With construction of a sewer pipeline underway to service the Yeshiva on Furnace Woods Road, leaders of the school are now seeking permission from the Cortlandt Planning Board to build a 53,000-square-foot, three-story building on their property.
Controversy over both the new sewer service and the proposed expansion of Congregation Yeshivath Ohr Hameir’s campus has stirred opposition from some local residents concerned over the impact on the neighborhood and how town and state officials have handled the issues.
Now residents will have their chance to comment on the expansion plans at a public hearing of the Cortlandt Planning Board on Nov. 6 at Cortlandt Town Hall.
Fixing sewage violations gives Yeshiva chance to expand
In 2010 the Yeshiva received town approvals to construct a new dormitory building – conditioned on resolving the failed septic system on the property.
Fifteen years later, with construction of a sewer connection to the county sewer treatment plant in Peekskill underway, the Yeshiva is trying to win site plan approval, an amended special permit and a wetland permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
Building a new dormitory would consolidate student housing currently scattered in several buildings on the property. The 68 dorm rooms in the new building would each house four students. However, David Steinmetz of the law firm Zarin & Steinmetz said at a September Planning Board meeting that the Yeshiva could legally put five students in each room for a maximum student total of 330. The school currently has just under 220 students, Steinmetz said.
The new building would house the sanctuary, or main prayer space, as well as classrooms on the first floor and the dorm rooms on the other two floors. A building that formerly housed a pool now has 17 dorm rooms and would be converted into staff housing. Staff currently commute to the campus.
No vote is expected at the Nov. 6 Planning Board meeting and the public hearing is likely to remain open through the next board meeting at least.
A long history of sewage issues at the Yeshiva
Yeshivath Ohr Hameir came to Cortlandt in 1985 with the purchase of a former dude ranch on 36 acres of land. More than 15 years ago, the Westchester County Board of Health determined the Yeshiva’s septic system was failing and had to be replaced. A County Department of Health memo to the Yeshiva in 2016 cited “discharge of sewage onto the surface of the ground” and said civil penalties of $2,000 per day could be issued.
According to a Westchester County spokesperson, violations have been issued in the past for septage discharge. County Health department officials met with the Yeshiva’s representatives in February 2024 and agreed the Department would conduct unannounced monthly field visits. Any observed septage discharge would result in a $500 civil penalty.
The solution to the question of sewage disposal is the creation of the Furnace Woods Sewer Improvement District, a district with one customer – the Yeshiva.
Work began in May and the contractor, Stamford, Conn.-based Shawn’s Lawns, is now installing the six-inch sewer main along Maple and Lafayette avenues. The project entails the construction of a sanitary pump station and installation of approximately 7,500 linear feet of 6” sanitary sewer pipe starting at 141 Furnace Dock Road, then extending along Furnace Woods Road, Maple and Lafayette Avenues before discharging to the town’s existing sewer infrastructure near 214 Lafayette Avenue.
Sanitary effluent is then conveyed through Town and County infrastructure and is treated at the Westchester County Peekskill Sanitary Treatment Plant.
The town awarded the construction contract to Shawn’s Lawns for $5.149 million after a competitive bidding process. The Yeshiva Ohr Hameir received direct state grant funding of $2.78 million and the Yeshiva is also contributing $907,434 toward the balance of construction costs.
Town officials estimate roughly $2 million may be bonded to cover the balance of debt, paid for those properties that benefit from these improvements. The Yeshiva says it will pay the financing cost of the bonds. Only the Yeshiva and those properties that petition and are successfully incorporated into the various districts will be charged fees.
As part of the sanitary force main installation, the town is installing “fittings” along the pipeline that will allow homeowners the option now or in the future to connect to the sewer system.
Who benefits from the new sewer line?
Speaking at a Sept. 29 informational meeting presented by the town, Cortlandt Town Supervisor Dr. Richard Becker said the Westchester County Board of Health ruled that the Yeshiva could build the sewer line. Town officials insisted that fittings to that line were included so homeowners could join their properties if they want to.
“No one on the town board dreamed of sewer in this area. We are not paying for this,” Dr. Becker said. “The Yeshiva has a right to sewage treatment and this was going to happen. We tried to make the best of a bad situation. We did not have the right to say this pipe can’t go in after the county said it must.”
Officials said residents who aren’t signed up for the new district won’t pay any sewer charges until they join. The cost to hook up will vary by property. An estimate of approximately $30,000 per property was challenged as being low.
At the Sept. 29 meeting, several residents raised concerns about the work underway by contractor Shawn’s Lawns, claiming that water runoff from street construction was being pushed into wetlands, metal plates weren’t secured properly over cuts in the road, and excessive amounts of dust were being created during the work. Michael Preziosi, Cortlandt’s director of technical services, said the town has cited Shawn’s Lawns for several violations of the contract and will closely supervise the work.
The Town of Cortlandt is paying $500,000 for surveying, engineering and construction monitoring costs. The total of $2.78 million in state grants includes $2 million directed to the project by State Senator Pete Harckham and $787,000 from a state water infrastructure grant.
Senator Harckham’s office did not return an email request from the Peekskill Herald asking why state tax money was directed to a private religious institution and whether he knew of any similar case.
In a press release from October 2022, Rabbi Yaakov Rothberg, executive director of Yeshiva Ohr Hamier, said, “The Furnace Woods Sewer project is vitally important to the Yeshiva because we have been operating with an inadequate septic system for a long time. This is something we have been working on for 16 years, and we are pleased to see it coming to fruition, not just for the Yeshiva, but also for the property owners who will also benefit from the new sewer line.”
Ohr Hameir Theological Seminary received $517,050 in a federal CARES Act grant in 2021 through a 2020 program to aid in the economic fallout of Covid.
Opposition voices to the Yeshiva
The existence of the Yeshiva in a zone of residential properties has been a controversial issue since its arrival 40 years ago. The Yeshiva has operated legally ever since then.
“We reviewed a letter from 1985 – that’s when the use first started. It was an R-40 zone then and it’s an R-40 zone now. It’s a residential zone but they have a special permit,” Michael Cunningham, Cortlandt’s assistant town attorney, said at the Sept. 29 meeting.
According to town planner Chris Kehoe, the planning board granted the special permit in 2010 to operate as a seminary and approved a sewage treatment plant on the site. Two years later the board modified the permit to approve a sewage connection instead. That permit has been routinely renewed every three years since, including this year.
Town of Cortlandt resident Sheri Ann Cook has created a petition with over 100 signatures that calls for repeal of the Yeshiva’s special permits, denial of the request to build a new dormitory, and to force the Yeshiva to “… operate a place of worship and only allow weekend seminars, summer camps, weekend retreats and any alleged religious instruction on the grounds be limited to part-time, non-resident students.”
In the petition, Cook cites 10 pages of allegations that claim the Yeshiva has not been legally authorized to operate in New York state, that the Yeshiva has been dumping sewage into the adjacent wetlands and illegally conferring associate degrees without state Board of Regents approval.
