Pomona, NY – A plan for a rabbinical college in the village was not a guise to sell housing, representatives of the school said.
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Indeed, their plans were incomplete, the representatives said, and they were anxious to discuss them with residents alarmed by revelations of a project that could ultimately house about 5,000 people, as was reported here on Vos Iz Neias.
The initial project would comprise a small fraction of that number, about 250 people, a builder said, and it was unknown if the college would reach the maximum size that the 130 acres could accommodate.
Lawyers, developers and religious leaders for the proposed school, which would be called the Rabbinical College of Tartikov, will meet with village residents May 21.
Nanuet attorney Paul Savad, who represents the college, said he’s written twice to Pomona – once to the village board and once to Village Attorney Doris Ulman – seeking a meeting to discuss the proposal.
Savad said he had not gotten a reply, and suggested that the village was ducking the issue.
But Mayor Nick Sanderson said Savad’s April 25 letter to the board was misaddressed and not received until a couple of days ago.
“It’s not we’re trying to avoid them,” Sanderson said. “However, I can tell you they want to meet with me and maybe the attorney or whatever, and that’s not what the village does.”
Sanderson said there was little he could say “because there’s no official plans.”
quot;All we know is that they bought the property,” the mayor said. [The Journal News]
Neighboring property. For those interested in picking up at auction 2.8 acres of land (plus a house) moments from the Site of the Planned Rabbinic College — see http://www.tranzon.com or call 212 375 1222 xt 205.
“Who’s steamrolling whom?”
That is the question Nanuet attorney Paul Savad posited during a meeting with the Editorial Board and representatives of the proposed Rabbinical College of Tartikov.
It could be a question for either side of what looks like a simmering showdown between the college and the Village of Pomona.
The weapon of choice here? The federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Tartikov supporters point to it, state law and the First Amendment as supporting their right to build a campus to meet their religious needs. Pomona and others believe a rabbinical college that could end up housing thousands would be too much for the village to bear.
Who wants what
What the college wants (according to its developer, local lawyer, public relations agency representative, Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and Virginia lawyer) is a sitdown with village officials to discuss the plans for a college at routes 306 and 202. The college would train Orthodox Jewish judges for the beit din, or Orthodox Jewish courts. The students in the 15-year program would live on campus, and as they are all rabbis, they would likely be in their 20s and married, with children.
What the village wants is a formal plan. No formal land-use application, no meeting, Pomona Mayor Nicholas Sanderson has said. The village doesn’t respond to people who haven’t filed an application. Period.
Sanderson calls it “relentless evenhandedness.” That is a tenet of protection against an RLUIPA-inspired lawsuit. Show that you treat every applicant the same.
Tartikov points to a common practice among municipalities to have ad hoc committees, sometimes called a Community Design Review Committee, discuss the idea for a proposal with a developer before it’s filed. Developers often like these meetings because they can be used as a sounding board, helping them understand what a municipality will or won’t accept. Towns and villages use them to anticipate proposals. Both can see these meetings as a way to streamline the process.
Alas, there appears to be no way to smooth the process here. And, we fear, the longer the lead-up to an actual plan, the more times the village declines a Tartikov request to meet (in a public setting, of course), the more misunderstanding and tension will get in the way of any substantive work being done cooperatively.
Dug in
The Tartikov plan isn’t going away. In fact, developer Michael Tauber called his work on behalf of Tartikov “a mitzvah.” Rabbi Mordechai Babad of Monsey, who will serve as dean of the college, was a student at a Monsey rabbinical college established by Tauber’s father, and now serves there as a dayan, or judge.
Their legal representation includes Roman P. Storzer, formerly of the Beckett Fund and continued RLUIPA champion. Also on their team is civil rights lawyer John G. Stepanovich, involved in challenges to Airmont zoning decisions who half-jokes that he’s “the father of Airmont.”
Not that Pomona’s not getting its own top-shelf legal advice – Marci Hamilton, an expert on RLUIPA and a law professor at Yeshiva University, was enlisted by the mayor and two trustees before they won the March election. So, “steamrolling” or “standoff,” it’s clear that no one here is passive.
The next step
The Tartikov camp is pushing ahead with a community review, in a way, by holding a public meeting themselves on the project. Will the village officials attend? Who knows. Should they? That becomes, with the cloud of RLUIPA hanging over the project, a legal decision that they aren’t going to discuss.
What we know is this: Tartikov wants to discuss the plan with the village, and get their input, as they prepare a proposal. The village won’t discuss a possible development until it’s an official proposal. The obvious option is for Tartikov to submit the proposal and go from there. Is the community missing an opportunity to help shape the college’s plans and avert legal action later? We certainly hope not.
This is the typical Soviet-era negotiation tactic. Ask for way too much, then pretend you’re doing everyone a favor by scaling it back. Tartikov thinks Pomona residents are fools. They’ll get nothing and like it.
Steve Sarrubbo, who lives just a few feet outside of Pomona and a couple of blocks from the proposed college, said he would attend the meeting.
Sarrubbo said he was not enthusiastic that the college could be smaller than he had been led to believe. “I’m tired of being painted as anti-Semitic with a very broad brush,” Sarrubbo said, “when the issue is the density, plain and simple.”