Woodbury - Development Master Plan Proposed With Battle

Woodbury - One side argues that building multi-family housing will be a environmental disaster, destroying views and rural charm while threatening groundwater quality.
The other side contends that efforts to control development in the area would discriminate against Chasidic Jews and contradict the town's own stated desire for more affordable housing.

The two arguments stem from Woodbury's proposed master plan, which is providing a sort of dress rehearsal for a likely battle between the town and neighboring Kiryas Yoel for control of stretches of undeveloped land in Woodbury.

The plan itself prominently discusses the prospect of Kiryas Yoel expanding and sketches several reasons Woodbury would oppose the spread of housing as dense as 20 condominiums per acre.

This week, a Nyack attorney who represents Kiryas Joel property owners, filed objections calling both the master plan and a related open-space plan "discriminatory and exclusionary." "The Town of Woodbury is trying to simply keep Kiryas Joel-type housing and residents literally out of sight," he wrote.

The arguments offer a glimpse of what the lawyers will be saying if and when Kiryas Joel and Woodbury wage a court battle for control of hundreds of acres of Hasidic-owned land in Woodbury, including ACE Farm.