Conference Awards 2024

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The Land Use Law Center is pleased to honor Geraldine (Gerri) Tortorella with the 2024 Founder’s Award to recognize her for her work in the land use arena. This award is bestowed each year in the name of Theodore W. Kheel, the great American attorney and labor mediator, renowned for his ability to build consensus and resolve conflicts, and who was a major supporter of the Land Use Law Center.

A student of constitutional law, Gerri has a deep respect for and commitment to the protection of private property rights. For more than thirty-seven years, she has represented property owners and prospective owners interested in the development (and redevelopment) of real estate across an array of asset classes throughout the Hudson Valley Region and in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Early in her career as a land use attorney, Gerri learned the importance of striking a balance between private property rights and the legitimate exercise of the police power. She respectfully, but forcefully, advocates for her clients’ rights in the entitlements process and, if circumstances mandate, vindicates their interests at the next level. She also appreciates the merits of efficient and effective resolution of disputes, leading her to favor cooperative problem-solving over protracted confrontations whenever feasible. Her firm’s tag lines – client-centered and solution-oriented – define Gerri’s approach to the law throughout her professional life.

Gerri has had the good fortune to be able to bring her legal training and experience to bear on a number of cases and projects that have profound implications in the fields of affordable housing, medical care for the underserved and the provision of food, clothing and skills training to residents in Northern Westchester County. At a prior firm, Gerri played an instrumental role in the representation of the plaintiff in Continental Building Company, Inc. v. Town of North Salem, 211 A.D.2d 88 (3d Dep’t 1995), lv. denied, 86 N.Y.2d 818 (1995), which extended the doctrine of Berenson v. Town of New Castle, 38 N.Y.2d 102 (1975) and its progeny by holding that a zoning ordinance which fails to meet a municipality’s share of regional and local needs for multi-family and affordable housing is unconstitutional. For almost two decades, Gerri has represented Open Door Family Medical Center, Inc., an Article 28 Health Center, helping the organization establish and expand medical offices for the underserved in communities throughout the Hudson Valley. In the last several years, she has worked with the Community Center of Northern Westchester, Inc., a charitable organization with the mission of addressing food insecurity and assisting community members who suffer from it to regain self-sufficiency and stability, employing a collaborative approach with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection and the Town of Bedford to secure the approvals necessary to expand the Center’s facilities in Katonah.

Gerri is committed to the professional development of other lawyers and professionals in the real estate field. She is proud of her role as a resource to law students and young attorneys from the Elisabeth T. Haub School of Law at Pace University and her firm’s sponsorship of externs and interns from the Law School. Also a source of pride is her commitment to the Urban Land Institute (ULI), an international not-for-profit research and education organization comprised of cross-disciplinary real estate and land use experts working together to establish standards of excellence in development that help “[s]hape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide”. Since 2015, Gerri has been an active member of the ULI Westchester/Fairfield District Council, having served for several years on the Advisory Committee and as Co-Chair of several other committees including the Women’s Leadership Initiative. Gerri just recently concluded a two-year term as one of the Co-Chairs of the District Council, helping to lead the organization in its initiative to expand the inclusionary nature of both its membership and leadership and deliver quality programming. During her career, she has also held leadership roles in the Westchester Women’s Bar Association and the Northern Westchester Bar Association.

In her daily practice, Gerri appears regularly before municipal agencies and boards seeking land use approvals and environmental permits and has handled numerous complex litigation matters related to zoning, land use and environmental law on both the trial and appellate levels. She has lectured and/or written articles regarding various zoning, environmental law, property rights, and constitutional issues for the Practising Law Institute, Sections of the New York State Bar Association, the Municipal Law Resource Center of Pace University and the Westchester Municipal Planning Federation.

Gerri’s professional accomplishments have been possible only with the support and expertise of her colleagues at Hocherman Tortorella & Wekstein, LLP. Gerri co-founded the firm with partners Henry Hocherman and Adam Wekstein in 2005. Partner Noelle Wolfson, the first recipient of the Distinguished Young Attorney Award in 2018, joined the firm in 2006 after graduating from then Pace Law School. Gerri’s colleagues’ proficiency and commitment to high standards of the practice of law and ethics have been unfailing beacons in her professional voyage.

Gerri is a 1987 graduate of Pace Law School (cum laude), where she published for the Law Review, and a 1984 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross. Hocherman Tortorella & Wekstein, LLP is a full-service real estate firm that offers quality, personalized counsel and pragmatic solutions to corporate, not-for-profit, private and municipal clients in all aspects of zoning and land use, real property transactions and related litigation.

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Annie Kline is an associate at DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP and focuses her practice on securing land use approvals for development projects throughout Westchester County. She represents landowners, developers and nonprofits on a variety of commercial, mixed-use and residential projects. She also assists her clients on Industrial Development Agency transactions. Annie is a graduate of Pace University School of Law (2012) and also earned her M.S. in Environmental Policy from Bard College (2012) and B.S. from the University of Connecticut (2008). Annie volunteered at the Land Use Law Center throughout her time at Pace Law School and strives to continue the Center's mission in her everyday practice. She has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America: "Ones to Watch" for 2024 and 2025.

DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP (DDWWW) is one of the premier law firms in Westchester County and the Hudson Valley. Our attorneys are a diverse team of highly accomplished practitioners, many with significant experience as leaders in government, business and philanthropy. DDWWW offers clients the depth, sophistication and range of experience most often associated with large national firms with the personal attention that can only be provided by a regional firm, which is why so many businesses and individuals turn to DDWWW for assistance with the most high-profile and transformational real estate development projects in the region.

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Sabrina D. Charney Hull, AICP
Director of Planning, Town of New Castle, NY

Sabrina's journey from the barnyards of Wisconsin to negotiating big deals in Albany is proof that her passion for protecting the environment knows no bounds! Her work on the historic New York City Memorandum of Agreement, designed to safeguard the city's drinking water, sparked a decades-long collaboration with local governments and kicked off her relationship with the Pace Land Use Law Center. Partnering with John Nolon, she helped launch one of the first LULA (Land Use Leadership Alliance) training programs, guiding community leaders in balancing economic development with watershed protection.

Armed with technical planning skills and a knack for collaboration, Sabrina spent ten years working with municipalities as part of her role in watershed planning at the Westchester County Department of Planning. She quickly realized that the real decision-makers were the local boards, committees, and governments, so she shifted her focus to building consensus and transforming land use as the Town Planner for Somers. In her eight years there, she became a master at fostering relationships with landowners and developers to bring smart, sustainable land use practices to life.

Sabrina then took her talents to New Castle, where she brought a fresh, welcoming approach to development. As the Town’s Stormwater Coordinator, she uses her mediation and team-building skills to keep New Castle compliant with state environmental standards. She’s also been the lead planner on the $15 million Chappaqua Hamlet revitalization project, and is actively working on plans to build a bridge over the Saw Mill River Parkway.

Sabrina’s crowning achievement? Authoring New Castle’s award-winning Comprehensive Plan Update, "A Framework for the Future," which has gained regional recognition for its best practices in land use planning. Despite a bump in the road with form-based zoning in the Chappaqua Hamlet, she bounced back by rallying support for the groundbreaking “Net-Zero Carbon Legislation,” paving the way for greener, more energy-efficient construction, and increasing affordable housing.

She’s now guiding New Castle through important decisions about future land use around the Chappaqua Train Station, balancing today’s needs (housing, environmental protection, transportation) with the community’s vision for the future. For Sabrina, it’s all about ensuring everyone’s voice is heard—and using her unique skills to shape the town’s land use decisions.

When she’s not busy shaping communities, Sabrina teaches the next generation of leaders about climate change, water quality, and planning as an adjunct professor at Purchase University. She lives in Newtown, Connecticut with her husband Gordon, daughter Sophie and son Spencer, making the most of her busy, fulfilling life.

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Sophie Coassin has produced exceptional work, engaged with all aspects of the Land Use Law Center. In her 1L year, she participated in Professor Jennie Nolon’s summer externship program. She served as a research assistant to Professor Jessica Bacher and Professor Tiffany Zezula and conducted research for both the Land Use Law Center and the Housing Action Council. She published an article supervised by Distinguished Professor Emeritus John Nolon using the public trust doctrine as a method of securing equitable beach access. She is pursuing a Juris Doctorate degree from Pace — where she is ranked second in her class — and a Master’s in Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment. This past summer, Sophie was a summer associate at Zarin & Steinmetz, a leading land use firm in the tri-state area.

While working as a research assistant, she created multiple land use housing policy presentations, wrote monthly Housing Action Council newsletters, helped a municipality create a planning board, and performed countless additional land use-related tasks. She was a member of the original Climate Resilient Development (CRD) summer team, which launched a two-year-long workshop series. She published a CRD blog on equitable transit-oriented development (eTOD) and is currently leading an eTOD team to find case studies for the final phase of the CRD project – a 300-page framework law. Sophie has consistently demonstrated her exceptional and unique talents, ability to build a project from the ground up, leadership skills to help head projects, and dynamic energy and positive attitude to uplift fellow students and create lively presentations.

Sophie is a Web Editor of the Pace Environmental Law Review and her work involves publishing environmental law blogs for a wide audience. Sophie is also a research assistant for Professor Bustos where she focuses on researching environmental justice in domestic and international climate change litigation. At Yale, Sophie is currently working on a class project with the goal to map out the inequities of New Haven land use and to come up with a zoning code to remedy them. She is also a student in the Environmental Protection Clinic at Yale Law School and is conducting research on the social equity of marine protected areas. She looks forward to completing her degrees next year and pursuing a career in environmental policy and focusing on climate-resilient development in land use and ocean conservation.