WAWARSING – Richard Baum, attorney for Camp Chaviva, the longstanding orthodox Jewish girls camp on Ulster Heights Road that has been at the center of an ongoing legal battle this year involving changing Wawarsing building code directives and rulings, is calling the recommendation of town code enforcement officer and fire code official Dan Pollan to now relocate an emergency apparatus drive "unreasonable" and "horribly unfair."

"It appears from our observation of the plan that you couldn't find a more expensive way or more disruptive way to do this," Baum said during the town's September 20 planning board meeting.

Baum spoke after engineer Larry Marshall noted that the drive was 54 percent complete, and discussion centered on the recent visit by Pollan, after which he recommended moving the drive to the north side of new dormitories.

"My client, like most applicants, wants to avoid litigation," said Camp Chaviva's other attorney in charge of shepherding its plans through the planning board, Jeff Kaplan (who also serves as the Ellenville mayor).

He added that Pollan's new request seemed to have little to do with safety issues, ran counter to all that the applicants had been previously asked to do, and reiterated that he and his clients didn't think the new road moving request was appropriate.

Kaplan that noted that what was of key importance in Pollan's actions might be the fact that the building enforcement officer is a former employee of the camp who was terminated, and is now taking issue with things previously approved by the town's former building inspector Bryant Arms, who is currently working with New Paltz as their building inspector.

Back in August, Pollan issued Camp Chaviva a summons to town court after ushering campers from a gymnasium for which he hadn't granted a certificate of occupancy because he said it lacked a sprinkler system and had other construction issues, none of which had been raised when Arms was in charge of such things.

Baum pointed out that his client is getting frustrated by the many changes he's had to face in what has become a fifteen month process, with numerous approvals already granted.

"They are building beautiful buildings," added the attorney who is also handling the case in local court. "This is a clean job site, they do what needs to be done."

Adding that she was not aware of the ongoing litigation and tension between Pollan and Camp Chaviva, which ran on the front page of this paper several weeks ago, planning board attorney Mary Lou Christiana said she would review the matter. She added that she would recommend that the board see if the town would get a second opinion on the matters at hand from a different fire official.

In other news, the Milarepa Center being constructed in Cragsmoor by Dharmakaya received approval for their fourth permit extension to get a certificate of occupancy. A representative for the Tibetan Buddhist group said that work at the site was going along nicely and should be completed by December.

Gujar Petroleum also received approval for a lot line change at its gas station site on Route 209, where they are working towards remodeling.

Finally, Greenfield Resorts' owner Chesky Landau and Kaplan, his attorney, were finally granted preliminary approval for their subdivision plans at the former Tamarack Lodge site. Their idea is to put in a complex of condominiums for seasonal use; the board said they have six months to get final approval, with extensions available.

Meanwhile, Mikheil Gussman will have to return to next month's planning board meeting on October 18 to hear what the town engineer thinks of his proposed solar development on Tamarack Road, near Greenfield Resorts.

Four separate projects came before the board for discussion, including another proposed solar project to be completed by Cypress Creek Renewables, a major solar array developer that is increasingly active throughout the areas and state, along with a prospective camping retreat and the development of a religious school. More on all those in the coming months...