Special report: Whose Airmont is it?

Reported by Steve Lieberman, Written by Richard Liebson | The Journal News

AIRMONT – He did everything he was supposed to do to transform a large home into a synagogue, applying for the proper permits, paying the fees and getting the required certificate of occupancy.

Nevertheless, Rabbi Eliezer Halberstam of Bais Hamedrash Radashitz, a Hasidic Jewish synagogue on Echo Ridge Road, says he faces $2.3 million in fines because he allows worshipers to park illegally on a lot he owns next door. The penalties increase daily.

Halberstam says the parking issue is a red herring.

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The real reason for the fines, he said, is that he is a Hasidic Jew.

Halberstam and others say the only purpose of a village building moratorium and local quality-of-life laws is to hamper lifestyles of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews.

“Every law affects the Orthodox community,” Halberstam said. “We’re seeing excessive violations. We’re seeing excessive enforcement. We don’t want to be persecuted. We don’t want over-zealous enforcement.”

Village officials say the building ban, enacted in 2017 and extended for a third time earlier this month, allows time for a review and updates to the zoning codes. The ban could be lifted by the end of August.

Many Hasidic and Orthodox Jews say it’s just another attempt to prevent them from making alterations to their homes to meet their religious needs. They point to the moratorium, a ban on overnight street parking and other "quality-of-life laws" as examples of the government trying to hamper their lifestyle.

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Airmont cites safety

Officials say they want to maintain strict adherence to state fire and safety codes and village zoning laws. The goal, they say, is to avoid becoming like other areas in the town of Ramapo, with willy-nilly development of high-density, often illegal and unsafe housing, schools and synagogues that spring up in residential neighborhoods without required permits.

Airmont Building Inspector Lou Zummo said the goal of his department is to protect the safety of residents, not to write up violations or collect fines.

“If something happens and you don’t have a certificate of occupancy, your insurance company may not cover your losses,” he said.

Village officials refused to comment on the fines heaped on Halberstam over his temple’s parking situation. Halberstam said he was aware of the parking issue, but that the moratorium has stopped him from addressing it.

Claims from village officials that they're merely trying to keep neighborhoods safe and preserve Airmont's character "is exactly the issue,” said Nathan Ungar, another Hasidic Jew.

“They lie. They spin," he said. "They lie so they sound somewhat legit, but it’s all with an agenda to hamper us.”

Prevented from expanding

Although he applied for the proper permits before the building ban was adopted, Ungar said the moratorium was still preventing him from expanding his house and creating a backyard play area, possibly with a swimming pool.

“There’s no over development in Airmont," he said. "There’s no reason for a moratorium here.”

It was the trees that attracted Ungar and his growing young family to Airmont in 2017, he said, and the squirrels and the birds and the well-kept single-family homes surrounded by manicured lawns on spacious lots.

The village’s well-to-do, suburban atmosphere was a far cry from the dense, gray, concrete, traffic-choked streets of the Ramapo hamlet of Monsey, where he grew up, or Brooklyn, where he lived for four years after he was married.

“Monsey is terrible, a disaster,” said Ungar, 29. “No one living in Monsey in condos enjoys the lifestyle. I hate (Brooklyn) with a passion with all the traffic and parking tickets.”

To Ungar, who owns a computer business, Airmont offered an escape from the urban chaos. He bought a house within walking distance of a synagogue and private religious school. After spending $30,000 on architects and fees for the expansion, the project came to a standstill because of the moratorium.

“I felt the world falling down around me,” he said. “There’s no excuse for them not to give me a permit. I didn’t ask for variances. I only asked for what I’m allowed to have under the zoning.”

Zummo said Unger’s original application was incomplete and that, by the time he re-filed, the building ban was in place.

“The moratorium had been approved and the clock on his permit application had expired,” Zummo said. “Technically, he never got an approved permit. It didn’t cost him anything. The fact is he didn’t properly fill out the paperwork. I told him what to do.”

