Kiryas Joel, Monroe, NY - Village Buys Property for Water Towers

Kiryas Joel, Monroe, NY - The Village of Kiryas Joel has bought a half-acre strip beside the Gonzaga park property and plans to build two water towers 100 feet from the spot where Orange County denied permission to install them.

The new location neatly bypasses the angry objections to parkland encroachment that derailed the project in July. But it could open a new round of fighting, this time over how much input Woodbury has on the installation of the tanks.
Kiryas Joel Administrator argues that state law allows one municipality to build inside another without seeking planning board approval or a building permit. He said he plans to submit the paperwork to Woodbury for comments, but only as a courtesy. In his view, the only agency that needs to sign off on the plans is the Orange County Health Department.

Woodbury Supervisor John Burke, who fought the earlier proposal on the principle that parkland is sacred, said that he still had concerns about the towers and would ask the town's lawyers if Kiryas Joel could truly skip the planning process. "Water towers can't just be put up willy-nilly, anyplace," he said.

Kiryas Joel paid a private landowner $200,000 for a half-acre of woods with the same elevation as the Gonzaga location. The seller was none other than Ziggy Brach, a prominent opponent of Kiryas Joel's political leaders.
Asked about the deal, Brach said the community's water needs transcended politics. He felt that opposition to the tanks had been "overly, overly done."