Sunday, October 29, 2017
KJ’s formation of new town up to Monroe voters
After four years of conflict, packed meeting rooms and reams and reams of legal papers, the controversy over Kiryas Joel’s quest to expand its borders could end on Nov. 7. That’s when Monroe residents will head to the polls to vote on the creation of a whole new town for Kiryas Joel with more land and a tropical-sounding name.
If approved by a majority of Monroe voters, including those in Kiryas Joel, Monroe would be divided to create the Town of Palm Tree, the first new town in New York in 35 years. The Satmar Hasidic community of about 23,000 would pull itself out of the town in which it was formed in the 1970s and become an autonomous municipality with no involvement in Monroe. A smaller Monroe would be left with two villages - Monroe and Harriman - and its unincorporated areas.
The referendum is the culmination of a saga that began at the end of 2013 with the filing of a petition by Monroe property owners for Kiryas Joel to annex 507 acres. The ensuing years brought a clash with neighboring communities over Kiryas Joel’s growth, a second petition to annex 164 acres instead, and finally - after court cases and a couple side conflicts in Albany - a third petition for the Orange County Legislature to allow a referendum on creating a new town.
The fate of that petition was uncertain until Kiryas Joel officials and leaders of the United Monroe citizens group negotiated a deal earlier this year, one that would settle their annexation court fight, reduce the size of the proposed town and set other conditions. With that agreement in place and both sides pledging to support the new town, the Palm Tree proposal sailed through the Legislature in an 18-3 vote on Sept. 7.
The town name is an English translation of Teitelbaum, the last name of the Eastern European rabbi and Holocaust survivor who founded the Satmar Hasidim.
The combined support of Kiryas Joel’s main political faction and United Monroe makes it likely that voters will approve Palm Tree’s creation. Here are some key factors in the decision:
Borders and voters
The new town would consist of Kiryas Joel and 56 acres outside its existing borders, which already take in 164 acres that the village annexed in 2015 with the Monroe Town Board’s approval. Palm Tree would take up 940 acres (1.5 square miles) and would be fully independent of the Town of Monroe, including its elections.
That means Kiryas Joel’s roughly 10,000 voters - about 45 percent of Monroe’s electorate - would no longer dominate Monroe Town Board elections every two years, a point of friction that reached a pitch in the 2013 election. United Monroe leaders have argued strongly for political separation as good for both communities.
Monroe fiscal impact
An accounting firm working for the Monroe Town Board estimated that losing Kiryas Joel’s property taxes and other revenue would result in a net revenue loss of about $1.9 million a year. What the board will do to soften the impact on its budget, which was $9.3 million this year, has not been determined.
The accountants, RBT CPAs of Newburgh, have calculated that if the board were to make no effort to mitigate the loss, strictly raising property taxes to cover the shortfall would cost the owner of a $280,000 home roughly another $145 to $210 a year in town taxes. Even if voters approve the creation of Palm Tree on Nov. 7, there would be no impact on Monroe’s 2018 budget, because the new town wouldn’t take effect right away.
School boundaries
The Monroe-Woodbury and Kiryas Joel school boards have agreed to shift district boundaries so that the 164 acres Kiryas Joel annexed and the 56 additional acres in Palm Tree would be inside Kiryas Joel School District. Monroe-Woodbury residents were eager to avoid having a growing bloc of Hasidic voters in their district to influence future board elections and budget votes. For current and future residents of those 220 acres, it means much lower school taxes.
Monroe-Woodbury’s consultants have calculated the property shift will cost the district $343,860 in net revenue, or 0.2 percent of this year’s $171.2 million budget. That amount weighs the property taxes the district would lose against what it now spends on busing and special education for children now living in those areas.
Effective date
Under current state law, the new town would come into existence on Jan. 1, 2020, more than two years away. Kiryas Joel officials hope to expedite that effective date with special legislation, and Assemblyman James Skoufis, D-Woodbury, is working on a bill that would both enable Palm Tree to take effect earlier and provide Monroe-Woodbury School District extra state aid to offset its revenue loss.
Palm Tree would hold its first Town Board election before the town comes into existence, but there are unlikely to be two overlapping boards - Palm Tree’s and Kiryas Joel’s - for long. Kiryas Joel leaders plan to make the town and village coterminous by annexing the 56 additional acres in Palm Tree, enabling there to be a single government for both.
Past and future annexations
Under a deal negotiated by Kiryas Joel officials and leaders of the United Monroe citizens group, United Monroe will withdraw its lawsuit challenging the 164-acre annexation if voters approve the town creation. As part of that same agreement, Kiryas Joel officials would drop their own court case to try to claim an even larger area - the 507-acre annexation request that the Monroe Town Board rejected in 2015.
That would leave still pending - but moot - a separate lawsuit that eight towns and villages and Orange County brought to challenge the 164-acre annexation. Both that case and the one United Monroe brought through its nonprofit arm, Preserve Hudson Valley, are pending in the Appellate Division, following the state Supreme Court’s dismissal of the lawsuits last year. The municipal case would be moot if Palm Tree is approved because the new town’s territory includes the annexation area.