It’s a clash that’s being played out in other areas of Rockland and Orange counties and in northern New Jersey. Airmont officials say they're trying to prevent the kind of unchecked development aided by lax, under-enforced safety, zoning and quality-of-life laws that have created overcrowded — sometimes dangerous — illegal housing, schools and houses of worship in surrounding communities.

Orthodox and Hasidic families moving to affluent Airmont say they want the single-family houses, trees and quiet of a traditional suburban lifestyle, but also need the flexibility to alter their homes to meet religious needs: double kitchens to facilitate kosher food preparation, a deck for a hut during the holiday of Sukkot and a mikvah (ritual bath). They also want to add bedrooms for growing families.

Many say they are targeted for enforcement while inspectors ignore the same quality-of-life violations in the non-Jewish community.

Preserving 'character'

Officials say moratoriums, zoning-code revisions, quality-of-life laws and enforcement are common tools used by governments throughout the state to “preserve the character” of a municipality. They say the laws are applied equally and are not aimed at any particular group.

“We have nay-sayers,” said Mayor Philip Gigante, who has heard catcalls and accusations at village board meetings. “The board and I are fully committed to serving all residents in the village, regardless of their race, age, gender, religious affiliation or sexual orientation. Any suggestion to the contrary is unfounded.”

That may be a hard sell in a village that was branded as anti-Semitic by the federal government when it was formed less than three decades ago.

Airmont incorporated in 1991, largely, organizers said at the time, to control and enforce zoning laws, which the town of Ramapo seemed to ignore. The move was opposed by many, who claimed it was really an attempt keep Orthodox Jews out.

The federal courts agreed.

The year it incorporated, the U.S. Attorney’s Office sued Airmont under the Fair Housing Act, contending that it had been formed to exclude Orthodox Jews through zoning restrictions on houses of worship.

Airmont lost the case, and was ordered to rewrite its zoning to allow synagogues in residential areas and pay $1 million in legal fees.

In 2005, the village was back in court, after Congregation Mischknois Lavier Yakov proposed building a yeshiva and dormitory on a 19-acre Hillside Avenue tract.

A U.S. Attorney’s Office lawsuit claimed the village’s ban on boarding houses (including student housing) constituted discrimination based on religion and violated both the Fair Housing and Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons acts.

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After years of legal maneuvering and sometimes ugly rhetoric, a settlement was reached in 2011. Airmont agreed to zoning changes permitting the school and dorm. It also paid a $10,000 civil penalty.

The one-two federal punch created a dilemma with which Airmont has grappled ever since: trying to preserve the nature of a village that’s already changing, without trampling the rights of the ever-growing Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish population.

Comparisons to gentrification?

“What happened in this area is a new population has moved in,” said Laurie DiFrancesco, a Realtor who has lived in Airmont for 30 years and raised two children there. “Just as Harlem or Brooklyn Heights or any place gentrified. There’s been a change in the neighborhood.”

Comparisons to gentrification of poor urban areas mystify Orthodox and Hasidic Jews who spent big money to move into a village where, according to the U.S. Census, the median home value is $460,000 and the median annual family income is $110,150. Airmont, home to almost 9,000 residents, is in southern Ramapo, on the New Jersey border.

“We’ve come to Airmont to live in peace with our neighbors,” Halberstam said. “We want quiet streets… We moved here to have our own property.”

The tidy lawns and driveway basketball hoops still whisper of a simpler time, but the signs of change are not that hard to find. One barometer has been an enrollment decline in Suffern public schools — from 4,700 students in 2010 to 4,111 last year — as more families send their children to private religious schools.

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Another is the increase in tax-exempt properties as homes are converted into schools and houses of worship. Tax exemptions were granted to 10 properties being used for educational purposes in 2013. So far this year, the number is 17. The number of properties given religious exemptions also jumped, from 43 in 2013 to 60 this year.

