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As we phase out of 2024, we think back on a year’s worth of reporting. Here are highlights from a riveting year.
Rockland Green To Bond $18 Million For Shelter Construction; Meeting Devolves Into Airing Of Old Grudges And Ad Hominem Attacks
Bitter Exchange Between Chair Howard Phillips And County Legislator Lon Hofstein Focuses On “Excessive” Spending
December 11, 2024 – Rockland Green on Tuesday approved an $18 million bond issue to cover the costs of the $3.5 million purchase of an empty built-on-spec warehouse in Jan. 2024 and a $14.7 million construction contract to convert the window-less warehouse into an animal shelter in a remote section of the Village of West Haverstraw.
The former Solid Waste Management Authority, which commandeered animal management in 2022, has awarded O’Connor Company, a Pinehurst, North Carolina firm, a contract to build out the 15,000 square-foot warehouse shell into a bi-level 28,000 square foot animal shelter at 427 Beach Road. The largely unpublicized announcement was made on Tuesday at a 5 p.m. meeting in Clarkstown Town Hall. Rockland Green usually meets on the third Thursdays monthly.
Clark Lowe, CEO of O’Connor, on Wednesday told a reporter he had not yet been informed that his company won the contract. Read the full story…
Rockland Farm Alliance Files Bankruptcy; Organization Has Been Wracked By Discrimination Claim From Executive Director Sue Ferreri
RFA Board Dissolution and Bankruptcy Filing Follow Discrimination Claim By Its Former Executive Director
December 5, 2024 – The Rockland Farm Alliance, which has farmed the Cropsey Farm on Little Tor Road in New City since 2007, on Wednesday filed bankruptcy due to yearlong internal strife that led to its dissolution on Nov. 30.
The organization has been upended by allegations of harassment and discrimination by Sue Ferreri, its Executive Director, against the organization’s board members. Ferreri filed a claim with the New York State Department of Human Rights about nine months ago.
Ferreri’s attorney Sam Smith said the state has made a “notice of finding of probable cause,” of discrimination, which means the case will proceed to a hearing before an administrative judge. Once a complaint has received a probable cause determination, the parties may only enter into a settlement with the consent of the division.
“This could go either way,” said Smith, explaining the case will either go to trial or be settled. Read the full story…
Think Tank Conference Emboldens Stony Point Town Officials To Take Initiative To Redevelop Fallow Letchworth Village Site
Panelists Lay Out Brownfield And Historic Preservation Strategies But Emphasize Need for Public Consensus on Property’s Future Development
October 21, 2024 – Letchworth Village in Stony Point is a ghostly and haunting reminder of a bygone era of psychiatric institutions. The once austere but magnificent stone buildings sag with neglect from decades of disuse and disrepair. Trees sprout through roofs like ironic reminders that new life always takes root in a void, which is what many still hope for the site.
Perhaps no one feels more haunted by Letchworth Village than Jim Monaghan, Stony Point’s Supervisor, who has gone to battle unsuccessfully twice in the space of two years to steer a new plan for the fallow fields of the former psychiatric campus.
By all accounts, there is little advantage to keeping a 20-acre site rife with environmentally contaminated buildings in a state of inertia – though that has been the case since the town bought the land from New York State in 1999 for $3 million. On the other hand, Monaghan and developers who have met with gale force winds of opposition, have learned that an anti-development, anti-housing sentiment in town will continue to thwart future housing proposals unless town officials undertake a pre-emptive educational and consensus-building approach to gain support for redeveloping the fallow site. Read the full story…
Allegations Of Racism Taint Clarkstown Planning Board Inquiry On Route 9W Condo Project
Tempers Flare During Heated Review Of As-Of-Right Condominium Project Slated For Route 9W Near Rockland Lake State Park
October 7, 2024 – The Clarkstown Planning Board is no stranger to drama – some meetings stretch for hours when contentious projects are up for consideration. But on Sept. 25, much of the histrionics played out on the dais with questionable questioning – even harassment – from some of the board members toward a group of applicants that is hoping to build 30 condo units on a 6.2-acre empty wooded lot on Route 9W near Rockland Lake State Park.
