Playland will remain tax exempt for 2022, a court ruled last week, seemingly tying up one of the outstanding legal issues facing the historic amusement park.
Since the county, which owns the amusement park, had yet to officially hand over management of Playland to private operator Standard Amusements in 2022, the public park had to therefore maintain its tax-exempt status as a public park for that tax year, the state appellate court decided on April 16.
The city, which has been fighting to put Playland on the tax rolls, had previously argued its appeal in court on March 10.
John Nonna, the Westchester County attorney, said the court made a “sound decision.”
“This resolves the issue … once and for all,” he told The Record.
County Executive Ken Jenkins, a Democrat, also applauded the appellate court’s decision to keep Playland’s tax exemption for 2022 in a statement. (Playland was also tax exempt in 2023 and 2024.)
“Westchester County has always maintained that Playland Park should have never been removed from tax exempt status by the City of Rye,” Jenkins said.
The city now must decide if it plans to again appeal the court ruling.
Independent mayoral candidate Rick McCabe said he agrees with Rye’s original premise to seek more tax revenue, but losing in lower court and the appeals court signals that it “doesn’t appear that there’s a reasonable path to continue with this.”
The court’s decision to reject Rye’s appeal is the latest in a complicated series of legal events involving the city, the county, and the county-owned amusement park.
Westchester has operated Playland since 1928, except for a two-year stint in the early 1980s when the Marriott Corporation managed the park. The amusement park had always maintained tax-exempt status on grounds that it was a public park.
But issues arose in 2022 when Standard Amusements, the county’s privatization partner, took over management as part of a 30-year agreement. After the transfer of operations, Rye alerted Westchester and Standard that it would become a taxable property — since it was being operated by a for-profit corporation and the city was footing the cost for police, fire, and EMS services at Playland.
Rye sent Standard Amusements a tax bill for $3.6 million in May 2022, which Standard refused to pay. Rye sued Standard over the bill, lost in court in September 2023, and then filed an appeal — the one the courts rejected on April 16.
And while the city, county, and Standard were caught up in tax exemption litigation, in September 2024 Westchester County slammed Rye with a lawsuit seeking nearly $15 million in what the county argued was withheld Playland tax revenue that the city collected on behalf of the county as well as late payment penalty fees.
The city and the county later settled that case, with Rye agreeing to pay Westchester around $10 million. The settlement stipulated that Rye would pay the county the remainder of the tax levy money — about $3.5 million — five business days after notification of the appeals decision, which was reached on April 16.
The city has until April 24 to make that payment.
“That’s not in dispute,” Rye Corporation Counsel Kristen Wilson told The Record.
Also as part of that settlement, the county is required by early May to refund Rye around $580,000 of the county tax it failed to pay.
In January, Standard announced that it was terminating its 30-year contract with the county to run the amusement park and seeking roughly $50 million in damages. The matter is currently tied up in arbitration.
In the crossfire of all the litigation have been the institutions that rely on municipal tax dollars for their own budgets — chief among them, the Rye City School District.
“The school district and its Board of Education are currently waiting to learn what the city of Rye intends to do with regards to the latest ruling in the Playland litigation,” said outgoing Schools Superintendent Eric Byrne.
The city and school district are scheduled to meet Saturday morning for their annual joint session.
Jenkins, in his statement, called the whole affair “ill-advised” for the entities that rely on tax dollars to fund their operations.
“The unnecessary legal expenses, the consequences of the self-inflicted negative financial impact to both the city of Rye and the Rye School District on this ill-advised change of tax status cannot be understated,” Jenkins said.
Current Mayor Josh Cohn said he doesn’t want to get ahead of the issue until the City Council has been fully briefed on the matter, but offered that there may obstacles.
“Appeal to the NYS Court of Appeals, our top court, is not necessary by right, so there may be procedural hurdles, as well as the ultimate questions of substance,” Cohn said.
Democratic Councilman Josh Nathan, who is running for mayor next term, declined to say whether he’d be in favor of appealing the decision again calling it “inappropriate” to weigh in now.
City Councilman Bill Henderson, a Republican, also declined comment on the appellate decision, but emphasized that individual Rye taxpayers aren’t out much money even though the city lost its case.
“Everyone thinks Rye lost taxpayer money, (but) we just didn’t get that money,” Henderson, the GOP mayoral candidate, told The Record.
Henderson also said the city has been mostly unhappy with how the county has run Playland over the last few years.
“We really want the county to be better neighbors than they have been,” he said.
This story was updated to include a statement from Mayor Josh Cohn.
