New Castle won another extension in its discovery deadlines for the federal Chappaqua Crossing lawsuit.

At a Friday conference at the White Plains court house, U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Douglas Smith gave the following end dates for producing materials: Jan. 27 for town counsel emails, Feb. 27 for town board work email accounts, March 16 for town planning emails and April 20 for the town's e-file documents. Late February was the previous last deadline for material turn over.

The suit was filed last February by developer Summit/Greenfield over how the town handled the review process for its request to rezone the property for multifamily residential usage for a total of 199 condos and townhouses. After the town approved a 111-unit rezoning plan last April that it unilaterally added as an option, the developer amended its suit to take that decision into account.

Smith was sympathetic to the town's argument that it does not have the financial resources and man power to get the work done on time. She does have her limits, though, as she declined to grant a request from the town's counsel for a July completion deadline.

In making his case, New Castle attorney John Walsh said that there are about 37 gigabytes worth of materials to go through. He said that it would take them a rate of one gigabyte per 40 hours to comb through materials that they need to turn over to developer Summit/Greenfield's attorneys.

"The amount of material is massive," Walsh said. He also believes that a large amount of the data could be duplicative, and that being able to set aside that would speed up the process. The cost of hiring a company to handle that portion of discovery is the problem and Walsh stated that a $125,000 price quote was given in an attempt to hire.

Walsh also informed Summit/Greenfield lawyer David Hennes that copies of town board members' personal emails have been sent to his firm by FedEx. At the start of the conference, Hennes stated that the town was late in producing personal emails from town board members before Walsh briefed him.

"You'll be able to dive in," Smith said to Hennes.

"It will be my weekend's work, your honor," Hennes replied.

Meanwhile, Summit/Greenfield has not turned over discovery documents to the town. Hennes said in the conference that the reason is because the parties have not yet worked out a confidentiality agreement, which would cover the developer's proprietary information. In his response, Walsh noted that the town is subject to freedom of information requests, and figuring out how reconcile it.

Smith gave them parties a week to hammer out a confidentiality agreement, or else she would intervene and craft one for them, which she cautioned that they would not like.

The next court date is scheduled for Feb. 29 at 11 a.m.

Meanwhile, both parties are awaiting a ruling from a federal judge on the town's motion to dismiss the case against former Supervisor Barbara Gerrard, former Councilman Michael Wolfensohn and current Councilman Robin Stout. They were named as co-defendents along with the town. As of Friday morning, there is nothing new regarding the matter, Walsh and Hennes explained.