Voters may create village

May 23, 2006


Voters may create village
Blooming Grove petition ruled valid
By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com
Blooming Grove - A state judge has cleared the way for residents of southern Blooming Grove to decide whether to establish the first new village in Orange County since Kiryas Joel formed in 1977.

State Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Horowitz ruled Friday that a petition signed by nearly 1,000 residents of the proposed village is valid, dismissing a litany of technical objections brought by landowners hoping to derail the effort.

The ruling compels Blooming Grove to schedule a referendum for voters in the 4.8-square-mile area straddling Route 208 that would constitute the Village of South Blooming Grove. Almost 2,800 people live in that area.

"This is very good news," Garry Dugan, a leader of the petition drive, said yesterday.

Both he and Spencer McLaughlin, a lawyer who has advised Dugan's group, said the proposal still carries momentum, despite the nearly two years that have elapsed since residents mobilized to take control of their zoning and stave off high-density building.

South Blooming Grove was one of three new villages contemplated in 2004 as people in areas outside the Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel scrambled to prevent the densely populated village from expanding into their suburban neighborhoods.

Hal Greene, a key opponent of the creation of the village, said yesterday that he would leave any appeal to the investor group that recently bought a controlling interest in the 862-acre Lake Anne Country Club, which Greene's family owned for decades.

One influential member of that partnership told the Times Herald-Record earlier this year that he had no interest in appealing.

"The whole lawsuit was nonsense," said Ziggy Brach. He and his business partners hope to build as many as 300 homes on the property. Brach said he saw no reason to fight the creation of a village because he doesn't expect its leaders to tighten Lake Anne's zoning.

Greene was ambivalent about the court decision. He still worries about the zoning uncertainty if a village is formed. But he said allowing the process to move forward might lift suspicion that Brach, who is Hasidic, and the other Hasidic buyers intend to establish another "Jewish village."

A petition to transform most of neighboring Woodbury into a village was submitted in 2004 and challenged; the case is now before the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court. A third proposal, to incorporate Salisbury Mills as a village, never got off the ground.