Monday, December 10, 2018
Camp Monroe site sold to NJ congregation
The picturesque land off Trout Brook Road where generations of children attended Camp Monroe each summer has changed hands for the second time in three years, sold in October to a Lakewood, N.J., entity that appears intent on continuing to use the property as a camp.
Property-sale records filed Friday with the Orange County Clerk's Office show that Congregation Heichal Torah Veavodah bought 100 acres from BTSS Holdings LLC for $3.6 million on Oct. 12.
The congregation was incorporated as a nonprofit in New Jersey last year, and again in New York on the day before it bought Camp Monroe.
The incorporation filing in New York says the congregation provides camp activities at little or no cost to the families whose children attend.
A Long Island couple bought Camp Monroe in 2015 from longtime owner Stanley Felsinger and kept the co-ed camp going for three summers.
This year, the couple - David and Dana Block - rented out the property to a Hasidic group from Lakewood that ran a three-week boys' camp in July and August.
It's unclear if that was the same group that has since bought the land.
Felsinger, who moved to Lakewood after selling the camp but had continued to own 45 adjacent acres in Monroe and Chester, sold his remaining land for $570,000 to a Monroe developer in August, two months before the Blocks sold the camp, according to county records.
The developer, John Sorrentino, already has applied to subdivide two of those three parcels for housing.
The Town of Chester Planning Board is scheduled to take up his request to build three homes on 4.8 acres for the first time on Wednesday.
The Town of Monroe Planning Board reviewed Sorrentino's application to build eight houses on 13 acres a few weeks earlier.
Sorrentino hasn't introduced plans yet for a third parcel that takes up 27 acres in Chester.
Other developers had pitched housing proposals for Camp Monroe and surrounding land at least twice since 2004, but none of those plans advanced beyond the introductory stage.
The camp site's development potential today is limited by Chester's zoning, which requires each housing lot be at least three acres, as well as by a lack of central water and sewer service and the fact that the property includes a lake.
Comments:
Post a Comment
