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ZBA Decision Denying Vehicular Access To Larger Parcel Renders Property Worthless, Lawsuit Says
Ramapo Fields, LLC, the owner of about 50 acres of land in Ramapo, that is only accessible through a narrow strip of land it also owns off Sterling Mine Road in the Village of Sloatsburg, sued the Village of Sloatsburg for irrationally applying its zoning code and purportedly rendering its property worthless.
The larger property in Ramapo is only accessible through a 50-foot wide strip of land off Sterling Mine Road in Sloatsburg. It has been used for truck and vehicle access for more than 40 years, until the Sloatsburg ZBA said no.
According to the court filing, a complaint to the Village of Sloatsburg triggered the issuance of a citation for a code violation from the Village Building Inspector essentially saying that using the 50-foot wide strip for vehicular access to other properties was not a “permitted” use in the Village’s IP Zone.
The Village cited the owner for allowing commercial trucks and other vehicles to drive on the land, which the Zoning Board of Appeals confirmed is not a “permitted use” in the Village’s IP Zone.
The IP Industrial Park Zoning District allows major nonresidential light industrial, office, and limited commercial activities, including light manufacturing, research, assembly, processing, packing, and treatment or warehousing of goods and products, including storage of materials or equipment within entirely enclosed buildings. It also allows professional and business offices, garden nurseries, landscape contractor yards, and masonry suppliers.
The Village is treating the land as a “stand-alone” parcel for which truck traffic is not listed as a permitted use in the Village Code.
That sounds complicated, because it is.
The Village’s jurisdiction is limited to parcels within the village boundaries, so it is likely looking solely at how the smaller parcel is being used, not how its decision impacts the larger 48-acre parcel outside its jurisdiction.
There’s a back story. New City-based Ramapo Fields owns three parcels of land, totaling about 50 acres. The main parcel (about 48 acres) is situated in the Town of Ramapo on the Sloatsburg border. The parcel is land-locked and only accessible through the smaller parcel that Ramapo Fields owns on Sterling Mine Road. The only access to the larger parcel is through a 50-foot strip of land on that smaller parcel. That parcel is a separate lot from the larger parcel, which is subject to different zoning rules from the Town of Ramapo.
There’s more.
Ramapo Fields previously established its ownership rights to the Sloatsburg parcel in Rockland County Supreme Court after several years of litigation against two easement holders that had exceeded their rights under the easements. In a decision by Justice David Fried from January 2025, the court established that Ramapo Fields held the 50-foot wide strip of land in “fee simple” ownership, subject to easements of access from two adjacent property owners. In that earlier litigation, one neighbor was forced to remove a portion of a building constructed in the easement. Another neighbor had to remove a parking pad improperly installed in the easement.
In this litigation, (also assigned to Justice Fried) Ramapo Fields is suing the Village of Sloatsburg and asking the Court to nullify the ZBA decision, declare that vehicular ingress and egress is not an independent land use, award it damages for taking the value of the larger parcel (by cutting off access and leaving it land-locked), for denying it due process, and for selective enforcement (the Village allows other landowners in the IP zone to have trucks traverse their lots).
Ramapo Fields is essentially saying that the Village of Sloatsburg’s land-use policy of treating “vehicular use” as an “independent use” is irrational, unsupported by zoning and land-use laws, and has the effect of denying all access to the larger parcel, rendering it undevelopable, unusable, and valueless.
Ramapo Fields is seeking a temporary and permanent injunction against enforcement of the zoning code as interpreted by Sloatsburg’s Building Inspector and ZBA. The Court signed an Order To Show Cause on March 27, essentially directing the Village to respond to the petition by April 7.
Ramapo Fields, LLC is represented by the law office of Robert Zitt.
