar projects were successfully undertaken in the Town of Catskill and in the City of Meriden, Connecticut. These early projects set the tone for the impressive undertakings that were to follow.  Read More...