Ramapo, NY – More than 150 people sowed up to protest the town's formation of zones to accommodate housing associated with religious schools. The town has four adult student housing zones.
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The town says it has to comply with a federal law – called the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which took effect in 2000.
The law is being used by developers who want to build a Jewish Yeshiva and rabbinical college with dormitories on 100 acres of woodlands in Pomona – effectively bringing 5,000 new people into the village of fewer than 3,000 residents.
But the people at the protest, mainly from a group called People in Preserve Ramapo, said the high density will ruin their semi-rural neighborhood. [AP]
The government should enact stiff laws to combat fraud in such applications. If someone claims they are building a religious thing and then uses it otherwise, they should be hit with heavy financial penalties, maybe confiscate their stuff and let them have a vacation in jail too.
As a Monsey resident, I ask the owners of this propery to make a Shevuah D’Yoraisoh that they are building a yeshivah and everything is on the up and up. Otherwise they will be opposed by the community
The tartikover mess is not land for sale. The 5,000 person development – they own the land and want to build a “college”. B.S.
The land for sale is 20 acres or so owned by school district and developers want to build that also.
Stay in Brooklyn if you want to build on each others laps.
Don’t pull the religous college crap on us. Its a money cow for the tartikover rebbe or whoever holds the check book. Pay your taxes like the rest of us.
The land is for sale, right?
They can outbid the current purchasers and do whatever they want with the property to preserve it forever and ever.
They cannot block a buyer from doing whatever they want if it is within the laws of the State.
There is a higher court than the local Town Hall you know.