The new suburbanites aren’t always aware of the social norms of small-town living. Longtime residents describe their new neighbors as stand-offish. They say Orthodox and Hasidic Jews stick to their own communities and don’t participate in village life. They complain that they leave toys and trash strewn around their lawns, park too many cars in their driveways and don’t properly maintain their properties.

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Orthodox and Hasidic communities

Orthodox and Hasidic families follow the letter of Jewish law and tend to distance themselves from more secular, modern culture to varying degrees. Many prefer Yiddish to English. Men dedicate much of their lives to religious study. They generally have large families and, for religious reasons, send their children to private schools.

Religious obedience means modest dress for women, who wear shin-length dresses, blouses that cover their arms, and wigs. Hasidic and many Orthodox men wear black hats, long coats and fringed prayer shawls. They also wear beards. Hasidic men grow distinctive side curls called payot.

While they may be perceived by some as insular and different, Orthodox and Hasidic Jews interviewed by The Journal News/lohud say they want what everyone wants: to live their lifestyle in peace, without being singled out or targeted by laws they say were written to impede them.

The stakes are high. With home ownership likely the biggest investment most families will ever make, every action by the village is scrutinized, questioned and debated by Jews and gentiles alike. The rhetoric can be angry.

“I didn’t move here to be discriminated against on a daily basis because I’m a Hasidic Jew,” said Yehuda Zorger, who works in the kosher food industry.

He moved his family to Airmont from Brooklyn four years ago, he said, because “I liked the way Airmont looked. It’s quiet. It’s pretty.”

Zorger, who said he pays $19,000 a year in property taxes, has become a frequent critic of village policies.

From his perspective, he said, "We have an influx of laws. The laws don’t say 'Hasidic Jews,' but every single one affects the Hasidic community. Every single Jewish application is being dragged down in the mud and they are not letting anyone build.”

Zorger said Jews are singled out for enforcement of quality-of-life laws — cutting down trees without permits, parking on lawns, over-extended driveways and others — while gentiles who do the same things are not hit with violations.

No one, he said, is ticketed when they park on lawns up and down the street during events at the public Cherry Lane Elementary School, or drop off and pick up children at the Camp Scuffy day camp.

“We don’t hear a single concern about that. We always hear fake cries about children’s safety when it comes to us,” he said. “When it wasn’t Hasidic Jews, those things were never an issue.”

He was quick to slam the village for its efforts to find out what’s going on at the former Camp Regesh, which was purchased by the Central United Talmudic Academy of Monsey, a Hasidic school system, in 2016. The UTA wants to build two schools for as many as 2,000 students during a decade on the 22-acre property, at a cost of about $20 million. An estimated 80 to 90 buses would drop off and pick up children on narrow Cherry Lane.

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The UTA has already been cited for overcrowding, with Zummo saying it's only allowed to have 167 students under a 2006 approval by the village Planning Board.

“I’ve never been allowed on the site when students are there,” Zummo said. “I don’t know if they have 400 students or 700. They are claiming 400.”

Zorger and others say Camp Regesh hosted 400 children. They say the village destroyed documents showing that the school had approval for 400 students — an accusation denied by officials.

“The village has done everything in their means to slow down the process,” Zorger said. “They’ve had 400 students for years. Now that the school wants to build, all of a sudden it’s an issue.”

People need to follow rules

Penny Sunshine, who moved from New City to Airmont, bristles at the suggestion that Jews are singled out for violations. She said the codes need to be enforced and doing so is “not anti-Semitism. It’s going after people who don’t follow the rules.”

Sunshine said she’s lived in Rockland County for 50 years.

"I’m a Jew, and I’ve never experienced anti-Semitism in going to school, living in New City and now living in Airmont," she said. "It personally offends me when I see anti-Semitism is the rallying cry of our Hasidic neighbors.”

Moshe Katz, an Orthodox Jew who moved to Airmont for the scenic landscapes, array of delicatessens and proximity to New York City, agrees with Sunshine.

