Landholders against village
By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record
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The main person blocking a vote on creating a new village in southern Blooming Grove is the one who owns the area's largest chunk of undeveloped land.
Hal Greene, owner of the 861-acre former Lake Anne Country Club, said yesterday that he and four or five other large landowners are trying to derail the referendum because they don't want another layer of government – and taxes – over them.
Further, they think that forming a village won't accomplish what supporters of the proposal seek.
"We think that they've been sold a bill of goods," said Greene, who said he has spearheaded the opposition.
Hoping to allay fears that his property will be sold for high-density development, Greene said he's negotiating with New York City developers who want to build an 18-hole golf course and gated community of 70 to 90 homes.
Greene argues that incorporating a Village of South Blooming Grove could put landowners like himself at the mercy of an inexperienced planning board. "Frankly, I don't want to be under the jurisdiction of amateurs," he said.
Greene said that he and the other opponents together own 1,500 to 1,700 acres, or roughly a third of the area of the proposed 4.78-square-mile village.
Their lawyer planned to submit written objections at a Jan. 11 public hearing but got delayed by a snowstorm and arrived after the five-minute hearing had ended. Blooming Grove Supervisor Charles Bohan wouldn't accept the paperwork afterward.
Greene's group has held up the referendum by suing to force the town to consider technical objections to the village petition.
A similar court battle is under way to stop a vote on incorporating a village that would encompass most of the neighboring Town of Woodbury.
Both proposals emerged amid controversy last year over a potential expansion of the nearby Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel, which is much more densely developed than its rural and suburban surroundings.
Kiryas Joel representatives have filed a lawsuit pressing their technical objections to the Village of Woodbury petition. Town officials, who had dismissed those objections, have just asked the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that went in Kiryas Joel's favor.
There has also been talk of forming a village encompassing the 38 square miles of the Salisbury Mills Fire District, but no petitions have been filed with the three towns it would overlap.
