A coalition of Elmont civic groups have filed a lawsuit to stop the $1.3 billion arena/hotel/retail project at Belmont Park.

The hybrid lawsuit, filed Saturday in State Supreme Court in Nassau County, challenges the project’s environmental review process as well as the legality of the redevelopment’s origin under urban renewal statutes.

The new suit follows another filed against the project by the Village of Floral Park earlier this month and comes two days before official groundbreaking ceremonies for the redevelopment that aims to bring a 19,000-seat arena, hotel and 350,000-square-foot retail center to 43 acres of the state-owned racetrack property.

Similar to the Floral Park suit, the Elmont suit also claims the state’s environmental review of the project was flawed and did not properly address major issues like traffic, “cumulative impacts” and the safety of local residents. The Article 78 action seeks to stop work at the Belmont Park site and asks that the publicly owned park property not be conveyed to private developers.

Plaintiffs in the new lawsuit claim they represent about 3,000 households in the Elmont area and include the leaders of the Belmont Park Community Coalition, Elmont Manor Tudor Civic Association, Elmont Parkhurst Civic Association, Elmont Locustwood/Gotham Civic Association and Elmont civic leader Aubrey Phillips. The defendants in the suit include Empire State Development, the Hempstead Town supervisor, the Nassau County executive, developers New York Arena Partners, the state Franchise Oversight Board and the Water Authority of Western Nassau.

“The State of New York plans to take up a major redevelopment project for our community,” Lori Halop, of the Belmont Park Community Coalition, said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, the state has chosen to ignore the surrounding communities and our concerns about the current redevelopment proposal.”

Besides its claims that the state’s environmental review of the project was deficient, the newly filed lawsuit also asserts that Empire State Development shouldn’t be able to operate under the state’s Urban Development Corporation Act to embark on the arena project, since it relies on the area being blighted and having “substantial and persistent unemployment and under employment,” which the plaintiffs insist Elmont is not.

“In order to use the UDC Act you have to have the prerequisite of blight,” Phillips said. “Over the years, Elmont has been the brunt of mischaracterization. It is totally inconsistent with statistics. Elmont is a firm middle-class community.”

ESD spokesman Jonathan Sterne again said that his agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation, though he offered this comment via email:

“This project has gone through a transparent, public process over multiple years. We will vigorously defend our actions so we can move forward with this project, which will deliver thousands of jobs and billions in economic activity to Nassau County.”

In July, the state released an analysis of the project’s economic impact, which found the new arena, hotel and retail village will generate nearly $50 million in new public revenue per year and produce $725 million in annual economic output.

Site work began on the Belmont property earlier this month, though construction had been expected to start in the spring. The arena is supposed to be ready by Oct. 2021, so its anchor tenant, the New York Islanders, can start its 2021-22 season there. The lawsuit contends that pressure from the National Hockey League to meet that timeline caused the state to rush through the project’s required environmental studies and review.

The Elmont lawsuit was filed by local attorney Percy Samuel. Phillips said attorney Norman Siegel, a partner in the Siegel Teitelbaum & Evans law firm and former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who had been representing the Belmont Park Community Coalition, is still acting as a consultant for the group.

“It’s our hope that this project will be terminated,” Phillips said. “Our second hope is that there will be a new review of process and procedures and they will have to go back and redo the environmental review study, one that is open and honest.”