"I don't find that Orthodox practicing Jews are treated differently by others in the village," he said. "I believe there is a constant effort to treat everyone fairly and with respect."

Sunshine and other longtime residents, along with village officials, say zoning, building and safety issues are too often ignored by Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish newcomers.

“The conflict here is about the failure to follow Airmont’s zoning laws when seeking to alter properties,” said Melissa Hess-Gelardi, a community activist. “Zoning permits schools and houses of worship to be built in residential neighborhoods, but they have to adhere to the code… The conflict is escalated when some begin to operate illegally before gaining approval.”

Airmont and other communities point to the high-density urban sprawl and illegal development in Monsey as an example of what they're trying to avoid. It’s a sentiment shared by the village’s Orthodox and Hasidic residents.

“None of us want over-development, like in other areas, or to be compared to Monsey,” Halberstam said.

Hess-Gelardi said she moved to Airmont for the quality of the public schools, spacious homes in a semi-rural setting and the village’s racial and religious diversity.

The building moratorium is needed, she said, so the village can straighten out contradictory and inconsistent sections of the zoning code, which hasn’t been updated since she moved to Airmont a decade ago.

She supports strict enforcement, saying the codes exist for the village as a whole and regulate how far apart homes are, street widths, access for emergency vehicles, drainage, noise, parking, traffic control and other issues.

The village board, she said, “has been professional — issuing warnings rather than violations when appropriate, giving residents a chance to become compliant. But those who break the law and fail to take steps to fix the problem should be fined.”

Neighbors cite issues

While some Orthodox and Hasidic residents say Airmont's building ban and code enforcement efforts are aimed at their lifestyle, more secular residents say their new neighbors hamper their quality of life by ignoring village laws.

Laura DiStefano’s family has lived on Rustic Drive for 25 years. When the five-bedroom house next door was converted into a synagogue, “We noticed many issues that began to negatively affect our own quality of life,” she said.

The Ridnik Shul, run by Rabbi Moshe Berger, was converted with no permits or approvals, according to village records. DiStefano said Berger has made polite apologies and promises to take care of the issues she has raised, but has not backed up his words with any action.

“The major issues are lighting, lack of privacy, traffic, parking, garbage and noise,” she wrote in a letter to the Planning Board, asking the village to address the problems.

DiStefano also mentioned that the high-density lighting installed around the synagogue shines directly into her kitchen and living room.

When the house was re-purposed, she said, Berger assured the DiStefanos that the synagogue would have a maximum of 10 to 15 congregants and would only be operating once a day. Nevertheless, she said, foot traffic to the property has increased significantly. As many as 12 cars are sometimes crammed onto the driveway, with another 10 parked on the street.

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“Children have to board the buses between cars parked on the street and cars pulling into and out of the driveway” because of the increased synagogue traffic, she said. “While I respect my neighbor’s right to gather and practice their religion, I also expect that my rights be protected as well. My quality of life has suffered… The new neighbor does not respect us, or the law."

Berger, who has been issued more than 35 summonses for violations such as running the synagogue without permits, declined to be interviewed.

"He has not come back to any of the boards to legalize his shul,” Zummo said.

The First Liberty Institute, which is defending Berger against the violations, said he is the victim of “enforced religious discrimination” by the village.

The future of Airmont?

Jennifer Groff and her husband moved to Airmont from Clarkstown in 2012. Pregnant at the time, she was attracted by the schools and nearby shopping in New Jersey.

“We were attracted to the elementary school on Cherry Lane,” she said. “It was a Blue Ribbon school, and as we were looking in the area we saw you got a lot more house for your money.”

Her son is now 5, and Groff said she worries about the future of the school district as enrollment drops.

“The religious community is sending their children to private schools, and that’s their choice,” Groff said. “Unfortunately, there’s an unintended impact on the public schools.”

