TOWN OF MAMAKATING, NY — Federal judge Kathleen Forrest on June 9 issued an order in the case of developer Shalom Lamm and others regarding a lawsuit against the Town of Mamkating, the Village of Bloomingburg, and containing complaints filed personally against officials of those municipalities.

The lawsuit is one of multiple legal fights involving the town, the village and developer Shalom Lamm and his allies over Lamm’s construction of 396 townhouse units in a development called Villages at Chestnut Ridge in Bloomingburg, which has about 400 residents.

There were multiple complainants who had charged the various defendants with “pervasive, government-sponsored religious discrimination,” specifically over the construction of the proposed mikvah, a proposed school for Hasidic girls and actions related to the townhouses. Fifty-one of them have been completed, but so far none have certificates of occupancy.

The complaint ran 91 pages and contained 15 causes of action, but most of those were tossed out by the court. A press release issued by the town on June 10 said, “After the court’s order, the plaintiffs’ complaint is essentially reduced to two claims: (1) the plaintiffs’ allegations that the town inspected a building and issued a stop-work order against construction of a mikvah, and the town Zoning Board of Appeals’ (ZBA) determination that a mikvah is not a permitted use at that location under the zoning code; and (2) that the village adopted a temporary moratorium on the issuance of building permits and allegedly delayed issuing certificates of occupancy for the developer’s townhouse project. Both claims relate to the developer’s (Lamm’s) real property.”

The issue with the mikvah is one in which the court said religious discrimination may have played a role. A mikvah is a ritual pool or bath used by Hasidic woman. The court wrote, “Given the sequence of events, at this stage in the litigation plaintiffs are entitled to reasonable inference that the stop-work order and the Town’s ZBA determination were designed to coercively prevent Hasidic Jewish residents of Bloomingburg… from exercising their religion and associating with others to do the same.”

The town claims that the stop-work order was issued because, “the developer commenced construction in the building without a building permit and without site-plan approval that the developer knew are required. The ZBA’s determination was upheld by the state supreme court as reasonable and based on substantial evidence.”

The personal complaints against the municipal officials were dismissed because of immunity. Overall, the town was pleased. Brian Sokoloff, the attorney for the town, said, “The town is pleased that the court gutted most of the plaintiffs’ case and dismissed the town supervisor from the case. What remains with the town is a run-of-the-mill zoning dispute. The developer’s attempt to divert attention from the unseemly events involving their mega-project with a splashy lawsuit against dedicated public officials was unsuccessful.”

The press release continued, “Notably, when a court decides a motion to dismiss a complaint, the court is required to accept as true all of the allegations made in the complaint and to resolve in the plaintiff’s favor all reasonable inferences raised by those allegations. Thus, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims, even while giving the plaintiffs every benefit of the doubt.”