From the outset, the board raised issues with Crystal Lake Condominiums, a project proposed back in 2017 by a consortium of Nigerian-born doctors and real estate investors from Queens and Long Island, that wandered significantly past the purview of a final site approval planning board process. There were inquiries about dryer vents, decks, the intended pricing of the condo units, a letter of guarantee that Veolia will provide water rather than a “will serve” notice, and a request for a Reserve Study from the homeowners’ association to prove the project will not go belly up.
The drumbeat of questions took an inappropriate and heated turn when board member Phil DeGaetano demanded bank and financial statements, information on the project’s investors and silent partners, and a guarantee the developer had no intentions of flipping the project. Read the full story…
Rockland County Towns Need To Beef Up Enforcement To Crack Down On Illegal Boarding Houses
Neighbors Suffer With Fallout From Illegal Conversions of Single-Family Homes To Rooming Houses; Rampant Scourge Impacts Quality of Life, Home Prices
July 31, 2024 – Imagine you’ve been living in your single-family house – likely your greatest asset – for many years, mostly in peace. Sure, you endure the lawnmowers, leaf blowers, maybe even an unfriendly neighbor, but it’s still your slice of paradise.
Until one day your neighbor’s house is sold to an absentee landlord or investor who either personally or by way of his renters turns the property into a boarding house. Imagine you’re living next door or across the street from a house where cars, vans, and rattling trucks with trailers sail in and out of the driveway day and night. Imagine a situation where a parade of people, often different people, some in neon yellow vests, come and go with huge backpacks slung across their shoulders, picked up and dropped off by a specific fleet of cars, again and again. Imagine the cars picking up the workers, idling at the bottom of the driveway, leaning on the horn, day and night. Imagine on garbage day how the piled-high detritus, spilling and exploding in all directions from multiple garbage cans and bursting garbage bags, tells the story of how a once-suburban single-family house has turned into a holding space for disenfranchised people who are given a mattress on the floor in exchange for manual labor. They are constantly picked up and dropped off, likely because they do not have drivers’ licenses. Maybe they lack legal working papers. And you feel bad about the exploitation these people are likely subjected to – but you’re also apoplectic because you’re being woken in the night and disturbed in the day while the profiteering landlord is infringing on your rights as a human being. Read the full story…
Former Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski Set To Lead The Rockland Business Association (RBA)
RBA Hires Zebrowski’s Law & Lobbying Firm To Re-Energize Faltering Business Chamber; President/CEO Al Samuels To Remain In Leadership Position
August 7, 2024 – Former Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski is taking his high-profile political prowess to an organization that has struggled over the past several years to remain relevant – the Rockland Business Association (RBA).
Zebrowski will become the new face of the county’s 57-year-old business chamber. He has been named RBA’s president.
The RBA has hired Brown and Weinraub Advisors, LLC, an Albany-based law and lobbying firm, which Zebrowski joined last month as a partner and senior advisor, to bring energy and a fresh vision to an organization that has been atrophying for many years. Its decline accelerated during the pandemic.
“I will be the point person from Brown and Weinraub,” said Zebrowski. “The RBA is an important and historic Rockland organization. This is a great opportunity to grow something, to reinvent, to make sure it’s more successful. Read the full story…
Village of Haverstraw At Inflection Point: Will The Perception of Street Crime Turn Back Years of Progress?
New Police Chief Plans To Deploy Two Officers On Foot or Bike In Village; Says Community Policing Will Act As Deterrent To Drug Dealing, Panhandling, Loitering
July 24, 2024 – For many years, the Village of Haverstraw has been a place to watch: it was infused with motivated arts and cultural organizations, a growing variety of restaurants, new retailers, and most optimistically for revival, the prospect of residential and commercial redevelopment at the former fallow Chair Factory site on the Hudson River.
