Plans for a rabbinical college that could more than double the community’s population drew more than 100 people last night to a public hearing on zoning law amendments. Speakers were concerned that the college residents would overwhelm them politically, and that the buildings would clash with a 40-year-old village where 1-acre residential zoning was the rule.

Traffic, a loss of woodland and strains on municipal services by a non-taxpaying entity were among the issues expressed.

“We like it the way it is,” Al Deutschman said of the village. “We’re here to tell you we don’t want any change. This is not a religion thing. It’s a lifestyle thing.”

Mayor Herb Marshall repeatedly told residents that the hearing was not on a particular project, and that the village had not received a plan from the Congregation Rabbinical College of Tartikov proposed by Brooklyn developers.

The session at Village Hall quickly went in that direction and remained on that course, however, as the first speaker was Paul Savad, a Nanuet attorney who represents the college corporation.

“What may be a minor change here is discriminatory on its face,” Savad said of requirements to restrict the size and quantity of residential buildings connected to schools.

Before the meeting, he said his client was determined to build what it wanted, and that federal legislation gave it that right.

Savad referred to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which says in part that municipal regulations cannot impose a substantial burden on religious practices.

The Ramapo Town Board used that law as a reason to amend its master plan for development by creating four zones for multifamily housing connected to educational facilities.

One zone is part of the 200-acre Patrick Farm directly opposite the proposed college site on Route 306, where 100 acres of what’s largely woods could become home for at least 4,500 people.

Their numbers could overwhelm local elections in a community with just 1,919 registered voters, and about 3,200 residents.

TJN