KJ homes, outside KJ

KJ homes, outside KJ
Space so tight, adjoining land could be developed

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com

Monroe – New homes for Kiryas Joel residents are being proposed just outside the village boundaries in significant numbers for the first time.
At least three projects on the outskirts of the booming community are pending before the Town of Monroe Planning Board – two of which have come to the board's attention since the beginning of the year.
The three projects call for a total of 94 single-family houses, although the board is counting on as many as 188 homes in its review, because builders could theoretically include "accessory apartments" – better known as "mothers-daughters" – with each house.
Until now, most new homes for the Hasidic community have been built inside the village borders, where much denser development is allowed and residents can walk to synagogues, stores and essential services.
But with 17,000 people living in 1.1 square miles and development proceeding briskly, space is running short. Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin told the Times Herald-Record in February that 989 housing units were on the drawing board.
The biggest and most recent of the three projects proposed in Monroe is Forest Edge, which surfaced in February. It calls for 49 single-family houses on 24.7 acres off Forest and Mountain roads, a property virtually surrounded by Kiryas Joel.
The owner, Ziggy Brach, confirmed that the village has offered him municipal water – which is surprising, since Brach, a Brooklyn electronics mogul with a house in Woodbury, is prominent in Kiryas Joel's opposition movement.
He'd been counting on individual wells for the 49 proposed homes. But he'll entertain the village's water offer, he said, once he hears the details.
"If it's reasonable, we'll do it," he said.
Forest Edge and a 29-lot proposal nearby are both on parcels that Brach and other land owners have asked be annexed into Kiryas Joel – part of a pending request that involves 184 acres in Monroe and Woodbury.
The Planning Board's water consultant has expressed concern about Kiryas Joel offering to supply all three projects with water, in spite of its water shortages.
"I question whether the wells for the village would meet the demands of this project and the other units that are coming in," Tom Cusack, a hydrogeologist, said Tuesday.
He urged the developer to hold off for two months to see if the state approves a high-producing well that Kiryas Joel has dug in Monroe. That well, along with another that just got approved, would boost the village water supply by 800,000 gallons per day, he said.