New York landowner sues village after access to his 50 acres is blocked

A New York landowner is taking the Village of Sloatsburg to court after the village blocked access to roughly 50 acres of his property for more than four decades. Ramapo Fields, LLC claims the village's decision has rendered the property undevelopable and potentially worthless. The dispute centers around whether vehicle access should be considered a separate land use under the village's zoning code.

Ramapo Fields owns three parcels with a combined area of about 50 acres, with a larger 48-acre parcel in the Town of Ramapo and a 50-foot-wide strip of land within Sloatsburg connected to Sterling Mine Road. For over 40 years, vehicles and commercial trucks used the strip to reach the larger property, which lies landlocked without an independent route.

The village argues that the strip is a stand-alone parcel and that truck traffic is not among the permitted uses in the village's Industrial Park zoning district. Ramapo Fields argues that the strip's function is to provide access to the larger property and that vehicles are a necessary function of reaching the land, not an independent commercial facility.

The company is seeking an injunction to prevent enforcement of the zoning decision, a declaration that access should not be treated as a separate use, and damages for the alleged loss in property value.