In 2022, the Village won a $10 million downtown revitalization grant (DRI) from New York State, which helped fund arts organizations like Haverstraw Riverwide Arts, the Brick Museum, and pay for $4 million in infrastructure on the Chair Factory site. The Village tapped MPact Collective LLC, a Huntington Station Long Island-based developer that specializes in revitalization, to build a mixed-use project that includes a combination of market rate and affordable housing, as well as retail, commercial and a hotel for the vacant nine-acre Hudson River peninsula.
Other affordable housing developers chose the Village for projects. A bed & breakfast, Rockland’s only, opened; AirBnBs began to proliferate. The Village of Haverstraw was putting itself on the map.
It might be premature to say the Village was gentrifying but things were looking up. The Village was increasingly included in a lineup of assets to help promote Rockland County tourism. Art murals were commissioned for buildings. An annual Food Crawl that started a decade ago brought people from far and wide. More recently, a weekend ferry has been re-instated between the Village and Ossining. Read the full story…
Hi Tor Strikes Back: Counterclaim Charges Rockland Green With Breach Of Contract
Hi Tor Says Rockland Green Improperly Terminated Its Two-Year Contract; Seeks Damages For Breach And Retention Of Hi Tor’s Property At Shelter
July 7, 2024 – When Rockland Green sued Hi Tor Animal Care Center of Pomona for breach of contract in May, the public authority led by Howard Phillips thought the diminished and depleted nonprofit was in a vice. The juggernaut entity that collects tax money to operate likely figured Hi Tor would not be able to afford to hire legal representation to defend itself.
Rockland Green made a miscalculation that has turned the calculus upside down and will ultimately put Rockland Green on the defensive.
Last week Hi Tor sued Rockland Green, denying the material allegations in Rockland Green’s complaint and filing a counterclaim alleging it was Rockland Green that breached the contract and not the other way around.
“Rockland Green has materially breached the contract,” the suit says. “Rockland Green has also violated the covenant of good faith and fair dealing implicit in the parties’ Contract.”
Hi Tor is seeking an unspecified amount of damages, to be determined at trial. Read the full story…
Freedom From Religion Foundation, Which Fights To Protect Separation of Church & State, Tells Haverstraw To Cease Financial Support For Knights Of Columbus
National Organization That Pursues Legal Cases Tells Haverstraw To Rescind Deal With Knights Of Columbus
October 24, 2024 – The Town of Haverstraw must refrain from supporting the Knights of Columbus with taxpayers’ dollars because the arrangement violates the separation between church and state, according to the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a nonprofit organization that fights to preserve separation between church and state through litigation and advocacy.
“While we understand the Town’s desire to maintain a location for seniors to gather, it cannot accomplish this goal by awarding taxpayer funds to a Catholic fraternity which will also be using the building for religious purpose,” wrote Samantha F. Lawrence, a staff attorney for FFRF, in a letter dated Oct. 21, addressed to William Stein, Haverstraw’s attorney. The Madison, WI-based group was founded in 1978, and has 20 chapters nationwide.
FFRF is a national nonprofit staffed with attorneys who bring lawsuits throughout the nation in cases like Haverstraw’s.
“Government funds cannot be given away to religious organizations in order to help advance their religious missions,” the letter states. “We write to ask that the Town of Haverstraw cease providing taxpayer funds to support religion and any ongoing entanglement with the Knights.” Read the full story…
Village of Haverstraw’s Ongoing Support For Affordable Housing Projects Might Be Challenged If Town PILOTs Are Withheld
Community Groups Continue to Show Support For More Affordable Housing; Haverstraw Collaborative Says County’s Nonprofits Cannot Hire Without More Affordable Housing Options
September 3, 2024 – No other enclave of Rockland County has shown a greater commitment to developing affordable housing than the Village of Haverstraw. Over the past several years, village officials have worked with at least three developers who planned to create more than 250 affordable units, along with other investment benefits, including a village parking deck, reclamation of blighted riverfront land, and open space.
Now the fate of two of these projects remains uncertain, while a third has been scuttled.
At issue is whether Haverstraw Supervisor Howard Phillips will continue to stand in the way of two pending projects by withholding support for PILOTs (payment in lieu of taxes), which are arranged though Rockland County Industrial Development Agency (IDA), but need to be negotiated separately with each relevant town, village and school district.