Another concern, she said, is the potential impact on her property taxes as the proliferation of tax-exempt Jewish schools and synagogues lowers the tax base. The Salvation Army and other religious groups also receive exemptions, she noted.

Groff said her ears burn at some of the thinly-veiled anti-Semitic comments she hears.

“There is some bigotry,” she said. “It seems you can’t have a conversation with some people who are not open minded. I don’t feel those people represent the rest of the non-religious community in Airmont.”

Groff has a front-row seat to the very issues that upset many longtime residents. Several houses on her block were sold and left vacant for months, or rented by their new Orthodox or Hasidic owners.

Longtime residents and village officials say speculators are buying Airmont homes through anonymous limited-liability companies, and renting them out as weekend sabbath retreats. In many cases, changes are made to the properties without permits.

Groff described village zoning board meetings as "a farce," with attorneys for developers demanding changes that go way beyond what’s allowed by the zoning code. In many cases, she said, renovation projects start without approvals or even applications.

“All of a sudden, construction begins. It could be at night,” Groff said. “Then we will see yellow stop-work orders on the doors. The village definitely seems to be enforcing the codes. The yellow stop-work signs don’t come out of the blue.”

Groff, like many, has mixed feelings on how to address the issues emerging as the village struggles to find a happy medium.

“My preference is to keep the character of the neighborhood,” she said. “I don’t know how letter-of-the-law you have to be. I don’t want to see the houses become too large for the property... I don’t care who my neighbors are.”

Working on the front lines of code enforcement, Zummo shrugs off being called a “Nazi” and worse when he issues a summons or stop-work order, or tries to inspect a building. Insults have become part of the job.

He said inspectors come across illegal accessory apartments, construction without permits, and schools and houses of worship without certificates of occupancy. There is faulty, even dangerous work done by unlicensed contractors.

Most major violations are discovered after a fire or police action, he said, although many come from complaints about parking on lawns, uncovered garbage cans and other quality-of-life issues.

“There’s always people who don’t follow the rules and do whatever they want to do,” Zummo said. “We don’t peer through windows. We don’t usually know who the owners are or what’s going on until we investigate complaints."

In one recent incident, inspectors saw numerous cars parked at a home with nine garbage containers outside. The owner, Congregation Tehillah Dovid, had previously failed an inspection of its ritual bath.

After being denied entry, inspectors obtained a search warrant to enter the three-story Colonial on Larissa Court.

Once inside, Zummo said they found a 130-seat synagogue, two bathrooms for worshipers and a school for girls. They also found an exit blocked by a refrigerator and non-covered electrical boxes with exposed wiring. There were no working smoke detectors and no permits for any of the work that had been done.

“This is the extreme case,” Zummo said, noting the blocked exit and electrical issues were potentially dangerous. “If there was a serious fire, you are looking at total chaos if 100 to 130 people have to leave.”

The synagogue now faces more than 35 violations, including illegal change of use, doing work without a permit, overcrowding and other zoning and safety issues. Officials there did not respond to requests for comment.

The divisions and accusations and mistrust are a constant, but there are also small signs that the various sides want to find a way to co-exist without the rancor.

The village has been reaching out to residents, inviting them to join newly formed Commercial and Business, Community Outreach and Preservation and Open Space committees. Airmont is also publicizing village board meetings, which are now livestreamed and posted on YouTube. Officials have also created a village newsletter.

The building moratorium is expected to expire at the end of the summer, after public hearings and a final vote on zoning code revisions.

DiFrancesco, the Realtor, is a member of the committee working on the code. She said members were trying to address the needs of all residents. One example, she said, is that while houses of worship are permitted in single-family homes, there will be requirements for fire-protection tools and other safety equipment if more than 49 people attend a religious service on a regular basis.

“Everyone has a right to worship,” DiFrancesco said. “Other people also have rights to live in their neighborhoods without traffic and disruptions. The issue with residential houses of worship is they create traffic problems in the community. We need a balance.”