A Blind Pond Road retreat

By LIAM MAYO
Posted 2/1/23

NARROWSBURG, NY — A standing-room-only public hearing of the Town of Tusten Planning Board, held on January 24, heard discussion of a proposed educational retreat.

The project before the …

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A Blind Pond Road retreat

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NARROWSBURG, NY — A standing-room-only public hearing of the Town of Tusten Planning Board, held on January 24, heard discussion of a proposed educational retreat.

The project before the board, the Bobov Yeshiva Educational Center, would use a property on Blind Pond Road as a summer school for around 150 children.

The property was used historically as a Wel-Met sleepaway camp; according to an article in the New York Times, Wel-Met was in operation from 1935 to 1997.  After the Wel-Met camp closed, it was used as a site for occasional retreats by the Gurdjieff Foundation.

Forty-plus people turned up in person, and around 17 were online for the public hearing on the proposal’s special-use permit to operate as an education center.

Many of those who spoke expressed concerns that the project’s impact on the environment had not been fully studied. Blind Pond Road resident Jaye Nydick questioned the conclusions reached in the project’s environmental assessment form that it would have no impacts on surface water, groundwater and traffic. Others questioned the effect of the project on the natural environment, the noise it would produce and the maintenance of the property’s Silver Lake Dam.

The use of the property as an educational retreat would change the nature of the community without a corresponding benefit to its neighbors, was a common refrain. The property had not been used by the number of people proposed since its life as Camp Wel-Met; an authorization for that many people wouldn’t be a continuation of use, they said, but a change.

Several attendees spoke in favor of the project, people with experience working with the center’s existing location. Students at the school were respectful, they said, and studied indoors the majority of their time there. The management too was respectful, they said, willing to hear and address the needs of the students and of the community.

Members of Tusten’s community still had concerns.

There wasn’t any question of the decency and respectability of the people involved, said Tusten resident Star Hesse, but that did not address the project’s environmental impact.

“I haven’t heard one reason how this would benefit residents and owners in the neighborhood,” said Blind Pond Road resident Steve Depinto. “I won’t deny or doubt that their students are nice people, they want to raise them in a nice way, but it doesn’t show us that its going to improve our properties’ value or the quality of living.”

“I respect the people who have come forward,” responded Steven Barshov, attorney for the applicants. “And I also respect the fact that they’ve made it very clear that they’re not here to oppose this applicant because the applicant happens to be orthodox Jewish. I’m sure that they would come forward and say the same kinds of things if this was a Buddhist retreat, or if it was a Catholic retreat.”

Certain of people’s concerns—such as questions about the property’s water and sewer—lay outside the planning board’s jurisdiction, he said; those would be addressed by the Department of Health. The nature of the retreat itself addressed people’s concerns about the change to the character of the neighborhood: “We have people that are quiet, that are indoors, that are not going to be doing significantly different things in terms of affecting the environment… I don’t think that there’s going to be any kind of significant impact on the character of the neighborhood.”

The applicants have been willing to change their plans in reaction to community input, added their representative Joel Rosenfeld. The project moved its swimming pool to a more secluded location when concerns were raised, and the applicants have worked with the current property owner and the Department of Environmental Conservation to address the Silver Lake Dam.

“We’re ready to work along with the community to make sure that we don’t change the character of the community, that’s not our intention,” said Rosenfeld. That being said, there were individual property rights to consider: nothing stopped the current owner from bringing up 200 people if they so chose, he said.

The planning board determined to table the matter for a month, to Tuesday, February 28, giving it a chance to digest the public comments it had received.

Tusten, Blind Pond Road, Wel-Met, planning board, Bobov Yeshiva Educational Center

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