GOSHEN – A lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court by officials of the Village of Kiryas Joel against Orange County and others seeking to block development of a portion of the county-owned Camp LaGuardia as an industrial park, has been dismissed.
Justice Elaine Slobod ruled the Article 78 challenge to block the rezoning of that portion of the county land in the Town of Chester from office park to industrial “is not ripe for judicial review.”
“The impacts which the petitioners fear are wholly speculative at this stage,” Slobod wrote in her decision dated February 3.
Kiryas Joel officials contend that the development of Camp LaGuardia as an industrial park would have an impact on the wastewater treatment capacity of the sewer district and would preclude “needed” residential development in the area. They argued that environmental review should begin at the earliest possible stage of the redevelopment project and that the Chester local law in question “should not have been adopted without environmental review of the ultimate plan.”
The county and the other respondents moved to dismiss the suit contending
the petitioners did not have standing to bring the action; that the issued
they raised are not ripe for judicial determination; and the petitioners
failed to join necessary parties such as other members of the sewer district.
Aside from the Village of Kiryas Joel, other petitioners include Mayor
Abraham Wieder, Village Trustees Moses Goldstein, Jacob Reisman, Samuel
Landau, Jacob Freund, and Village Administrator Gedalye Szegedin.
The respondents included Orange County, its planning department, the county legislature, Orange County Sewer District #1, towns of Blooming Grove and Chester, Village of Chester and Town of Chester Planning Board.
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