The village of South Nyack and Nyack College, both serenely sitting on the shores of the Hudson River, had coexisted peacefully for more than a century; the serenity ended last summer, when residents learned the campus had been sold to Yeshiva Viznitz of Monsey for $45 million. That sale sparked a wave of uncertainty over the fate of the property and the future of the village itself.
Shortly after the college was transferred to Yeshiva Viznitz ”” which had also announced it would seek to add multifamily housing to the property ”” the village of South Nyack sued the new owner for occupying the campus without proper permitting or legitimate certificates of occupancy and for failing to remediate several outstanding safety and code violations.
A visit to the campus in early 2020 confirmed that it was, in fact, the home to members of the Satmar Hasidim. The lawsuit is ongoing, with Yeshiva Viznitz claiming that religious discrimination is prompting the village to take them to court.
Residents were concerned that its secular board of trustees could be usurped by the powerful religious group, a phenomenon that has occurred in several villages in Rockland County. To that end, village of South Nyack residents successfully petitioned to hold a referendum to dissolve the village and to become part of the town of Orangetown, its host municipality. By a vote of 508 to 292, the dissolution was approved on Dec. 17, 2020.
Since then, the village and its planning firm, LaBerge Group of Albany, along the town of Orangetown, have been working on the complicated process of merging the village”™s properties and its 140 years of records into the town. LaBerge Group estimates the dissolution will take 24 months to complete, with a target date of December 2022.
The dissolution process has obligated South Nyack to take stock of its municipally owned property, its assets and liabilities, as well as dismantling its police department and emergency services.
The village of Grandview, which received its police services from the South Nyack Police Department, recently contracted to receive its law enforcement support from the village of Piermont. Orangetown has promised to make its best efforts to merge South Nyack”™s police officers and other village personnel into its own municipal ranks wherever possible. South Nyack”™s two volunteer firehouses will automictically transfer to the town, since they are already a part of the Joint Fire District. Residents have asked the board of trustees to make South Nyack”™s village hall a permanent community center rather than selling it.
South Nyack residents will benefit from the dissolution by seeing overall property taxes reduced. Homeowners, however, will see a line item on their tax bill that reflects the legacy costs of retirement and benefits for former employees of the village once it is dissolved.
The purchase by Yeshiva Viznitz and the legal action that followed, compounded by the vote to merge into Orangetown, have seen tensions escalate in the village of 3,000. Past Zoom meetings where the dissolution has been discussed have been interrupted by hackers lashing out with a string of filthy language and pornographic images to disrupt the meetings. In one instance, a swastika appeared on screen.
