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A Stony Point Neighbor Has Been Fighting For Nearly Two Years To Shut Down An Illegally Converted Garage Leased To Motorcycle Enthusiasts
By Tina Traster
Think of municipal zoning as a social contract. There’s a reasonable expectation homeowners and landlords in residential zones will adhere to codes – or is there?
For the most part, home-owning folks do the right thing. But the basket of rotten apples appears to be getting fuller and wormier in Rockland County and beyond.
“The process has turned into a long, drawn-out problem,” said Monaghan. “Albany has made laws to protect the defendants. In the meantime, homeowners get sick, suffer and are stressed out.”
From rural Stony Point to suburban Clarkstown to urban Spring Valley, building inspectors, town attorneys, and justice courts are increasingly inundated with zoning and building codes violations. In Valley Cottage, a homeowner advertises hourly rentals of his backyard pool online at SWIMPLY.com. The ad boasts renters (for $150 per hour) can bring large crowds and play blaring music, day and night – and they do, despite the homeowner being served with code violations by the town. Throughout the county, “investors” snap up houses, rent them to landscapers and other companies that rely on day labor, while converting many of those single-family homes to rooming houses for transient workers.
What’s incredibly unfair and burdensome is that it requires the constant lobbying (begging) of a neighbor to town officials to push along the process to right the wrong.
Take for example a case in Stony Point, where neighbors have been upset for nearly two years about the illegal occupation of a garage on a residentially zoned property that’s been turned into a gathering spot and repair hub for a motorcycle enthusiast club. Imagine what it’s like to live near a property where motorcycles rev engines, bikes idle, crowds party on weekends, play music, and come and go during the day and night.
There’s no dispute among Stony Point town officials or the town prosecutor that this property owner is in violation of the town code. In bringing the charges to court against homeowner Moshe Messner, who lives in Pomona but owns a three-family house with a detached garage in Stony Point, building inspector John Hager writes the “defendant did and does unlawfully, wrongfully, willingly and knowingly allow unlawful use of a residential accessory storage garage to be occupied by a commercial entity, not in conformance to the Town Zoning Codes.”
In this case, using a detached garage for a motorcycle club, a commercial use, is prohibited in a RR (Residential/Rural) zone.
Notably, the complaint says the violation began on March 6, 2023, and has continued “each and every day thereafter up to and including the present day.”
Messner, who is also a fire chief with the Brewer Fire Engine Company #1 in Monsey, told RCBJ “the tenants have been cleared, they’ve left,” and the issue has been “resolved with the court.”
The town disputes this. Messner is due in court before Town Justice Frank Phillips Monday for a status conference. The case has not gone to trial.
In the meantime, neighbors have been living with this intrusion for more than 18 months.
“The club parks bikes,” said a neighbor, who did not want to be named but who confirmed the situation with photos. RCBJ also witnessed the presence of motorcyclists as recently as last week. “It gets quiet in the winter but by March and April, there are lots of parked cars, all the bikes out back, the parties, people in and out. We have to put up with the noise.”
The neighbor, who moved to Stony Point from New York City, feels regret over leaving the city and relocating, and “having everyone ignoring me. I don’t know why this has been going on for two years.”
This rattled homeowner is not alone. Countywide, residents suffer glacial legal processes, and unresolved cases.
“We’ve asked the owner to comply, and the tenants have not vacated, they’ve not complied,” said Hager. “Over the course of the year, we’ve notified them several times through violations. He was summoned to court in April 2024. He did not show up. I don’t have a good handle on what’s happening. It’s working its way through the court.”
This snapshot applies to scores of cases countywide, in which errant landlords slip through loopholes. There seems to be a familiar and well-worn playbook among defendants: miss court dates, show up without legal representation, when they do show up, tell the court they need more time. Judges oblige, and set the next hearing for a month down the road. Some of these defendants play games: they make a show at rectifying the problem. They tell the town the house is for sale. They perfect the ruse of compliance – and revert to the same old tactics once the protracted court proceedings are behind them, often without having paid a single fine. In the meantime, they profit.
Hager offered a window into the way these landlords think.
“He doesn’t believe he should have to cease this,” he said, referring to Messner. “He believes he’s a responsible tenant, this is a source of income, he doesn’t believe they’re causing a nuisance. And he does not think he has to comply.”
This thinking plays out on a greater scale with “investors” like Simcha Schwartz and Wilson Bermeo, who snap up dozens of properties and convert them to crowded, unsafe boarding houses in Clarkstown. In June, Clarkstown Town Supervisor George Hoehmann, County Executive Ed Day, and Congressman Mike Lawyer held a press conference saying they’re cracking down on two landlords “housing undocumented immigrants” in court cases filed in Rockland County Supreme Court this June. Clarkstown sought relief from Justice Keith Cornell allowing the town to access properties owned by defendant Simcha Schwartz, his LLCs, and managed by First Choice Property Management, inspect for violations, prevent new tenants from occupying the houses, and compelling the landlord to relocate the existing tenants that were there in violation of town code.
The case stretches back to September 2023 when the town issued violations at single-family houses in Nanuet, New City, and Central Nyack, for failure to file rental registry applications and for renting single-family dwellings without a certificate of occupancy. The town also filed a second case against Wilson Bermeo and several LLCs he controls, another landlord who is allegedly violating town codes at seven properties.
At the time, town attorney Kevin Conway said he has conferred with Schwartz’s attorney and that they have discussed “an interim approach to getting matters resolved.”
In the Simcha Schwartz matter, the town and the property owner is working together to remedy the issues. On July 29, Schwartz’s attorney, Joseph Churgin, filed an Answer denying the allegations in the complaint along with affirmative defenses and a request for dismissal. A hearing that was scheduled for September 11th was postponed at the request of the Churgin, with the town attorney’s consent. The reason given was to allow additional time for “permits” to be issued.
The new date for the hearing is October 21st, more than a year after the initial violations were issued.
In the Bermeo case, Bermeo’s attorney, Jeffrey Millman, filed an answer on June 26, denying the allegations in the complaint, fought back with thirty-three affirmative defenses, and asked the court to dismiss the complaint. Despite the urgency in the original filing, there has been no activity since then, according to court documents.
When asked about the illegal use by the motorcycle club, Stony Point Supervisor Jim Monaghan acknowledged the case has been taking a long time to resolve, adding defendants “know how to use the court system. They show up without an attorney. The cases drag on. The prosecutor has to gather evidence to make sure they have a strong case.”
But Monaghan admits he is just as frustrated as other town leaders who recognize that this is a worsening problem.
“The process has turned into a long, drawn-out problem,” he said. “Albany has made laws to protect the defendants. In the meantime, homeowners get sick, suffer and are stressed out.”
Stony Point is planning to hire a full-time building inspector, create an Illegal Housing Task Force, and hire a “dedicated” attorney to prosecute these cases. Clarkstown Supervisor Hoehmann at a recent Dominican University forum said the town has five building inspectors to deal with the uptick in illegal housing.
In the meantime, homeowners await justice.
“I’ve never encountered such nonsense,” said the neighbor. “I’m just looking for peace and quiet. The stress has made me sick.”
NOTE: If you are encountering an illegal home conversion and would like to tell us about it (even confidentially) please send an email: ttraster@rcbizjournal.com
