For home developer, 450 is the magic

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


Bill Brodsky wants the people of Woodbury to understand his position.
He's trying to do right by their town with the gated community he's planning. At a time when citizens are fighting development and clamoring to save open space, he has offered to preserve large swaths of woods and fields off Dunderberg Road where he hopes to build 450 homes.
A tree buffer around the perimeter would maintain a rural veneer for neighbors and passersby. A chunk of "pristine" land in the middle would become a town park.
What's more, he and another developer are planning costly water and sewer improvements that would benefit the town.
All he asks in return is a simple zoning change, one that would let him build enough homes to cover the exorbitant land cost and make a profit.
But the Rockland County developer also wishes to make known that there will be consequences if his project is derailed by the chorus of criticism that's been rising to a crescendo since his plans were unveiled in November.
In short, the 398 acres he hopes to develop will be sold. And the new buyers, he says, will likely have much denser housing in mind, of the type seen nearby in the Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel.
"If it's not successful, and I can't work with the Town of Woodbury, what option does that leave me?" Brodsky asks during an interview in his Pearl River office. "I'm not going to be there. I'm going to sell out."
The fear of an expanding Kiryas Joel has become an abiding passion in Woodbury, especially since Hasidic developers bought a 140-acre farm just outside Kiryas Joel last year. Since that watershed event, many worry the land around Kiryas Joel will one day give way to the densely packed condominium buildings typical of the 1.1-square-mile village.
Now, for the first time, that anxiety animates a different type of development conflict, one in which Kiryas Joel plays no direct role but is invoked as an alternative opponents might object to even more.
"This is not blackmailing," Brodsky says, recognizing how his pitch might come across. "I'm here to do business with the Town of Woodbury to give the best possible product I can give."
Critics have murmured about the implicit threat they perceived as soon as Brodsky's Carteret Group and BNE Associates of Livingston, N.J. – which hopes to develop a site called Legacy Ridge – jointly filed requests last year for zoning changes that would allow 731 combined homes in the two gated communities they're planning.
But with opposition to the requests consuming politics in Woodbury, and candidates from both major parties gunning to unseat incumbents in the Town Board election in November, Brodsky is now defining the stakes in more explicit terms.
"We really don't have active conversations right now with the Hasidic community about selling, but we've been approached, and we were approached again recently," he says. Later, he adds: "There are only so many times that I can tell the other side I don't want to do business with them."
He and another Rockland developer bought 178 acres of his project site in 2003 for $3.5 million. He won't say how much the remaining property, roughly 220 acres, would cost. He is under contract to buy that land.
The problem, Brodsky says, is that "the other side" has bid up the price of land. That means he won't recoup the cost of his property and make a profit if he adheres to the current 2-acre zoning. He has asked the Town Board to drop the minimum lot size to 1 acre, which would enable him to build 450 homes instead of 175.
Sheila Conroy, the town supervisor, agrees the land is too expensive for 2-acre zoning. She says she's willing to consider smaller lots because the town master plan recommends them if central water and sewer service become available – which is what Brodsky is proposing.
But opponents scoff at Brodsky's explanation.
"He says he's not going to make a profit," says John Burke, who's challenging Conroy for supervisor in November. "The question is, when you go from 175 to 450 homes, what kind of profit do you want to make?"
What would seem to give Brodsky's threat to sell his land some potency is its proximity to ACE Farm, the 140-acre property that Hasidic developers bought for $12.7 million through a frontman in 2004. His site abuts the farm – and land owned by another Kiryas Joel group.
But opponents of his project are unmoved, ostensibly because the full scenario – concluding with the construction of condominium buildings – relies on a sequence of suppositions:
1. Hasidic developers buy Brodsky's property after he gives up.
2. Kiryas Joel then seeks control of its zoning – along with that of surrounding properties – through annexation or the creation of a new village.
3. Kiryas Joel fights Woodbury for the property in court and wins, opening the way for high-density development.
Burke, stopping the scenario at step one, says, "If you sell it to the Hasidics, or you sell it to anybody, you can still only build 175 homes."
Even if it goes further, he doesn't accept that the land would necessarily become part of Kiryas Joel.
"Whoever's going to try to do it," he says, "they're going to have one heck of a dogfight on their hands."
His side worries that changing zoning for Brodsky and the New Jersey developer will set a precedent that will help Kiryas Joel.
"ACE Farm is then going to be developed in an urban, high-density fashion," says Darleen Reveille, who's running for Town Board on Burke's ticket. "I don't care if Brodsky sells it to K.J. What do I care, as long as they build at the current zoning"
Conroy replies that the town's lawyers say granting the zoning requests "doesn't weaken our position" with regard to Kiryas Joel.
For now, four of five board members support continuing environmental reviews to evaluate the potential impacts of the zoning changes Brodksy and the New Jersey developer have requested.
But those requests will likely still be pending in November when three board seats are up for election, enough to shift the consensus. In the meantime, opponents from both parties are calling for greater citizen input before the process advances. Burke recently submitted petitions, signed by 480 people, demanding public information sessions.
Conroy, weathering a storm of criticism, insists the two proposals have merits and deserve the board's careful consideration. She is particularly interested in the offer of roughly 400 acres of dedicated open space, land she says the town could never afford to buy at today's inflated prices.
A former Planning Board chairwoman well-versed in environmental reviews, Conroy believes the process will yield the detailed answers critics are demanding – clarifying for all if the two projects are indeed in the town's best interests.
"All I can do is just be as open as I can," she says. "I happen to believe that this has merits worth looking at. We can't have reactionary, knee-jerk reactions to things."
She acknowledges the proximity of Brodsky's land to ACE Farm is a factor the Town Board must weigh. But she won't speculate about whether the board would be considering the zoning requests if the farm hadn't been sold last year.
"Things have kind of changed," she says. "You can't go back now and say, 'What if?' That's the new reality."

Chris McKenna is a reporter for the Times Herald-Record. He can be reached at cmckenna@th-record.com