The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court denied an appeal of a State Supreme Court decision to stay efforts by the Village of Kiryas Joel to rezone the property it annexed from the Town of Monroe last year.

The attempt to block the rezoning was filed by the Village of South Blooming Grove, other area municipalities and the Preserve Hudson Valley group.

Orange County had joined in the lawsuit and County Executive Steven Neuhaus said on Thursday the lawsuits should stop.

“It’s really time for the county and the towns to sit back and rethink how they want to do things because at the end of the day, these lawsuits are going nowhere,” Neuhaus said.

The Town of Monroe had approved the annexation of 164 acres after it rejected an earlier motion to approve annexation of 507 acres of town land.

(Source: MidHudsonnews.com)