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An appeals court panel added a twist to the 431-home Greens at Chester plans last week by effectively reviving a canceled deal with two developers who tried to buy the property before the group that has since bought it and cleared the site.

The initial buyers, Samuel Meth and Mordechai Neustein, signed two contracts in April 2013 to pay Wilbur Fried $12.9 million for 110 acres that he had sought to develop since 1985. The Town of Chester Planning Board approved Fried's Greens at Chester project later that year, but his deal to sell the land and newly approved plans to Meth and Neustein foundered and led to litigation in 2014.

The prospective buyers lost the case and their quest for the development site in May 2015, after they went to a court-ordered closing for the first contract and "did not tender funds necessary to purchase the property," as state Supreme Court Justice Sandra Sciortino put it.

A four-judge Appellate Division panel reversed that ruling last Wednesday, concluding that Fried - who sold the property to a different set of developers for $12.2 million in October - hadn't proved in court that he was entitled to cancel his contract with Meth and Neustein, who used the name Chester Green Estates LLC for the land deal.

The recent buyers, a group of Brooklyn investors operating as Greens at Chester LLC, weren't part of the litigation, and it's unclear if the appeals-court ruling and any ensuing court action could cloud their ownership. They already have started building roads and burying water and sewer lines for a community they are building for Hasidic families.

"This is a very unique set of facts," Alan Lipman, the Goshen attorney representing Meth and Neustein, said Tuesday. "We are looking to ascertain what our rights are with respect to the property. It isn't clear."

Chester Supervisor Alex Jamieson said Tuesday that the Appellate Division ruling alone has no impact on the ongoing site work to prepare for the 86 homes, tennis courts and swimming pool in the first construction phase. He expects the developers to start building houses this fall.

The site clearing and discovery that the Greens will be built for Hasidic families has set off a push to create wards for the Chester Town Board to limit the political clout of a large, bloc-voting population.