CHESTNUT RIDGE – A New York Supreme Court judge has nullified the village’s law establishing three ways to open houses of worship, another step in a long legal battle involving aspects of religious freedom and municipal zoning.
Justice Hal Greenwald ruled the village law’s process for building houses of worship failed to meet all the requirements of the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act. The law, known as SEQRA, mandates a thorough review of a project’s short and long-term consequences on neighborhoods. The criteria include the effect of traffic, air, and water, hours of operation, and other quality-of-life concerns.
Greenwald found that Chestnut Ridge officials did not do the minimum review of the law required of them under state environmental law. The judge released his 14-page decision on Tuesday, May 27.
“Since the Village Board failed to properly comply with SEQRA, the determination and findings must be rejected,” Greenwald wrote.
Chestnut Ridge open to appealing decision
Mayor Rosario “Sam” Presti said Thursday, May 29, that the village disagrees with the judge’s decision and interpretation of the facts in the case. Presti said the SEQRA issue is more procedural and not related to the merits of the House of Worship Law enacted in February 2019 by the Board of Trustees.
“We respectfully disagree with the decision of the court,” Presti said. “We will be conferring with the village attorney to discuss what’s in the village’s best interest. Appealing is always an option.”
Chestnut Ridge is represented by the South Nyack law firm of Feerick, Nugent MacCartney.
Who opposes the law and how have they fought it?
The legal action opposing the law was filed about six years ago by Hilda Kogut, Robert Asselbergs, and Magali Dupuy. Kogut led the civic group Citizens United To Protect Our Neighborhoods of Chestnut Ridge, known as CUPON.
From the beginning, residents who filed the legal action challenging the law contended the Board of Trustees had ignored basic environmental impacts on residents by essentially allowing unlimited houses of worship. They also argued that the board members crafted the law to cater to the Orthodox Jewish Coalition, which suggested the zone and filed a civil rights lawsuit accusing the village of violating religious rights.
“We alleged that, when the Village of Chestnut Ridge passed its House of Worship law, it did not properly consider the potential negative environmental impact upon the community as they are required to do under SEQRA,” attorney Steve Mogel said Thursday.
How the law changed village process for houses of worship
Before the passage of the House of Worship law in February 2019, the village mandated five acres for a house of worship. Orthodox Jewish residents argued that there were not five acres available in the village.
The Board of Trustees, after several contentious public hearings, approved a three-tiered system:
Mogel said the law “potentially permitted every house in the village to be used as a gathering place for religious or non-religious purposes, with long hours of operation by large numbers of people.”
Village officials argued that they would consider the environmental impact of each house of worship when proposed. They also argued they did not need to speculate as to the potential cumulative impact of all these gathering places.
Chestnut Ridge officials, the judge noted, acknowledged there were several illegal houses of worship operating in the village that would be grandfathered with the adoption of the 2019 law. The village also anticipated that the law would potentially result in another 13 houses of worship being created.
SEQRA requires the village to consider the reasonable worst-case scenario under the house-of-worship law, Mogel said — “They did not do any analysis of what the impact of these gathering places might be on noise, the movement of pedestrians and vehicles, consistency with the surrounding single-family residential neighborhood, etc. The court agreed with us.”
Chestnut Ridge law tangled in other legal battles
CUPON also had filed a separate legal action in federal court, arguing the House of Worship Law was discriminatory. The action was filed by Kogut, Robert Asselbergs, and Carole Goodman.
The legal action failed as the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in May 2024 that those seeking to void the 2019 law lacked “constitutional standing” to challenge the zoning. The three-judge panel’s 21-page decision found the challengers failed to show how the law allowing houses of worship directly harmed them.
CUPON had fared better in state court a year earlier — A four-judge New York State Appellate Division panel ruled in March 2023 that village residents had the legal right to challenge the zoning law, as property owners who could potentially be harmed by the establishment of houses of worship in their neighborhood.
The panel cited SEQRA deficiencies and overruled aspects of Supreme Court Justice Paul Marx’s finding that the zoning law didn’t harm residents.
Read the judge’s decision nullifying Chestnut Ridge’s law below.
Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations. Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com Twitter: @lohudlegal
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This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY judge voids Chestnut Ridge’s House of Worship Law amid community outcry
Reporting by Steve Lieberman, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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