Developer Wants to Build Hundreds of Homes for Hasidic Jews; Catskills Town Might Dissolve Itself to Stop Him

Bloomberg has
published the strangest, most interesting local-government
story you’ll read today. (*) Here’s how it opens:

A plan to build 396 townhouses
for ultra-orthodox Jews in a rural New York village is pitting
residents and local officials against a developer who says he’s a
victim of an anti-Semitic plot.

Opposition to the project is so strong that Bloomingburg, the
village in the Catskills, is considering dissolving its local
government, which could allow the larger surrounding town to block
the development. Voters will decide Sept. 30 whether to fold their
municipal government into the Town of Mamakating, whose population
is 30 times larger.

Shalom Lamm, the developer seeking to build townhouses and
amenities meant to draw Hasidim, accused officials in a federal
lawsuit of misusing building codes to keep Jews from moving to the
area and violating the rights of the plaintiffs under the U.S.
Constitution. Town officials say the issue is about preserving
Bloomingburg’s rural character, not about religion.

The article goes on to describe residents’ fears that the new
arrivals will “have all the power in electing the next mayor,”
among many other details. It reminds me a bit of those 19th-century
efforts to disenfranchise
Mormons on the theory that they’d otherwise vote en masse for
Brigham Young’s hand-picked puppets. Check out the whole thing

here.

Via
Tim Carney, who headlines his post “Village plans to immolate
itself to prevent takeover by Hasidic Jews.”

(* Unless you don’t read it. Or already read it yesterday.
Or have found a story that’s even more fascinatingly bizarre, in
which case please send it my way.)