FORESTBURGH – Lawyers for two limited liability corporations and a Rabbi and his wife have filed a second civil rights lawsuit in US District Court against Forestburgh alleging the town’s “ongoing and persistent discrimination against Orthodox Jews seeking to build and buy homes in the town.”
According to the lawsuit, in 2011 the town supported a Texas developer’s proposal for more than 2,000 homes in the town on a 3.3-square mile parcel and granted rezoning for the property.
After the project was sold to Orthodox Jewish developers in 2020, the town changed its position toward the project, “engaging in massive resistance to the project at every turn, including denial of building permits, imposition of exorbitant new fees on the project, and numerous procedural irregularities designed to stop the development.”
The lawsuit maintains the town board’s actions violate the federal Fair Housing Act and the U.S. Constitution.
The town’s change in its local law seeks to take away the project’s approved zoning status rendering it “nonconforming” designed to permanently prevent any part of the project from moving forward, the suit alleges.
The developers are seeking a federal court injunction declaring the law invalid and preventing it from being enforced.
Another lawsuit filed against the town and various officials in December 2022 is still ongoing.