In 2023, the village negotiated a public/private partnership with the Westchester-based Westhab Inc., the largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing in the Hudson Valley. The village has agreed to a 99-year ground lease for 30 West Street, a village-owned parking lot adjacent to the firehouse, without any upfront or ongoing payments. In exchange, the developer has plans to build 81 units of affordable housing for residents earning up to 60 percent of area median income (AMI). Rents will be targeted to income tiers ranging from 30 percent to 60 percent of AMI. Westhab has agreed to incorporate 82 community parking spaces into the project. Some units will be reserved for formerly homeless individuals and those with mental health disorders, addressing critical housing needs in the community. Read the full story…
$100,000 Grant Moves Jacob Sloat House Closer To Restoring Deteriorated Front Porch
Friends of Harmony Hall Do A Yeoman’s Job Of Preserving An Historic House Through Robust Public Programming
March 18, 2024 – It would not be an exaggeration to say historic homes can seem like an endangered species – hard to hold onto, needing protection and advocacy, something we miss when we fail to protect them.
Rockland County is peppered with privately-owned historic houses people love and live in. What’s more in flux are historic homes that are either government-owned or those run by nonprofits that endeavor to maintain a legacy and put the house to the public good.
The nonprofit Friends of Harmony Hall has been restoring the historic Jacob Sloat House, originally called Harmony Hall, on Liberty Rock Road in Sloatsburg, The house, purchased by Ramapo in 2006, but run by the nonprofit Friends of Harmony Hall since 2007, has been offering a rich buffet of programming which spotlights the home, teaches history, and aids in fundraising.
Most recently, the nonprofit has been gifted a $100,000 grant in memory of Rockland County residents Joan K. and Ray E. Stout, Jr. that will be used to restore the front porch. Built in the late 1840s, the wooden house embodies the transition from the then waning Greek Revival style to the newer Picturesque and Italianate architecture.
The Jacob Sloat House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Friends of Harmony Hall was organized under a provisional charter issued by the New York State Board of Regents in 2007 in partnership with the Town of Ramapo. The joint partnership has been tasked to restore the house, document its history, and offer arts and educational activities. Read the full story…
Farming Advocates Pull For Historic House On 32 Acres In New City To Be Bought By County’s Open Space Acquisition Program
The Pre-Revolutionary War Era Peter DePew House Is A Relic, As Is Its Large Tract Of Farmable Land; Homeowner Donna Schwartz Is Hoping Rockland County Will Buy & Preserve Homestead
January 14, 2024 – Donna Schwartz and her older sister Carol grew up in a grand two-story brick house in Spring Valley, but their mother hankered for a farmhouse and a “back forty” as development devoured the town.
Jessie and Irving Keesler found their slice of paradise not too far away in New City – still a largely agrarian swath of farms that harkened to Rockland County’s past. The Keeslers in 1958 purchased a pre-Revolutionary sandstone house with 32 acres of partially cultivated land that stretched back to the Blauvelts and before that the DePews – two of the county’s legacy families. They paid the estate of Mary E. Blauvelt $45,000 for the wreck.
It took more than five years to make the then-vacant house that was in a shambles a habitable home. By then Schwartz had left for college but the family homestead played a significant role as a palette for her mother’s fertile creativity, a lifelong project for her father, and a gathering spot for the family for holidays and special occasions.
“The house became the love of my mother’s life and my father learned to love it,” said Schwartz, wistfully. “My mother saw the beauty. It was a diamond in the rough.”
Now Schwartz is hoping Rockland County will recognize this diamond in the rough as a preservation opportunity, given that most of the county’s pre-Revolutionary homes have disappeared, as has the bulk of its farm land. The Rockland Farm Alliance has nominated the house for the county’s Open Space Acquisition Program. Nominations closed in November, and the county is considering 12 applicants under the Open Space Acquisition Program. The county has roughly $9.5 million in its Open Space Acquisition budget but some of those monies may already be appropriated for the properties “still moving through the process,” from the prior round, according to the county spokesperson. Read the full story…