The agreement with United Monroe stipulates that neither Kiryas Joel nor Palm Tree would entertain any annexation requests from property owners in the towns of Monroe and Blooming Grove for at least 10 years after Palm Tree comes into existence. Woodbury, which also abuts Kiryas Joel, was not covered by that provision.
http://www.recordonline.com/news/20171028/kjs-formation-of-new-town-up-to-monroe-voters
If approved by a majority of Monroe voters, including those in Kiryas Joel, Monroe would be divided to create the Town of Palm Tree, the first new town in New York in 35 years. The Satmar Hasidic community of about 23,000 would pull itself out of the town in which it was formed in the 1970s and become an autonomous municipality with no involvement in Monroe. A smaller Monroe would be left with two villages - Monroe and Harriman - and its unincorporated areas.
The referendum is the culmination of a saga that began at the end of 2013 with the filing of a petition by Monroe property owners for Kiryas Joel to annex 507 acres. The ensuing years brought a clash with neighboring communities over Kiryas Joel’s growth, a second petition to annex 164 acres instead, and finally - after court cases and a couple side conflicts in Albany - a third petition for the Orange County Legislature to allow a referendum on creating a new town.
The fate of that petition was uncertain until Kiryas Joel officials and leaders of the United Monroe citizens group negotiated a deal earlier this year, one that would settle their annexation court fight, reduce the size of the proposed town and set other conditions. With that agreement in place and both sides pledging to support the new town, the Palm Tree proposal sailed through the Legislature in an 18-3 vote on Sept. 7.
The town name is an English translation of Teitelbaum, the last name of the Eastern European rabbi and Holocaust survivor who founded the Satmar Hasidim.
The combined support of Kiryas Joel’s main political faction and United Monroe makes it likely that voters will approve Palm Tree’s creation. Here are some key factors in the decision:
Borders and voters
The new town would consist of Kiryas Joel and 56 acres outside its existing borders, which already take in 164 acres that the village annexed in 2015 with the Monroe Town Board’s approval. Palm Tree would take up 940 acres (1.5 square miles) and would be fully independent of the Town of Monroe, including its elections.
That means Kiryas Joel’s roughly 10,000 voters - about 45 percent of Monroe’s electorate - would no longer dominate Monroe Town Board elections every two years, a point of friction that reached a pitch in the 2013 election. United Monroe leaders have argued strongly for political separation as good for both communities.
Monroe fiscal impact
An accounting firm working for the Monroe Town Board estimated that losing Kiryas Joel’s property taxes and other revenue would result in a net revenue loss of about $1.9 million a year. What the board will do to soften the impact on its budget, which was $9.3 million this year, has not been determined.
The accountants, RBT CPAs of Newburgh, have calculated that if the board were to make no effort to mitigate the loss, strictly raising property taxes to cover the shortfall would cost the owner of a $280,000 home roughly another $145 to $210 a year in town taxes. Even if voters approve the creation of Palm Tree on Nov. 7, there would be no impact on Monroe’s 2018 budget, because the new town wouldn’t take effect right away.
School boundaries
The Monroe-Woodbury and Kiryas Joel school boards have agreed to shift district boundaries so that the 164 acres Kiryas Joel annexed and the 56 additional acres in Palm Tree would be inside Kiryas Joel School District. Monroe-Woodbury residents were eager to avoid having a growing bloc of Hasidic voters in their district to influence future board elections and budget votes. For current and future residents of those 220 acres, it means much lower school taxes.
Monroe-Woodbury’s consultants have calculated the property shift will cost the district $343,860 in net revenue, or 0.2 percent of this year’s $171.2 million budget. That amount weighs the property taxes the district would lose against what it now spends on busing and special education for children now living in those areas.
Effective date
Under current state law, the new town would come into existence on Jan. 1, 2020, more than two years away. Kiryas Joel officials hope to expedite that effective date with special legislation, and Assemblyman James Skoufis, D-Woodbury, is working on a bill that would both enable Palm Tree to take effect earlier and provide Monroe-Woodbury School District extra state aid to offset its revenue loss.
Palm Tree would hold its first Town Board election before the town comes into existence, but there are unlikely to be two overlapping boards - Palm Tree’s and Kiryas Joel’s - for long. Kiryas Joel leaders plan to make the town and village coterminous by annexing the 56 additional acres in Palm Tree, enabling there to be a single government for both.
Past and future annexations
Under a deal negotiated by Kiryas Joel officials and leaders of the United Monroe citizens group, United Monroe will withdraw its lawsuit challenging the 164-acre annexation if voters approve the town creation. As part of that same agreement, Kiryas Joel officials would drop their own court case to try to claim an even larger area - the 507-acre annexation request that the Monroe Town Board rejected in 2015.
That would leave still pending - but moot - a separate lawsuit that eight towns and villages and Orange County brought to challenge the 164-acre annexation. Both that case and the one United Monroe brought through its nonprofit arm, Preserve Hudson Valley, are pending in the Appellate Division, following the state Supreme Court’s dismissal of the lawsuits last year. The municipal case would be moot if Palm Tree is approved because the new town’s territory includes the annexation area.
The agreement with United Monroe stipulates that neither Kiryas Joel nor Palm Tree would entertain any annexation requests from property owners in the towns of Monroe and Blooming Grove for at least 10 years after Palm Tree comes into existence. Woodbury, which also abuts Kiryas Joel, was not covered by that provision.
http://www.recordonline.com/news/20171028/kjs-formation-of-new-town-up-to-monroe-voters
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