My Turn By Gedalye Szegedin Housing supply, demand and annexation

For more than a year, I have regularly sent emails to our local and county elected officials with updated information and news articles concerning the population growth of Kiryas Joel.

As the Village Administrator, it is my responsibility to help plan for our growth in order to accommodate the needs of the community and secure the necessary infrastructure.

This is not a political issue – it is a practical one, because all people deserve a home for their children.

The original petition for annexation by landowners from Monroe into Kiryas Joel was filed in December 2013 and the two year environmental review process has now become a judicial review process.

We welcome that because we believe that an impartial judiciary will remove the politics and emotion and will focus on the applicable law.

But time has not stood still, and as both we and Orange County’s consultants have undisputedly predicted, the landscape has changed in the last few years.

The changes that I refer to are the facts on the ground and are undeniable.

Since December 2013:
• Approximately 2,300 babies have been born to KJ mothers;

• I have personally issued more than 750 marriage licenses; and

• Due to the KJ housing shortage, dozens of KJ families are purchasing lots and both newly constructed and existing homes in the Towns and Villages of Monroe, Woodbury and South Blooming Grove.

Most residents in my community strongly believe that the delay in annexation has directly created the housing shortage and the need to expand the Hasidic community into all areas of southern Orange County.

The reason is simple - it’s the law of supply and demand. While the KJ housing supply is severely limited, the demand for new housing has increased.

That overflow has now reached into all parts of the Monroe-Woodbury School District and is now even a subject in the Washingtonville School District as KJ families are buying homes in South Blooming Grove on a weekly basis.

Politicians and “grass roots organizations” have sold the lie that they could stop the KJ growth, but they have only succeeded in slowing down the annexation process and have created a much worse problem in its place.

I sit on a committee with officials of the county, town and M-W and KJ school districts to recommend school district boundary alterations to preserve public education in both districts.

That work will now be immeasurably more difficult because of the shortsightedness of some of our politicians (both elected and self-appointed).

The movement of families from KJ to many different locations throughout the region will make it difficult to draw school district boundaries which will protect the educational needs of both communities.

The law of supply and demand will never be broken, but the leaders of Kiryas Joel would strongly prefer to accommodate the demand within the KJ Village - if we are permitted to do so.

Please call your elected officials and tell them you would prefer one enlarged Village of Kiryas Joel and KJ School District instead of the many new Hasidic villages that are just around the corner - and a weakened Monroe-Woodbury School District.

Gedalye Szegedin is the Village Administrator of the Village of Kiryas Joel.