Clarkstown Moves Closer To Tearing Down Grace Church In Nanuet

NANUET, NY — The Clarkstown Town Board voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize funding of planning costs for the demolition of Grace Baptist Church in Nanuet.

The planning costs would be covered by the sale of $78,000 in Serial Bonds.

The move came just days after a Second Circuit panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that there was plausible reason to believe town officials' actions frustrated a Hasidic girls school's planned acquisition of the Grace Church property.

Ateres Bais Yaakov had been struggling. Where it planned to build in Ramapo in 2017, both town officials and a state monitor had allowed classrooms for 400 girls to open in trailers despite lack of a permanent water source, without its own electricity, without a functional fire hydrant and on an open construction site without safety fences. It had a temporary hook-up to an unauthorized private well. An electrical extension cord was hooked into the same neighbor's house for power. SEE: Rockland Will Monitor School With Illegal Water, Electric Hook-ups

When news broke that the school academy wanted to buy the property on Demarest Avenue, some Nanuet residents formed a unit of Citizens United to Protect Our Neighborhoods, known as CUPON of Greater Nanuet.

Their opposition and the town's subsequent actions "predictably" prevented Ateres Bais Yaakov from securing the regulatory approvals necessary to acquire the property, cut off its access to public and private financing, and led to Grace Church’s termination of the contract, according to the appeals panel ruling, which was published in The Journal News.

The district court therefore did have jurisdiction, the panel said, sending it back to U.S. District Court Judge Nelson Roman, who had ruled that since the land-use decision process was still underway when the school lost the purchase contract, its claims of religious discrimination and civil rights violations were premature.

The town bought the property after the initial court ruling — which the school said in its appeal was evidence of "disingenuous intentions."

Town officials have spoken of the possibility of senior housing and parking for the Nanuet school district on the property. At least one town application for a grant was not successful.

Clarkstown Supervisor George Hoehmann told The Journal News the Dec. 8 decision didn't change the town's plans.