White Lake, NY – Legal Battle over Shul Continues

White Lake, NY – A Hasidic group got a permit to build a shul on Schultz Road without submitting basic plans and environmental studies and then rapidly constructed and occupied the building before panicky Town of Bethel officials could stop it, court records reveal.

But a lawyer says don’t blame the United Talmudical Academy, the Brooklyn-based Satmar group that owns the building.

The town building inspector and other town officials, including the supervisor, not only gave the UTA permission to construct the building, but said it was OK to move in, he says.

“My take is that the town is embarrassed, and instead of meeting us halfway and working things out, they’re just grabbing at what they can to save face somehow,” attorney Henri Shawn said.

Last week, Bethel and the UTA were back in court. Judge Frank LaBuda broke a standoff in July by granting limited use of the building.
On Aug. 7, while the ultra-orthodox Jewish members were preparing for the Sabbath, the town ordered the group again to stop work. The town claimed they were using a mikvah — a ritual bath — and bathrooms on the lower floor, a violation of LaBuda’s court order and that they were working on the parking lot without a permit from state regulators.

LaBuda again sided with the UTA, allowing it to continue to use portions of the building for religious purposes only, and to finish it.

But the fight is far from over.

The town still maintains the building might not be safe. It is also creating traffic and potential environmental problems that were never studied, officials say.

The UTA also is under a violation order from the state Department of Environmental Conservation for failing to obtain a stormwater permit and now faces an Aug. 28 deadline to complete that work or face fines of up to $37,500 a day.

Both sides are still so far apart that they can’t agree what the building is: the UTA calls it a shul — or a synagogue — and exempt from Planning Board oversight, the town says it is “a community center,” and wants to order the UTA to do detailed studies under Planning Board supervision after the fact.

Town engineers reviewing the files have found no electrical, plumbing or mechanical plans, and the building documents lack basic structural information.

“This is not the first project the UTA has done,” Bethel Supervisor Daniel Sturm said. “They know full well that anything they submitted was inadequate. The plans don’t match the building “. “They try to circumvent the system and we are not going to allow it.”

Sturm says he did know that his building inspector, Timothy Dexter, had granted the UTA a permit, but became concerned when the building went up with “amazing speed.”

He said Dexter kept telling him the project didn’t need Planning Board oversight. He became suspicious after getting numerous complaints, and called his attorneys.

During a telephone conference July 10, Sturm said, the attorneys told him that Dexter had made a mistake in granting the permit, and it should have had a full review from the Planning Board, including traffic studies and environmental impact studies.

But the UTA’s response is that Dexter, a long-time employee, was the only person with the authority to grant a building permit. Dexter has said he welcomes any review of his work, but has had no other comment.

“We have a building inspector and a supervisor who met through the whole year and told them all along everything was fine,” Shawn said. “If he screwed up, why penalize us? It is an internal problem.”